User interface of page layout application
1988 - 1991

The Lightspeed Color Layout System was released in early 1988 shortly after the first color Macintosh II.

Although I had little to do with the initial interface, I took over as Product Manager starting at version 1.5 and completely overhauled its primitive typesetting features, adding stylesheets, drop caps, kerning, hyphenation, and a slew of other high-end capabilities not available in desktop tools before then.

In retrospect, the control windows could be much simpler and the more esoteric functions less prominent, but it was my first major user interface project and it was hard to resist adding obscure power-user features. I've since learned that the hardest part of creating a good design is not deciding what to add, but what can be removed.