> Like all rules, once you understand them and know what you are doing, then it may make sense to break them. I actually agree with this whole heartedly. I thi

> Like all rules, once you understand them and know what you are doing, then it may make sense to break them. I actually agree with this whole heartedly. I think we're on the same wavelength here. Just like all good literature violates supposed rules of good form for the language. But I think that following OS conventions is the wrong set of rules to learn and target. There are already good interface guidelines. It just so happens that some OSs (OSX) do a particularly good job at following those guidelines. It reminds me of this http://catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html http://catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html The meta-problem here is that the configuration wizard does all the approved rituals (GUI with standardized clicky buttons, help popping up in a browser, etc. etc.) but doesn't have the central attribute these are supposed to achieve: discoverability. That is, the quality that every point in the interface has prompts and actions attached to it from which you can learn what to do next. Does your project have this quality? A good interface can look like anything so long as it follows good GUI conventions. And fortunately most OSs follow pretty good GUI conventions so targeting the conventions of that platform are in a way following good GUI conventions transitively. I just wouldn't limit myself as to say that the measure of important should be following OS conventions when it should really be following interface conventions. The CUPS story I linked to brings that problem directly to the forefront. They're already doing the appropriate interface rituals with respect to their OS. The problem is that they are not doing the appropriate rituals with respect to good interface design. (I also agree that some tools, like Photoshop, have absymal user interfaces. But I think it's because they don't follow good interface conventions in general, not because it doesn't look like an OSX app or a Windows app http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/235455865/the-many-sliders-of-photoshop-cs4 http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/235455865/the-many-sliders-of-p...).