Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left.

Fascinating.

The principle of least astonishment (POLA/PLA) applies to user interface design, software design, and ergonomics. It is alternatively referred to as the rule or law of least astonishment, or the rule or principle of least surprise (POLS).

The POLA states that, when two elements of an interface conflict, or are ambiguous, the behaviour should be that which will least surprise the user; in particular a programmer should try to think of the behavior that will least surprise someone who uses the program, rather than that behavior that is natural from knowing the inner workings of the program.

Interesting.

Apple’s commitment to thoughtful design is legendary, and here’s another example. The iCloud logo uses the golden ratio.

In short, the golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant that often occurs in nature. When applied to design, the results are considered aesthetically pleasing. Artists have been using it for centuries, including Leonardo da Vinci and Salvador Dali.

Takamasa Matsumoto of Design Archive considered the iCloud logo’s irregular shape, and took some measurements. He found that the golden ratio was represented by the cloud’s inner “circles” as well as the cloud as a whole.

Things like this make me happier than they should.

This gets me hyped for typography. Viscerally.

95% of the information on the web is written language. It is only logical to say that a web designer should get good training in the main discipline of shaping written information, in other words: Typography.

Information design is typography

Back in 1969, Emil Ruder, a famous Swiss typographer, wrote on behalf of his contemporary print materials what we could easily say about our contemporary websites:

Today we are inundated with such an immense flood of printed matter that the value of the individual work has depreciated, for our harassed contemporaries simply cannot take everything that is printed today. It is the typographer’s task to divide up and organize and interpret this mass of printed matter in such a way that the reader will have a good chance of finding what is of interest to him.

Don’t tell us busy pages look better

Crowded websites don’t look good: they look nasty. Filling pages with stuff has never helped usability. It’s laziness that makes you throw all kinds of information at us. We want you to think and pre-select what’s important. We don’t want to do your work.

Don’t tell us scrolling is bad

Because then all websites are bad. There is nothing wrong with scrolling. Nothing at all. Just as there is nothing wrong with flipping pages in books.

Don’t tell us text is not important

95% of what is commonly referred to as web design is typography.

I love that last statement. Typography is where it’s at.

The only question that remains is whether or not the person viewing wants to be stunned.

I wouldn’t try one, but I’d buy one for my girl.