Something else Apple Gets Right

Eric Burke made a reference to the work Apple puts into making their applications simple but capable. He also gave Google as an example. That item produced quite a few comments and Eric followed up with more details. Again, the discussion wasn't just about Apple but the company was again an example of hard work making things simple and functional. I agree with his comments, and remembered another example of Apple's efforts toward elegant designs.

For as many years as I can remember, the Apple website has had simple URLs to get to various parts of the website. For example:

• http://www.apple.com/developer - the developer site


• http://www.apple.com/mac - information about Macs


• http://www.apple.com/iphone - information about the iPhone


• http://www.apple.com/ipod - information about the iPod


• http://www.apple.com/store - the online Apple store and information about the retail stores

Yes, other sites do this now. But Apple was doing this many years ago, long before competitor's sites.

This seemingly simple idea makes it much easier to navigate their web site for the vast majority of people going to the site. It allows people to get more quickly to the area they want. Without this, the task becomes much more involved:

1. Visit the home page


2. Parse the layout


3. Find the navigation links


4. Find the right link - if it's not there guess where to drill down


5. Get to where you wanted to go