Delivering a quality Aqua user experience: a short checklist for Mac developers

Selected items from Apple’s Aqua Human Interface Guidelines and other sources
Compiled and edited by Doug Grinbergs

• Menus:
  
  • Dim menu title when all items unavailable
    
  • Ellipsis character (…) at end of menu item (and in buttons) when: further information is required from user, opening alert which allows user to cancel, or application settings window opened
    
  • Contextual menus: small subset of commonly used commands appropriate for the current context
    
    
  • Application menu
    
    • Contains Preferences item; recommended shortcut is <Command><,>
      
    • <Command><H> Hide Application
      
    • Contains items that apply to the entire application, rather than specific windows
      
    • Services submenu takes advantage of Grab, Mail, Make New Sticky Note, Summarize, TextEdit, other installed services
      
      
  • File menu
    
    • Open Recent submenu appears after Open command, most recent items displayed at the top
      
    • Use Save As - avoid Save a Copy or Save To
      
    • For an app that’s not document-based, it may make sense to eliminate the File menu, or to rename it
      
    • The Close menu item changes to Close All when <Option> key pressed; <Command><Option><W> closes all
      
      
  • Edit menu
    
    • <Command><G> Find Again
      
    • Undo reverses previous action; forgiveness reduces potential risk, encourages exploration
      
    • Maintain text formatting when manipulating text
      
    • Spelling feature for text-based apps
      
    • Contains Delete, not Clear, menu item
      
      
  • View menu
    
    • Commands that affect window display
      
    • Toolbar show, hide and customize commands appear in this menu
      
      
  • Window menu
    
    • Even if app has only one window, there should be a Window menu
      
    • List open documents in the order in which they were opened
      
    • May include command to show/hide utility windows
      
    • Contains Minimize command
      
    • <Command><M> Minimize Window
      
    • Checkmark next to active window name
      
    • Bullet next to window name to denote unsaved changes
      
    • Diamond next to name of minimized document
      
    • <Command><~> and <Shift><Command><~> cycle application windows
      
      
• Windows and dialogs:
  
  • Window close button dot to indicate document with unsaved changes
    
  • Dialog help button opens relevant help text
    
  • Modal dialogs movable
    
  • Confirmation dialog <Command><D> shortcut for Don't Save
    
  • About window has app icon, title, version, copyright info, title bar, close button, is movable modal
    
  • Textured windows: use in digital peripheral apps, or for interface that re-creates a familiar physical device
    
  • No part of a new window is obscured by the Dock
    
  • New windows are offset by 20 pixels (down and to the right) relative to previous window
    
  • Only application icon in alerts - no “note”, “caution”, or “stop” icon
    
  • Alerts summarize the problem in simple terms, and suggest how the user might correct it
    
    
• OS X feel, functionality:
  
  • Window minimization
    
  • Live scrolling
    
  • Live window dragging
    
  • Sheets (document-modal dialogs)
    
  • Drawers for controls that are frequently accessed, but don’t need to be displayed all the time
    
  • Click-through: single click to activate item on inactive window, click-through items displayed in 100% black instead of 50% (dimmed).
    
  • No click-through for potentially harmful or difficult-to-recover operations
    
  • High-res icons
    
  • Help tags, Help Viewer help
    
  • Support for scrolling mouse wheel
    
  • Per-file extension hiding
    
  • Full keyboard access mode
    
  
  
  Resources:
  
  
  • Aqua Human Interface Guidelines (AHIG)
  • AHIG Checklist for Creating Aqua Applications
  • AHIG Mac OS X Terminology Guidelines
  • Apple Publications Style Guide (2000)
  
  
  3 Feb 2003