User Interface Friction, Vista, and MacOS X
February 27th, 2007 by admin
Pfeiffer consulting group has apparently analyzed the ease of use of theinterfaces of Vista, XP, and OS X. Their conclusion is that Vista is worse than XP, and both lag far behind OS X.
I don’t know exactly the metrics they used to determine this “friction” score, but I would hazard to guess that Macs have a high score due to better adherence to Fitts’ Law. Basically, in order to maximize the ease of accessing a user interface element, it should be a) close, b) a large target.
Take for example the menu bar in OS X versus Windows. The menu bar in OS X is an infinitely large target, at least vertically. You just throw the mouse to the top of the screen and it stops on the menu bar. Or, take for example, pop-up menus. On a Mac the current selection is under the mouse on a pop menu, but not so on XP. (This is another reason I use Safari or Camino rather than Firefox, Firefox has generic non-Mac pop-up menu behavior.)
So, I’m not surprised that OS X comes out ahead of Windows, but I am a bit surprised about Vista lagging behind XP. That’s a trend in the wrong direction.
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