In this case study, the authors describe several graphic and interface design issues that were encountered during the development of an interactive product from Apple Computer called “Making it Macintosh: The Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines Companion.” This product is targeted toward Macintosh software developers with the intent of teaching them how to design desktop interfaces that have similar design attributes to those adopted by the Macintosh environment. This product uses interactive multimedia to illustrate design principles, techniques of interactivity, and human-computer interface design.

The development issues ranged from the overall style of the interface design to the more intricate details of icon design and color selection. The authors provide a good discussion of the human-computer interface design issues involved in interactive software development. Excellent reasoning is provided in describing the selection process for the design parameters used in the development of “Making it Macintosh.” While the issues discussed are all necessary considerations in the development of good human-computer interface design, the authors tend to elaborate secondary issues, such as typeface selection, while giving less detailed discussions of some of the more salient design issues. For example, the authors mention that many different display formats were taken into consideration before deciding that the left-hand side of the screen would be interactive while the right-hand side would not. While the authors discuss the advantages of the selected display format, nothing is mentioned of the alternative display formats that were considered or the procedure used to select one display over another. Although it may have been the intent of the authors to exemplify the design issues encountered at all levels of the product development, a more general discussion of the design alternatives and testing procedures used would have been beneficial for readers interested in interface design.