[mhd]

We used to call that "usability", and it was mostly done on the OS/API level (cf. Tog's work at Apple). In the web space, I see way too many individual practices (as what's "best" in the long run across all domains might not be the "best" at funnelling people through your web app).

Never mind that if it's your sole job, you have to demonstrate value and that often leads away from generic solutions.

[Sawamara]

But you cant solve this on OS level, really. People read New York Times differently when compared to how they shop and want to checkout.

People browse Stack Overflow and hacker news differently too. There is no set of rules that are generic AND usable in all these cases.

And you do not read a Medium.com article the same way you set something up with your goverment in a goverment website, browsing through hundreds of options.

[mhd]

But why bring this misery to desktop apps? A lot of this arose out of the lack of standards and (initial) widgets in a browser.

Not that I believe that the amount of different interaction patterns is justified on the web; the lack of almost any kind of standard widgets just made this a free-for-all bikeshedding design space. In the long run, I doubt that your measurably superior solution to editing an entry in a grid is better than using the same pattern in every data grid.

Quite often I'm reminded of readability tests using different fonts, where the one people liked best often wasn't the one with the best reading comprehension. If you're picking a font for your OS, there was little choice and the customer probably bought it already. On the web, they can go to <rival product #341> because that uses Helvetica Neue and not Akzidenz Grotesk.