Recently in Design Category

In my last post, I described the way in which iTunes 5 needlessly reproduces real world usability defects, specifically glare in the main display element. Well, iTunes 6 came out today, and as you can see from the picture above, the glare is gone. Both the Mac and Windows versions were changed.

Thanks to Mike for pointing this out.

Apple seems to have taken its "real objects" design metaphor a bit too far in the latest version of iTunes, released today. Look at the main display window: it has glare!

Now, here's the old one. Notice, no glare:

One of the most annoying aspects of real-world electronic devices is the glare on the display. WHY ON EARTH would Apple go out of its way to reproduce this defect on a virtual object? As you can see, it actually divides artist's name in half -- one half on the light side, one half on the dark side. It hinders readability. Why would they do this? Isn't the only explanation "To make it look more real." What's next? Will the buttons in iTunes stop working after 6 months, just like the iPod's click wheel?

This all started with the "brushed metal" and stupid "drawer" device in the Quicktime player (remember that one?), and now it's really gotten out of hand.

I understand that in certain cases, real world metaphors are useful in software design, but the primary advantage of virtual objects is that they are not subject to the limitations/flaws of real world objects. Apple needs to realize that metaphors should be used as guidelines, not absolute rules.

As a noted scholar of Eastern European graphic design and 1980s American comic books, I took notice of a coat-of-arms/abstract symbol that appears on the campaign paraphernalia of Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister with ties to old Russia who "defeated" opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the recent disputed election:

When I saw the image, I was immediately reminded of the coat-of-arms of another organization with ties to totalitarianism and oppression: The Decepticons.

The Decepticons are the nefarious crew of morphing robots ("Transformers") devoted to the destruction of the Autobots, a group known for its progressive and populist approaches to freedom and justice.

Here's the Decepticons logo next to Yanukovich's logo:

Compare:

• the peaks on the sides
• the eyelets in the lower third (inverted in the Decep's logo)
• the empty spaces on the edges of the lower third
• the strong diagonal lines
• the peak in the middle
• and of course the general shape of the shield

Really, if you just add two lines (one straight, one v-shaped), you get a close match:

Are Yanukovich and the Decepticons sharing a graphic designer? Maybe the Ukrainians shouldn't elect this guy. You never know.

Now, to be fair, there are a couple of similarities to the Autobots' logo as well:

The main similarities are the strong vertical center line and the location of the eyes. However, where the Autobots logo is horizontally oriented, the Deceps' and Yanukovich logos seem more vertically or diagonally oriented. Also, to be fair, the symbol is apparently extracted from Ukraine's official coat of arms. But I haven't seen Yuschenko leveraging it in the same way.

Coincidentally(?), opposition candidate Yushchenko has undergone a bit of transformation himself lately, but not because of the power given to him by Primus so he could battle Unicron.* Instead, it seems that a biological weapon or bad sushi is to blame.

ps. Now before any Ukrainians get mad at me for suggesting that the their country and the Decepticons are linked politically, let me just say that I love Ukraine and have visited that beautiful country many times, and am a big fan in particular of such dishes as borshcht with garlic pampushky and kartoplianyky.

Sources: Ukrainian logo (1, 2, 3), Decepticon logo, Autobot logo.

*"Unicron"? "Ukraine"? Hmm.