Many people have seen the new Avalon UI paradigm, and the ease with which one can "skin" an Avalon app. Many of those people are concerned (rightly, I think) that this means that every app out there will depart completely from UI standards that we all know. Lately, I've been asking myself - is that a bad thing, or a good thing?
You can ask anyone who knows me (if you can find anyone to admit it); I have some strong feelings on UI design and consistency. I've gone to the mall management office when a pull door had a horizontal push-style bar to complain0. I hate analog watches (I mentally translate the position to numbers anyway - why not show me the numbers?), and I've quit using applications that annoy me because they depart from windows standard UI behavior in ways that make it hard to use the application ( a push button is not a drop down menu! - I'll live with the little down arrow part, but the whole button?).
Now, seeing what Avalon is capable of and what it makes easy, I wonder - is non-uniformity1 a blessing in disguise? Let's examine why consistency is good:
- A user interface that conforms to the expected UI guidelines lets a user spend less time thinking about how to interact with your application, and spend more time thinking about what they want to do with your application.
That's pretty much what it all boils down to. It keeps the user from having to think about the how, giving them more brain to focus on the what.
Can we accomplish this goal another way? With a great design, couldn't we use the freedom that Avalon may give us to make our interface functionality intuitive? I think we can. Why would I want my spreadsheet to have the same UI as my contact management software? They do different things - why present them the same way?
My toaster is intuitive. It performs a simple function and has a simple interface. My microwave oven is intuitive for simple timed cooking2 - press the time, hit start - but it has a completely different UI than my toaster. They perform different tasks, but accomplish similar things (heating of food), and I use them both equally well (even though I only use my toaster once a month). Is it really wrong to start writing applications this way?
I'm not yet convinced that we should start removing consistency guidlines. But I think back to the demo app given during the keynote at the PDC (the legal case management application), and see that it can work. It can work very, very well with a UI designed from the ground up for the task at hand. I can't wait to see the future. Perhaps Longhorn Evangelists can post some demo apps (like this one) for us to see and believe - I know I'd like to see what the designers of Avalon think are possible.
The other thing I can see is this : if you're wondering what career path to take for the future, designer will be a good one.
0 Perhaps it was because I think mall UI should be consistent. Perhaps it was because I ran into the door and had to abate my embarrasment by blaming others. I'm going to say it was the former. 1 Okay, so maybe non-uniformity is not a word. I like it, and I'm using it.
2 For programmed multi-step cooking it's not so easy. And it still can't fix the main problem I have - failing to read directions on frozen foods.