I loathe "smart" interfaces that want to cram everything into a dynamically-adjusting control panel. Because what the programmer thinks I want to do is so frequently not what I actually want to do.
Give me panels that I can open, close, and arrange as I see fit. Let me craft the interface of your complex, featureful program into something that matches what I need most often. Pick a simple set to expose to new users that covers the basics, sure, great idea. But let the skilled user tell the program exactly what sets of knobs they want to have handy.
Every program needs windows/linux-like start menu and explorer/finder-like sidebar. This ui idiom is so successful and familiar that it's just stupid to not make it into a program. We need to stop designers who think only colors, fonts and transparent 40px frames.
Comments
I loathe "smart" interfaces that want to cram everything into a dynamically-adjusting control panel. Because what the programmer thinks I want to do is so frequently not what I actually want to do.
Give me panels that I can open, close, and arrange as I see fit. Let me craft the interface of your complex, featureful program into something that matches what I need most often. Pick a simple set to expose to new users that covers the basics, sure, great idea. But let the skilled user tell the program exactly what sets of knobs they want to have handy.
Every program needs windows/linux-like start menu and explorer/finder-like sidebar. This ui idiom is so successful and familiar that it's just stupid to not make it into a program. We need to stop designers who think only colors, fonts and transparent 40px frames.