It’s well worth getting hold of a copy of Apple’s human interface guidelines. I know people won’t like the idea of Apple telling them how to approach software authroing, but their research into how people interact with interfaces is quite extensive, and the HUIG is really well worth a read.

+1

Perhaps the only problem with what I have read of the Apple documentation is that it's very Apple centric. E.G. Rather than tell you how to construct a correct open/save dialogue, it says to use the built in one.

+2 However, the dialogue in question appeared to be a Windows one.

I rather like the fact that Apple have done all this work to standardise the user interface. It makes sense in so many ways to me, the pleb on the other end of the return key.

Should not make a difference. Whether it’s Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, the UI should be consistent across all applications so the user knows what to expect at certain points of use, what kinds of messages should be used etc.. Applications should communicate with users clearly and plainly, and not rely on them to make leaps of faith when presented with a dialogue window with a confusing message.

Downloaded and printed

Some nice light reading for me

Printed? Sheesh. It’s going on my iPad when they release the PDF support in iBooks.