Clarity trumps consistency

Steve Krug

I’ve been working on two GDS projects now and they say:

be consistent not uniform

In order to be consistent at GDS you need to validate why you’re not being uniform. So everyone ends up just being uniform.

But Steve Krug’s description of the same problem Donald Trumps theirs.

Don’t clash with convention

Being either consistent or uniform can clash with convention. We should use conventions to our advantage not try to fight against them. While I’m on quote roll Khoi Vinh said:

Asking users to adopt new behaviours or even modify existing behaviours is very, very hard.

And Steve Krug goes on to say further:

One problem with conventions: designers are reluctant to take advantage of them.

I rest my case.