The Mac has been an exciting platform for a while now because developers have been making fun applications. They tend to look good and work well. In an age of the beauty of OS X, it’s important to remember that the feel of the application is important, too. It’s not just about making things look good.
Now, if you’ve paid attention to usability, the commonly-used term is rarely “look”. It is usually “look and feel”. And the feel is the domain of the interaction designer. And as much as I’d love to say otherwise, the “feel” rarely is delicious. The feel is that gossamer-thin fleeting quality that, after more than twenty years of aping, Windows still hasn’t been able to imitate from the Mac, and that the Mac invented without any help from its grandparents at Xerox PARC. The right feel is the thing to strive for, the feeling that the computer is along for the ride with you, the user, that the application is really there to help you, and is a reliable pillar of support, and not just a colourful banner flying in the wind.
