Bill Royds wrote:
On 14-Jul-08, at 09:20 , Kyle Sluder wrote:
It would lead to a large increase in poorly-designed, auto-ported Mac
applications. And then developers would wonder why nobody wants to
purchase their software, even though the Windows version did so well.
Not necessarily. You are assuming that all other interfaces are
inferior to Macintosh interfaces.
No he's not. Long-time Mac developers know quite well that by and
large Mac users are very averse to apps that simply don't fit. It's
not a question of arguments about "better" or "worse" (although such
arguments can certainly be had). The simple fact that an application
gratuitously deviates from the standard user experience is a killer
for almost any app that has competition. For what it's worth, Mac-
like applications on Windows are just as bad.
I'll give an example: Part of the user experience *for me* is that
Windows machines have 2-button mice and Macs have 1 or 3 buttons.
Obviously I'm not saying this is a general truth, but certainly the
vast majority of Windows installationshave 2 buttons, and the Macs
*I* use every day have the original mice or a 3-button replacement.
So here's the quirk:
When I sit down at a Mac with a 2-button mouse, if I right-click on a
file I expect to see a Windows context menu. I expect, for example,
to see a "Properties" item at the bottom of the menu, not a "Get
Info" near the top. The time it takes to recover from that
discrepancy is not just measurable; it's noticeable.
Depending on the application, there
may have been a great deal of work in designing an interface specific
to a particular discipline. The layout may be a "standard" form
required by law or other convention. I am not suggesting that one port
the code, just the forms and menu labels. Once they are ported to a
nib, they can be modified to better conform to Mac HI guidelines.
Kyle also didn't indicate that there was no possible way for a good
app to result from the use of such a tool. He just worries -
correctly in my opinion - that an awful lot of developers who would
use that tool wouldn't expend the resources to actually clean it up
after the fact. And when the app fails in that circumstance - not if,
but when - it's always cast as a failing of the Mac or its market,
rather than an acknowledgment that just possibly the app itself was
crap. Elitist as it may sound on first blush, the reality is that
software tends to be better when the developer is required to think.
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