Hat tip to @hannusalonen on Twitter for pointing me to this Engadget article about Samsung’s “Unified UI” initiative.
My take: similar to Tog’s in that consistency with user expectations is most important. I’ve been part of several x-product consistency and commonality efforts in my career, and all were misguided to varying degrees. The biggest danger I’ve seen in these initiatives is the wrong-headed effort to impose metaphor, terminology and workflow “consistency” on products that support different operations.
Here’s some clear warning signs that you’re trying too hard for consistency: are you and your team sitting for hours in meeting rooms, churning on whether to name a navigation element “Home” or “Top”? Is someone pounding the table with their shoe in a Krushchev-like fit, angrily denouncing the labeling of a button?
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