NeXTSTEP Interface vs Swiss
ネクストステップ・インターフェース / スイス・スタイル
NeXTSTEP Interface comes from Platform Screen Languages and Swiss from Functionalism. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
NeXTSTEP Interface
The screen language NeXT laid down in its 1993 interface guidelines. The document states the goal outright: a color scheme based on black, white, and gray, and a simple appearance that uses shading for a three dimensional effect. The main menu stands as a vertical column at the upper left, and docked application icons run down the right edge.
Swiss
.jpg)
Puts order front and center and makes the information itself the protagonist.
| NeXTSTEP Interface | Swiss | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1988–1997 | 1950s– |
| Family | Platform Screen Languages | Functionalism |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | A menu standing as a vertical column at the upper left, submenus attaching to its right / Square application icons docked in a vertical strip along the right edge of the screen / Thick bevels carved entirely from gray values, with no hue anywhere in them / A black title bar on the window taking keystrokes, dark gray on a window that is merely frontmost | Strict grid / Sans-serif type / Asymmetry / Objective photography |
| Best used for | Building a developer tool whose entire hierarchy is carried by gray values and shading, with no accent hue · Showing where the visual language of today's Apple desktop came from, in a talk or an exhibit | Making complex information fast to read · Giving an organization rationality and transparency |
| Type | Run one Helvetica style face throughout and build hierarchy from weight and size alone. Leave unavailable commands in place in dark gray instead of removing them. | Neutral sans-serif; be bold with size contrast |
| Composition | Fix a vertical menu column at the upper left and a vertical icon strip at the right edge, and give the space between them to the work. Windows are meant to overlap, so a black title bar is the only marker of the one in hand. | 12-column grid, left-aligned, asymmetric |
| Material | Work in four steps from white to black and admit no hue. Assume one light source above, and keep every bevel consistent with it. | White space and objective photographs; almost no ornament |
| Caution | Reproduce the grays and then add one saturated accent, and the premise that value carries hierarchy fails, taking the reading order of the whole screen with it. | Too much tidiness turns anonymous. Keep one strong jump in scale. |