{"id":33913,"date":"2021-10-15T15:39:43","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T19:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=33913"},"modified":"2025-01-13T11:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:02:12","slug":"old-apple-human-interface-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/15\/old-apple-human-interface-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Apple Human Interface Guidelines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1440847231301550085\">Andy Matuschak<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1440847231301550085\"><p>Why are there no &ldquo;standard texts&rdquo; on designing software interfaces? (or tell me I&rsquo;m wrong?)<\/p><p>If you want to learn to <em>build<\/em> software, there are excellent and complete texts on the subject. It&rsquo;s not just a tech-vs-art thing: there are standard texts on type, drawing, color, etc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1447407670403612672\">Andy Matuschak<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1447407670403612672\"><p>[S]everal people mentioned the original <a href=\"https:\/\/andymatuschak.org\/files\/papers\/Apple%20Human%20Interface%20Guidelines%201987.pdf\">1987 Apple Human Interface Guidelines<\/a>, which I&rsquo;d not read. It&rsquo;s not a comprehensive primer on interface design, but it is an extraordinary read&mdash;a huge amount of detail on <em>why<\/em> things are as they are. And a great bibliography!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1447710247712280578\">Andy Matuschak<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/andy_matuschak\/status\/1447710247712280578\">\n<p>Oh my gosh, and there&rsquo;s a (pre-release) <a href=\"https:\/\/mirrors.apple2.org.za\/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project\/Companies\/Apple\/Documentation\/Apple%20II%20Human%20Interface%20Guidelines%201985.pdf\">1985 HIG<\/a> that&rsquo;s quite different. It includes e.g. case studies (useful!), and an extended discussion of Jung&rsquo;s theories of intuition and how they should influence your designs (!!)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>There&rsquo;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/interface.free.fr\/Archives\/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf\">1995 version here<\/a>. I like <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rcarmo\/status\/1447576707792314368\">Tog on Interface<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/01\/arkit-human-interface-guidelines\/\">ARKit Human Interface Guidelines<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/21\/yosemite-developer-documentation\/\">Yosemite Developer Documentation<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/22\/apple-pay-human-interface-guidelines\/\">Apple Pay Human Interface Guidelines<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/19\/apple-shifts-its-icon-guidelines\/\">Apple Shifts Its Icon Guidelines<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/16\/leopard-hig\/\">Leopard HIG<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/06\/utility-windows\/\">Utility Windows<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"old-apple-human-interface-guidelines-update-2025-01-13\">Update (2025-01-13): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@marioguzman\/112751817896831142\">Mario Guzm&aacute;n<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@marioguzman\/112751817896831142\"><p>Over the years, I have scoured the internet for various versions of the Mac HIG PDFs. Here is my collection so far.<\/p><p>Some neat ones include HIGs for Mac OS 8 &amp; a preliminary Mac OS X version from the Public Beta.<\/p><p>These HIGs contain general desktop guidelines that still apply today &amp; that you can&rsquo;t find in the modern HIG.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/gingerbeardman\/apple-human-interface-guidelines\">Matt Sephton&rsquo;s repo<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Matuschak: Why are there no &ldquo;standard texts&rdquo; on designing software interfaces? (or tell me I&rsquo;m wrong?)If you want to learn to build software, there are excellent and complete texts on the subject. It&rsquo;s not just a tech-vs-art thing: there are standard texts on type, drawing, color, etc. Andy Matuschak: [S]everal people mentioned the original [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2021-10-15T19:39:47Z","apple_news_api_id":"8c3602d7-587f-40be-9e4e-47ba12c9cb87","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-01-13T16:02:14Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AjDYC11h_QL6eTke6EsnLhw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[406,63,77,164,295,30],"class_list":["post-33913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appleii","tag-book","tag-design","tag-documentation","tag-history","tag-mac"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33913"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46413,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33913\/revisions\/46413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}