It’s the little things that matter in interface design.

For instance, I just discovered this amazing little detail in Mac OS X’s Dashboard. The World Clock widget (by Apple) that is installed by default has always offered a slick little display of the time in a chosen time zone, but at some point between Tiger’s release and now, (perhaps with the release of 10.5 Leopard?)¹, they added one of the little details that makes Apple… well, Apple.

Now, when choosing a new time zone from the back, when the widget flips over, it animates the clock hands, moving from the currently set time zone to the new ones, including changes in day and night — and even gently accelerating from the start and decelerating into the finish!

As soon as I can get a decent video screen capture, I’ll post a glimpse of the animation.