On the web, the rise of component libraries and consistent theming is promising.

> Avoid JavaScript reimplementations of HTML basics, e.g. React Button components instead of styled <button> elements.

I've been hearing that for the entire Internet era yet people continue to reinvent scrollbars, text boxes, buttons, checkboxes and, well, every input element. And I don't know why.

What this article is really talking about is conventions not idioms (IMHO). You see a button and you know how it works. A standard button will behave in predictable ways across devices and support accessibility and not require loading third-party JS libraries.

Also:

> Notwithstanding that, there are fashion cycles in visual design. We had skeuomorphic design in the late 2000s and early 2010s, material design in the mid 2010s, those colorful 2D vector illustrations in the late 2010s, etc.

I'm glad the author brought this up. Flat design (often called "material design" as it is here) has usability issues and this has been discussed a lot eg [1].

The concept here is called affordances [2], which is where the presentation of a UI element suggests how it's used, like being pressed or grabbed or dragged. Flat design and other kinds of minimalism tend to hide affordances.

It seems like this is a fundamental flaw in human nature that crops up everywhere: people feel like they have to do something different because it's different, not because it's better. It's almost like people have this need to make their mark. I see this all the time in game sequels that ruin what was liked by the original, like they're trying to keep it "fresh".

[1]: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design/

[2]: https://geekyants.com/blog/affordances-in-ui-design

> Both are very well-designed from first principles, but do not conform to what other interfaces the user might be familiar with

> The lack of homogeneous interfaces means that I spend most of my digital time not in a state of productive flow

There are generally two types of apps - general apps and professional tools. While I highly agree with the author that general apps should align with trends, from a pure time-spent PoV Figma is a professional tool. The design editor in particular is designed for users who are in it every day for multiple hours a day. In this scenario, small delays in common actions stack up significantly.

I'll use the Variables project in Figma as an example (mainly because that was my baby while I was there). Variables were used on the order of magnitude of billions. An increase in 1s in the time it took to pick a variable was a net loss of around 100 human years in aggregate. We could have used more standardized patterns for picking them (ie illustrator's palette approach), or unified patterns for picking them (making styles and variables the same thing), but in the end we picked slightly different behavior because at the end of the day it was faster.

In the end it's about minimizing friction of an experience. Sometimes minimizing friction for one audience impacts another - in the case of Figma minimizing it for pro users increased the friction for casual users, but that's the nature of pro tools. Blender shouldn't try and adopt idiomatic patterns - it doesn't make sense for it, as it would negatively impact their core audience despite lowering friction for casual users. You have to look at net friction as a whole.

> The easiest programs to use are those that demand the least new learning from the user — or, to put it another way, the easiest programs to use are those that most effectively connect to the user's pre-existing knowledge.

The Art of Unix Programming

http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html#id2...