I would like to argue in favour of %u201Cnative%u201D [1]. At least in the regular case: messing around with my motoric memory, my system's default shortcuts, my system's standard widget look/behaviour/positions etc. is not likely to earn you good credits ;-) And, as frequently in design, it is details that count here: often the tiny well-dones/annoyances, that do not seem important/disturbing enough to be credited or reported, have a large impact on everyday satisfaction with an artefact/product/process. (I do not have the source at hand, sorry, IIRC it was somehow related to David Gilbert's research on happiness.)
Some of the few exceptions have already been stated above: a) games, b) web apps (at least partly), and c) scenarios where your average user uses your application across several platforms (i.e. the _same_ user, not different ones). Though in the latter case I would still like to differentiate between transitional applications that get run once in a while and/or aside others and highly immersive applications (e. g. an IDE or a large 3D design app) that get used over longer periods of time with mostly exclusive focus. And only in the second case I would accept sound reasons to ignore the platform's conventions. Amongst those reasons I would e. g. count a highly domain specific workflow that is not sufficiently provided for by the system's native UI (video post production, 3d modeling, %u2026). In short: a platform's native interface standards and defaults (definitely _including_ the respective human interface guidelines) may be ignored if this leads to a _substantial_ improvement for the user. [1] With %u201Cnative%u201D, I mean as completely native as possible and not the superficial nativity you get e. g. with Java without platform specific code. Just mor or less emulating native appearance is by far not enough. See a large share of Java apps as not-best-practice examples (Netbeans or Eclipse get somehow away with it, because they are on their own right good enough as IDEs). See OTOH Cyberduck on OS X for a very well-done example of a Java app _not_ looking and behaving like an alien in half-disguise. Another good one would be Transmission (AFAIK built with Python). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=32800 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
