Alan 
Christophe LampertiThe Mac OS Control Panel by Susan Kare is such a remarkable UI. It was designed in 1984 without any text labels and fits in only 315x158 pixels.
Marcin Wichary@lamperti @ryanmiglavs The one in the bottom right corner is particularly inspired.
Ryan the Design Lion@mwichary Absolutely.
I think Iโm most impressed by the layout โ every item is beautiful and clever and perfect, then she put it all together in that tightly-fitted masonry arrangement? Stunning.
Amelia Bellamy-Royds@lamperti Since it might not be clear without interaction:
The control in the bottom center was a pixel-graphics editor for the repeating desktop background tile pattern (Clickable editor pixel-grid on the left, scaled preview on the right). A whole lot of fun could be had by fussing with those 64 black-or-white pixels!
Full Report Below@lamperti I am old enough to remember that first hand
Roel Van Gils@lamperti I wonder if Susan Kare also came up with the turtle / rabbit thing.
synthgal the ratbot@lamperti okay, but I have no idea what half of those buttons do. Text labels are a mandatory accessibility feature.
EndlessMason@synthgal @lamperti they are animated and demonstrate their use when you change them.
A lot of those settings don't matter today, so they are anachronistic - have you ever changed the number of flashes you see when you select a menu item? The blink rate of the i-beam?
I think it had hovering labels, but that might be a newer control panel (i started at 6 5)
None of these are obvious from a still image.
Tom Lorenz@lamperti @davidgarywood Canโt tell you how much time I spent customizing my wallpaper in that teeny little FatBits-like grid.
Glenda Adams
@Gmatom ๐คฉ beautifully done!
Jack
micropainter@lamperti And I LOVED it. Yes, I still have my first MacSE and it probably still boots up.
The Lichtenbergian@micropainter @lamperti My SE/30 does!
Brian Anderson (He/Him)@lamperti Susan Kareโs sketchbook from this era is currently on display at MoMA NY. Fascinating stuff!
Dan Robertson@lamperti Great pull! This passes what I think is a really useful test for any design: could it be any further โde-signedโ? In this case, no. All the signs have been taken down. Still obvious how to use it without any signs at all! ๐
@lamperti I was there: When asked by my county school system in 1984 to have my high school literary magazine staff produce a county-wide elementary magazine (my staff having won Best Of at the state level), I said sure, if they would buy us this new software Iโd read about โ PageMaker 1.0 โ and the new computer to run it on, the Macintosh.
๐ผ๐ฎ๐ป๐ช๐น๐ช๐ฝ๐ฑใใใโฎ(๐๐จ๐ฆ)@lamperti almost as good as GEOS
...or "The Unix PC" ๐
Clifton RoystonSusan Kateโs work is consistently inspiring.