With these observations in mind, default interfaces should be attractive, slick and extremely easily to grasp. Be it navigation, file searches, opening and closing applications, window positioning, resizing, maximising, minimising, drag dropping.
My greatest peeve about Windows apart from the three ugly buttons, is the ability to resize windows by simply highlighting the mouse over the edges, as this has created my fear of accidental clicking. Another dislike is that there are sometimes too many ways to do to something specific, or having too many ways to get to one place (like components of the Control Panel in Windows) as this confuses users. Sometimes, having things too customisable or feature packed isn't necessarily a good thing. Mac and BeOS have done this right, having the right balance by not having overly bloated or inefficient GUIs. The ability to skin everything would be great of course, but here we are primarily dealing with default interfaces. These are the initial impressions people get when they're pulling the GUIs out of the box, or when they're looking at a screenshot.
These important default initital impressions are:
- dialogue boxes,
- text editor screens,
- hierachial menu design,
- navigational buttons design (close, open, back, forward, resize),
- icon scalability (new vector based OSX icons are amazing),
- scrollbar design,
- newly opened windows that correctly fit within the screen resolution
- window positions are remembered when closed and re-opened.
- simplicity in default design eg. simple window borders
- pulldown menus
- radio buttons, crosses, ticks
- confirmation buttons
- tooltips
- virtual workspace navigation
- universal drag and drop ability (Windows)
- proper well known keyboard shortcuts
- taskbar or docking area (BeOS has its at the top right which is also very nice)
- typography and correct font usage. Serif fonts are much better than Roman fonts for UIs for wider mass appeal, however it varies at different sizes, Apple design employs a special Roman styled font when the font gets larger, and is Serif when used for smaller bit. There is a whole market on industry that resolves around correct typography usage and design (including anti-aliasing).
- the ability to hide things easily (correct right-clicking usage)
- settings, customizations and or preferences all in one easy to access place.
- last but not least, correct colour employment, proper or no gradients, pixel lines and anti-aliasing.
...and the list goes on. When the OS starts up for the first time, everything should look complete and function perfectly using one's common sense. The last thing a new user wants to do is to contact tech-support and discover that the implementation was in fact there, but common sense couldn't get him or her there. Keeping in line with the old adage, "Keep It Simple Stupid", is a good strategy to follow.
