alt Hacker NewsSomewhat tangential:
> What I find really interesting about this change on Apple’s part is how it seemingly goes against their own previous human interface guidelines (as pointed out to me by Peter Gassner).
> They have an entire section in their 2005 guidelines titled “Using Symbols in Menus”
2005?? Guidelines evolve.
Replies
itishappy • today at 12:08 AM
They sure do, and just like biological evolution it is not a principled process. Sometimes evolution results in a worse outcome.
Here's from 2020: https://web.archive.org/web/20201027235952/https://developer...
> Use text, not icons, for menu titles. Only menu bar extras use icons to represent menus. See Menu Bar Extras. It’s also not acceptable to use a mixture of text and icons in menu titles.
> Avoid using custom symbols in menus. People are familiar with the standard symbols. Using nonstandard symbols introduces visual clutter and could confuse the user.
The notable thing here is how recent of a shift this is, and how longstanding the prior rule was. Navigating internet archive is slow/tedious, but I think the rule/guideline was explicitly called out in the guidelines up until a year or two ago. So it was probably the guideline for ~20 years on macOS and has just now been changed.