Don Norman e Bruce Tognazzini, due persone abbastanza importanti nel campo dell’usabilità, il primo ad Apple fino al 1996, il secondo ad Apple durante i primi anni, hanno scritto un articolo molto critico nei confronti di Apple concentrandosi, soprattutto, su iOS:

Today’s Apple has eliminated the emphasis on making products understandable and usable, and instead has imposed a Bauhaus minimalist design ethic on its products.

Unfortunately, visually simple appearance does not result in ease of use, as the vast literature in academic journals on human-computer interaction and human factors demonstrates.

Apple products deliberately hide complexity by obscuring or even removing important controls. As we often like to point out, the ultimate in simplicity is a one-button controller: very simple, but because it has only a single button, its power is very limited unless the system has modes.

Condivido parti del pezzo, non tutto — ma è comunque una lettura interessante. Scrivendo di Apple spesso viene menzionato uno dei dieci principi per un buon design di Dieter Rams: “Good design is as little design as possible”. Ma, appunto, questo è solamente il decimo. Ci sono anche gli altri nove da ricordare:

1. Innovative
2. Makes a product useful
3. Aesthetic
4. Makes a product understandable
5. Unobtrusive
6. Honest
7. Long-lasting
8. Thorough down to the last detail
9. Environmentally friendly
10. As little design as possible