[Turing_Machine]

The whole idea of a "standard user interface" always seemed totally goofy to me.

Do hammers, bulldozers, and microscopes all use a "standard user interface"? No, they do not.

A user interface should be optimized for the tool in question, not optimized to look exactly like the interface for all other tools.

Not to mention the hubris involved with imagining that one has invented the One True User Interface at the very dawn of the technology.

While performing roughly the same task, modern hammers don't have anything like the "user interface" of a Paleolithic hammer stone. Fortunately there weren't any "Human Interface Guidelines" people around when the hammer stone was invented.

[jwells89]

App UIs should be optimized for their use case, yes, but I would argue that the idea that a one-off app UI design can do common widgets and interactions as well or better than a platform with tens of thousands of dollars and man-hours poured into user research involves just as much or more hubris as thinking that there’s One True User Interface. The average app with bespoke UI is chock full of usability/accessibility issues that wouldn’t be there had they been built with a platform UI framework.

[skydhash]

> A user interface should be optimized for the tool in question, not optimized to look exactly like the interface for all other tools.

When you learn how to drive a car, you can expect the same standard across all cars. You don't relearn how to drive when you get into a new car. There's common UI and UX paradigms across all software and no one should have to learn your bespoke implementation. And I believe these sets should be part of the OS.

When you look at Spotify or Slack UI, there's nothing there that is better than their more native looking alternatives. I have utilities to populate a command panel with menu items, but it's essentially useless on these apps because everything is buried inside the app itself.

[anonymouskimmer]

> You don't relearn how to drive when you get into a new car.

These days you do. We're at a transition these last 10 years or so as great as the one from crank-start to key-turn start cars, from regular steering to powered steering, and from manual to automatic transmission.

Even back a couple of decades ago I remember my 1980's Buick having shifting on the steering post toggles versus my 2000's Saturn having a standard shift stick.

[skydhash]

Standards should change. No one is recommending to keep 1024*800 as the current resolution. I’m for evolution and for consistency. Not changes for the sake of change.

[anonymouskimmer]

> No one is recommending to keep 1024*800 as the current resolution

I think the better parallel is aspect ratio, not resolution.

[Turing_Machine]

> When you learn how to drive a car, you can expect the same standard across all cars.

Across all cars. Not "across all controllable artifacts" or even "across all vehicles" (driving a bulldozer is way different from driving a car).

An optimal user interface for (e.g.) an accounting package is extremely unlikely to be the same as the interface for (e.g.) a video editor.

For that matter, imagine attempting to drive a car by picking the things you want to do off a menu with a mouse.

It would suck.

Big time.

"Ok, now open the Speed menu and scroll down to 'brake'. Now go to the 'slam' submenu item... whoops! Sorry, kitty!".

[eilefsen]

The OS is a tool in and of itself.

I think its perfectly reasonable to expect a program to look and feel similar to other programs on the same OS.

At least for things the OS is somewhat concerned with, like window decorations, menu bars and so on.

If i designed an OS id be frustrated with the inconsistencies in how different applications interact with the design of my OS.