Usability or why less is more

by Volker Weber

Joel Spolsky posted a blog entry about how offering choices to end users is not always a good thing and illustrated his point with the redesigned Start menu in Vista. Moishe Lettvin, who worked on that feature while at Microsoft (he now works at Google) gives some insights into the process that led to this result. Arno explains how this feature was designed in Mac OS X.

And since we recently discussed about "Reply without nonsense", here is a comparison between usability labs at Apple, Microsoft and Lotus.

Comments

I somehow like Joel's solution for the b'bye-Button. These articles are great. Thank you for the links...

Christian Heindel, 2006-11-29

In despair and frustration with the Betas and Release Candidates, I finally wrote a rude note to the Microsoft feedback system to say that everything I have seen of Vista so far, reinforces my long-held feeling that just as Apple have an instinct for simplicity and clarity, so Microsoft have an equally finely-honed instinct for needless complexity and clutter.

With Vista, they have outdone themselves.

I'm not expecting a reply. Any more than I expected them to do anything different.

Nick Daisley, 2006-11-30

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