Boxes inside boxes

I don't have much to say about Zune but I did notice that, like so many products from Microsoft, it has too many edges. Apple seems to get the idea that a rectangular device has a box around it by virtue of its existence. Then the iPod has another box around the screen and then, that is it.


The Zune on the other hand has line after line after bevel after line and the screen... This is compounded by rings around additional control elements, a gratuitous tongue of edging that I guess associated the wheel with the content, but then (inadvertently?) leaves the other controls out.

This is a superficial complaint, but it may be a symptom. When I look at the number of horizontal lines in Word or Outlook between the edge of the laptop and my information, it is impressive. I count 8 until I get to the list of emails and 11 until I get to content. And that doesn't include lines that take up a couple of pixels for shading or some other artistic flourish.




MS Word does support a full screen view which when combined with zoom to text width (why isn't that one easy command key) makes for a pretty nice experience. All of that UI junk is out of the way.

Apple manages to both love the UI elements to death - all that chrome and 3-D AND to use as little as possible. Maybe the same way that information designers ask themselves what the information to ink ratio is UI designers could have a similar question about number of horizontal and vertical lines. (blocks of color make lines for free AND text that is left or right aligned also creates boxes that people "see."

If you include those you may never need to actually draw a line on a UI.