Scrollbar History

Speaking of the old six-color Apple logo, some interesting UI design history from Jack Wellborn at Worms and Viruses:

While watching the video, I couldn’t help but notice two snippets at the 7:36 mark from 1982 about scroll bars. First, an Apple engineer shows how scrolling works in the Lisa, followed immediately by a similar demo from Xerox. This juxtaposition immediately struck me as interesting because Apple detractors are quick to reference Xerox Parc when dismissing the graphical interface innovations of the Lisa and Macintosh. While there is no denying Xerox’s influence, these two snippets perfectly illustrate massive amounts of design and refinement championed by Apple during that era. Read for yourself.

People who think UI design is easy might think the differences here are trivial; those who know that UI design is difficult know otherwise.

★ Tuesday, 22 July 2014