@mikemccracken: It would be cool if there was a way for well-used & loved GUI software to gracefully show its age, like a good leather wallet…

I still like this idea, and I loved the example that Bryan Knight replied with – the OS 8 Color Picker crayons, seen in the third “Colour Selector” image on the OS 8 GUIdebook page.

However, it just occurred to me that it’d be hard to design a UI that shows its age or use gracefully without looking “dirty” and triggering the kind of OCD that makes some of us empty the trash just because the icon looks full. I can think of a few other things that do that to me:

• Of course, the full trash can
• Unread counts of all kinds
• MS Word 08 showing “[Compatibility Mode]” in the window title for files that aren’t .docx format
• Badges on files in the finder that show source control status – I tried this once and it drove me crazy

There are probably more. Share yours in the comments if you like. I’d also be really interested in other examples besides the crayons where UI changes gracefully as you use the software more…

Jesper at waffle is starting an open-source web browser project to revive the spirit of OmniWeb, called rouse. He coins the phrase “delight innovation”. I love that phrase. He’s talking about taking a browser, something that’s relatively stable, and looking for ways to make it noticeably better again. I love that impulse – it’s something I’m hoping to see in email clients too.

Another place that delight showed up (along with Surprise and Joy), was at 52 weeks of UX in a post called “design for delight”. That post seemed to be a little more about the parts of design that don’t affect functionality, but do add personality. I really agree with this angle too – I like a program that has little details that are just for fun.

I love it when I can guess how to do something new in a program. Skim just did this for me – I needed to figure out how big the rectangle of text in a paper I’m working on is, in inches. I looked for rulers, and then decided I’d just see if I get any size feedback when I make a rectangular selection. Turns out there’s a nice feedback status line in the bottom right – clicking toggles between measurement in pts and in inches.

I like how this solves my problem without adding a lot of new UI for measurement – no rulers, no extra tool to measure length.

It seems like there’s less room to play in desktop apps – you’ll see unique interfaces with new button styles, new controls, different color schemes, but as far as I can tell, not much variation in typography.

The only example off the top of my head is Panic Sans, used in Coda.

Why so little variation?

Is it the presence of a standard system font, UI guidelines, or just habit?

Is there a licensing issue for redistributing fonts with software? I tried to look for licensing terms, but this doesn’t seem to be a common question.

I wouldn’t mind some more tasteful variation in my desktop apps – I think the best web apps have shown us that different isn’t always bad.