Modern UI

Office 2007 UI is one of the things that forced many people to think about UI of their own applications. I remember while working for one of the companies in - we were all impressed by the new UI. We planned to change the outlook of our application and make it more convenient for the end-user (and looking somewhat similar to Ribbon UI). I have just found a site on MSDN that describes all the things that people who want to create office 2007-like GUI should take under consideration (Ribbon guidelines). You may also be interesting in watching a 1.5 hour presentation by Jensen Harris, who describes the process of designing Ribbon UI. He shows many prototypes and talks about research that Microsoft has conducted while designing Ribbon. The amount of work is impressive and if you're interested in creating modern GUI's this is definitely what you should see. The guidelines are what every developer / designer responsible for designing GUI should see, and think of. I have seen many applications that seem to be created 'by developers and for developers'. It is amazing how easy it is to make application hard to use, by making its GUI completely different that other similar application use (however sometimes innovation is what makes application better - just like in the case of Office applications).

Apple is a company that is believed to create and design the best user interfaces (although I am definitely not a keen on Apple, but I have to admit, that their applications look really neat, and they make apps really easy to use). There is a great site devoted to Apple developers that describes how should application be designed to meet all the standards for 'true Mac app'. I does not matter if one is a Mac developer or not - most of the things described are universal. It is a strong belief that 'good looking applications sell' - so why not spend a little bit more time on designing GUI - just to make sure that there were no pitfalls made that will prevent the app from gaining popularity? Command-line interfaces are gone, and creating GUI is not the same as creating GOOD GUI (it is definitely something more than just putting some controls on the form). Why not to learn from the best? Why not to use all the experience they want to share with?