One Thing Well

There’s an interesting debate going on around the lack of user interface consistency in the Mac App Store: Tim Morgan is dismayed, John Gruber is relaxed and the author of Read the fucking HIG is positively livid.

Why is this relevant here? Because UI consitency helps an application do one thing well. Whether it’s the placement of the minimise button in Windows, the ⌘ + S key combo on the Mac or the command --option argument of the command line¹, a consistent UI lets users get to grips with new apps in an instant, and lets developers focus on the hard stuff without having to reinvent the UI wheel with every project.

Where do I stand? Put it this way: the reason I’m a command line person on Linux is the bewildering inconsistency of GUI apps and Desktop Environments on that platform. On the Mac, I’m not the stickler for the Human Interface Guidlines I once was (nor are Apple), but if there’s one thing guaranteed to get on my wick it’s an app that breaks with convention for the sake of novelty (hello, Twitter for Mac’s sliding stack of not-tabs). On iOS? I suspect that once you have the gestural interface’s prods, swipes and pinches down, adjusting to per-app UIs feels far less intrusive—perhaps Lion’s increased reliance on gesture will make UI innovation less jarring on the desktop.

So, I’m sitting on the fence—I’m what Gruber dubs a UI ‘conservative’ at heart, but the iOS, and especially the iPad, has shown that a ‘liberal’ approach doesn’t neccesarily lead to head-scratching and frustration.

What do you reckon?