[AnonCoward4]

> Maybe that's the thing. More coherence might be nicer, yes. But it might also not make UIs easier to use. Maybe sqeezing apps into a tight framework of UI coherence, makes the overall appearance of what's on the screen more appealing but at the same time loose usability.

It's a balancing act and you can screw up in either direction. What's clear is that limiting options and limiting depth is at a certain point really better from a UX standpoint - and I'd say old Windows toolkits are an example. It doesn't even mean there is missing anything, but that it is structured differently.

> Think of special applications like technical ones (Blender) or office (Thunderbird, LibreOffice) and also simple ones like a notepad application. Now try to find a common set of UI elements to use for all of them. What you'll probably get, is an OK notepad but a disturbingly bloated Blender.

Neither of these apps would have a problem with a GUI framework/toolkit per se. It's more an implementation detail of the specific frameworks/toolkits and the apps in question (also consider the time when they were founded).