1) Part of the issue of a user interface is its 'feel' (as in 'look and
feel').  A UI doesn't just present itself passively to you, you interact
with it.

I can't tell you how irritating it is for me to have just about every Mac
program I have used in the last 16 years responding in the same way - and
then to move to Squeak and have a different set of responses!

For example:

-  Command-Q,
-  Command-left arrow, right arrow to get to the begginning/end of a line,
-  Having to watch out for the focus of the text area in case the text I
type doesn't go to the place where I expect it to...

This is an argument about expectations, not military conformity.  If you
have three pedals at your feet in a vehicle, what does the middle one do?
Why is it that we all have the same answer?


3) Sure, there are lots and lots of user interfaces on the web.  But they
largely have a title at the top and a navigation bar down the left hand
side.  If they don't I find myself having to search around for things and
that diminishes my experience.  I don't think it is going too far to say
that the web is moving to a decreasing number of actual UI's.


4) Icons are a very significant part of our interaction with the 'real
world'.  We have traffic lights and on/off switches and umpires' gestures in
a game.  We learn their meanings and the next time we see one, we can say
that we know what it means and how we can interact with it (booing seems to
be a fairly universal to umpiring decisions).

Just because companies like Microsoft are incapable of designing meaningful
icons doesn't mean we should abandon them altogether (like throwing out the
baby with the bathwater...).


Karl