30+ years of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines from 1985 (and earlier Lisa / Apple II equivalents)
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/09/25
I hope someone has also archived all these in the Internet Archive as this is a great collection of historic material: [WaybackSave/Archive] GitHub – gingerbeardman/apple-human-interface-guidelines: Apple Human Interface Guidelines, et al.
If you have more of them: add them via a pull-request.
Related: [Wayback/Archive] Making It Macintosh: The Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines Companion : Apple : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
A client that went belly up in the early 1990s had all these and similar books. In retrospect, I though have found a way to obtain them but back then I didn’t value the uniqueness of them enough and didn’t have the storage space for it (I lived in a 30m² apartment).
Via a tweet I kind of disagree with (guidelines evolve when technology evolves, though basic parts stay the same), but it would cool if someone – or a team as it would likely make a great research paper – would note the differences between all these.
The tweet with attachments: [WaybackSave/Archive] U.S. Graphics Company on X: “We have a pretty good record of how Apple design has changed through the last 30 years including official guidelines (link in the comments). Shouldn’t anyone at Apple realize that “Apple Human Interface Guideline” for 2001, replacing it with slightly different version of it in…”
We have a pretty good record of how Apple design has changed through the last 30 years including official guidelines (link in the comments). Shouldn’t anyone at Apple realize that “Apple Human Interface Guideline” for 2001, replacing it with slightly different version of it in 2002, then again in 2003, etc.—require an explanation of what was wrong with the previous version? Publishing a different, but *THE* definitive source of UI guidelines year after year is strange. There’s a lot of authorative language used in these guidelines as unshakeable axioms of design, only to be shaken off a few years down the line.
Guidelines convey both the philosophy and ofc they’re also meant for developers to aid them in designing UI for the current year. Barring changes required for resolution, new FFs (iPhone), API changes, etc; the core philosophy shouldn’t really change if you were so convinced the previous year. And it is OK to publish new things and admit to previous mistakes, but at least tell us what’s wrong. Otherwise, this is just vibing for 30 years with no real understanding of UI design.
Slow boiling frog: every 5 years, it feels like a totally different company with no central anchor for design. If Apple is considered the gold standard for design, then this the final boss, it does not bode well for the entire design community (damn_bitch_you_live_like_this? .jpeg). Yes, they do pay a lot of attention to details, there is a staggering amount of work that goes into designing and engineering Apple products—and all of that is orthogonal.
The only reasonable steelmanned argument we can make is that Apple is chasing customer trends, sales, etc. and it has to come out with something new every year—if that’s the case, fine, we should take the gold standard crown and give it to someone else. It’s just another trend-chasing company and there’s nothing wrong with it.
- [Wayback/Archive] GrZh5YAbAAQyBf3.png:orig (1656×1596)
- [Wayback/Archive] GrZk-mDagAACBsV.jpg:orig (1526×1404)
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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