[jaimzob]

Whenever I see "user's want standardized UIs" what I hear is "it's easier for me to _program_ standardized UIs". Users want UIs that are in-tune with their goals and mental models and if you deliver that, it won't matter what size and shape your buttons are.

Snapping widgets together like lego bricks and declaring the result to be a "good" interface because it adheres to "standards" is sometimes true, but not nearly as often as you would think, and in my experience leads to interfaces that map closely to the underlying system, but not at all to what the user actually wants to do.

It's good that a non-designer can use bootstrap to create a decent looking site, heaven knows the world is not over-burdened with good-looking websites, but neither we nor the "users" want every web page, or every web app, to look the same.

[sirclueless]

I wholeheartedly disagree. While power-users might "want UIs that are in-tune with their goals and mental models" I have helped my parents navigate computers enough to know that a great number of users have no mental model at all. All they know is that the button that gets to their email is third from the left on the bottom -- heaven forbid you change that.

It absolutely is beneficial to a newbie to say "Oh! This site looks a lot like xyz.com, maybe I can log in with this button."