Jon Bell on Ignoring Default OS Behaviors

Jon Bell on ignoring default OS behaviors in favor of custom user interfaces:

Your model must be significantly better, not just different for the sake of different, and maybe slightly better sometimes for some people.

If your application is going to behave in unexpected ways, it has to be so much better than the default user interface that it makes people completely forget that they had to relearn how to use your application. Jon mentions Steam as an example, but I'm more inclined to use this opportunity to once again point out how much I dislike Adobe's utter lack of regard for OS conventions in its Creative Suite.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/285

designed for use cover

But wait, there's more!

Want to read more like this? Buy my book's second edition! Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web is now available DRM-free directly from The Pragmatic Programmers. Or you can get it on Amazon, where it's also available in Chinese and Japanese.