> Like I said, users don't care if something looks like their OS, they care > that it has only the important idioms of their OS.
Weak argument. People don't care about lots of things because they're not stupid and prioritize their time, convenience and expenses over everything else. Other things they just tolerate or internalize as a norm, but this doesn't mean it's ok. Thousands of things chip away at people's attention, ability to focus and mental stability. Poor design choices or UX matter, just not enough to be critical (when not totally disastrous). > you should still actively style your components in your own way with your own > colors, sizing and fonts to make sure things are consistent, which is what > Chrome does. As far as I understand you're talking about consistency between versions of the same program for different OS environments. If so, I'd like to see a citation for the claim that's what users want. I don't expect apps on my phone looking/working in a similar way as on the desktop. On the other hand, I'd like a single environment being as consistent with itself as possible, and I surely don't want to see any "actively styled" components unless they work in some specific way or are a part of a highly specialized and tailored interface (the best example being a DAW). I still remember when "skinning" was all the rage in the Windows world. It was mostly atrocious. Good designers usually aren't cheap and are not easy to come by.
