The Importance of Consistency

User Experience February 17, 2009

I'm a designer who really doesn't like unique interfaces. Sometimes they're cool, but more often than not, they suck. They end up taking an interesting piece of functionality and making it way too hard to learn or use. Some claim they did this to "preserve the brand," claiming they have to ensure that the user must be aware what product they're using while they're using it, that how else will they get the user to get their other stuff?

When it comes to interface design and user experience, I support consistency. Especially for making applications on iPhone and the Mac, limiting company branding and designing familiar interface paradigms is essential. You get instant learnability and usability with little to no effort on your end.

Now, of course, there are situations when interfaces call for unique elements. So use that with discretion. For the most part, however, I see too many things that could have been consistent with familiar design paradigms but are done instead in a unique and harder-to-learn fashion.

I suppose that's why I'm more of a layout guy than a visual designer. Visual design is great, but I see it as a last step, the icing on the well-prepared cake. The cake will still taste good either way, but adding fancy icing and decorations can give it that extra edge which makes the whole experience more enjoyable.

Remember: goal + action = expectation. If the users have performed a similar task somewhere else, they've come to expect a certain action to achieve the same goal. Now, if you suddenly make them perform a new action, it messes up their mental model - and the last thing you want to do is confuse people.

So, the take-home point is this: when you're designing something, be sure to look around at who else has done it before. Look at the popular applications of the design paradigm and mimic it. It's not being "cheap" or "uncreative" - it's being smart. If your users are already familiar with how your interface works, then it will not become an obstacle in their way of getting to your functionality.

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