One of my earliest UX wins was for Mac System 7. The Finder team wanted to truncate files names with '…' if it wouldn’t fit. I argued that too much critical info would be lost and suggested it be in the middle instead. The Finder team loved it and implemented it later that day. They were so easy to work with.
I'd totally forgotten about it until I overheard someone commenting it was an example of Apple's attention to detail. I'd didn't say anything at the time but yeah, that was me ;-)
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What I so enjoyed about the Finder team was that there was no string utility to remove the middle of the string. They had to write it themselves. It was extra work they just took on. I never heard a peep from them about "implementation complexity".
It's experiences like this that have spoiled me. When I hear over (and over) that UX needs to "work within business goals" I think back to this experience where I just had an idea... and they did it.
Why was it so easy then, and so hard now?
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@scottjenson I rebuilt (regrew?) the Finder team after most of the System 7 participants went separate ways - but the same. The Finder team - and perhaps all of Apple - absolutely devoted to delighting users - to ensuring user delight. At the time, I thought we were just a bit ahead of the rest of computerdom. Not so much, 30+ years later.
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@ronlichty @scottjenson
Apple back then listened to engineers instead of living in fear of Jobs having some shit fit over it.
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