How Twitter changed my opinion about consistent UI design

One of the many reasons I’m not a Windows fan is the fact that applications can all look very different and behave in very different ways. On the Mac, most applications behave in much the same way when it comes to standard functions. The menus (File, Edit, etc.) are similar if not identical in these apps. Preferences is always accessed via “Command+comma.” By and large, these apps look the same, too. Gray gradient chrome, blue jelly scrollbars, jelly buttons, plastic toolbar buttons, etc.

Apps that don’t follow these rules are ones I don’t use. Well, that is, until I tried Twitterrific. When I first downloaded it, I felt it stuck out like a sore thumb; an odd, translucent black window in a sea of chrome. I resolved to stay with it for a couple of days, though, and fell in love with the application regardless of what it looked like.

Flash forward a year, to yesterday. I downloaded a beta of the new Twitter client “Lounge” (review forthcoming), as it was the first (and currently only) Twitter application for the Mac that both looks and runs natively. (Some Adobe AIR clients can be skinned to look native, but, well, they’re AIR apps.) Oddly enough, I did not like this native look and feel. It blended in too much with all the other apps, and made me realize something that I hadn’t before: OS X chrome takes up a lot of room. Not as much as Windows, sure, but a standard Lounge window is a lot wider than a Twitterrific window, and a lot brighter and harder on the eyes.

So what was my lesson here? Smaller apps work well when they look different. Single-function apps should define their own look and feel that makes sense for their purpose. Of course, if Photoshop, iTunes, or other larger, multipurpose apps adopt their own UI and paradigms, then we’re no better off than Windows.