On Using the stock UI Elements on the mac

Brent Simmons published a piece to his Inessential blog earlier this week in which he extols the virtues of the default user interface elements on macOS. He posits using as much of the stock UI controls is one of the very best things a developer can do for honoring “proper” Mac app design, at least to Mac diehards such as himself and John Gruber.

“[The] stock Mac UI is designed by Apple, the best designers in the world, and do you really think you can do better? Really?” Simmons wrote on Tuesday. “The app world is full of people who think they’re better and they’re really, really, really not. Well, I still think Apple has the best collection of UI designers in the world, but, for whatever reasons, the guidance from above on how the Mac UI should look is missing the mark. I’m not blaming the people doing the work—they’re doing great work with the direction they’re given.”

As I quipped on Mastodon today, another reason to prefer the stock UI controls is accessibility! As I wrote, VoiceOver, for instance, gives developers proper labels “for free” when using stock UI elements. Likewise, features such as Dynamic Type are built to, in Tim Cook’s parlance, work seamlessly together with stock controls. Of course app makers must do some legwork to fully support accessibility; the salient point is only that Apple’s programmers and designers have done lots of the necessary legwork from Apple Park. These aren’t trivial gains—for developers or their users.

And yes, this use-the-damn-defaults argument applies equally as well to the stock video player on tvOS.

See also: Gruber on macOS Golden Gate and Apple “eschewing clarity.”