Consistent like what? Like maybe a decade ago one could say that osx was consistent, but nowadays even SwiftUI and cocoa is visibly different, let alone every second app that uses electron. And people don't care.
Windows has like 4 frameworks available on a bare new, latest OS install, just go deep enough in the "settings" or whatever they call it, and you can reach down to winforms. And on top the start menu is a react element!
(And in Linux you have the gtk and the qt world, and everything else)
OS-level consistency is also consistency. It depends what we value. A lot of apps’ design could’ve been basic, OS-like UI. Apps such as GymBook or WhatsApp are internally consistent while still adopting many elements from the system’s design, instead of reinventing the wheel.
Within OS consistency is much less of thing a thing than Web design conventions. Windows by itself has had several different UI frameworks over the years, so different "native" Windows programs can look completely different from each other.
> Within OS consistency is much less of thing a thing than Web design conventions.
Sorry, are you saying that two random web apps will typically share more UI consistency than two random Windows apps? Because, although I'm not currently familiar with Windows, I would be amazed if that were true.
There are two types of consistency in this context: consistency within an OS and consistency across them. I, too, prefer the first because I only really use one OS, but this preference varies. I don't think it's right to say that the first case = "ui toolkit", but the second case doesn't.
A foolish consistency with terribly designed shallow superficial desktop user interfaces dreamed up by overpaid cocaine addled corporate boutique brand designers with not only no experience but actual burning contempt for usability and human factors and accessability and affordances is the hobgoblin of little minds.
That doesn't say anything about the value of whatever UI kit is in place, being shared consistently by apps. A virtue that, apparent from this thread, is no longer universally shared.
That’s why HN users constantly advocate for Vim, a program in which every single thing works completely differently from every other modern application.
Yes, if there's one lesson from historical UI research that still holds, it's that mode switching is expensive. That's why people install vi plugins everywhere.
Great for the developer. The user doesn’t use Mac, Windows and Linux. Just one for work and one at home, with mostly different apps, so they couldn’t care less if it looks the same on different platforms.
They may care, however, if they get anything at all. I do not have the resources to target something to all platforms, so the alternative wouldn't be "Users get UI targeted towards their OS", the alternative would be "Users get nothing since developers don't have the time to also target their system".
They have internal consistency. The iOS version looks like the macos version which looks like the web version, etc.
This upsets HN users but the rest of the world decided that apps looking like windows built ins doesn't matter.
It's more like developers decided - nobody asked the users.
ironically the only group of users I've found that actually care about native UI, are other developers and Mac purist.
7 replies →
Consistent like what? Like maybe a decade ago one could say that osx was consistent, but nowadays even SwiftUI and cocoa is visibly different, let alone every second app that uses electron. And people don't care.
Windows has like 4 frameworks available on a bare new, latest OS install, just go deep enough in the "settings" or whatever they call it, and you can reach down to winforms. And on top the start menu is a react element!
(And in Linux you have the gtk and the qt world, and everything else)
> SwiftUI and cocoa is visibly different
Do they render different looking buttons?
OS-level consistency is also consistency. It depends what we value. A lot of apps’ design could’ve been basic, OS-like UI. Apps such as GymBook or WhatsApp are internally consistent while still adopting many elements from the system’s design, instead of reinventing the wheel.
Within OS consistency is much less of thing a thing than Web design conventions. Windows by itself has had several different UI frameworks over the years, so different "native" Windows programs can look completely different from each other.
> Within OS consistency is much less of thing a thing than Web design conventions.
Sorry, are you saying that two random web apps will typically share more UI consistency than two random Windows apps? Because, although I'm not currently familiar with Windows, I would be amazed if that were true.
There are two types of consistency in this context: consistency within an OS and consistency across them. I, too, prefer the first because I only really use one OS, but this preference varies. I don't think it's right to say that the first case = "ui toolkit", but the second case doesn't.
Consistency as a design virtue applies to a single user's experience. This means consistency within the OS.
A foolish consistency with terribly designed shallow superficial desktop user interfaces dreamed up by overpaid cocaine addled corporate boutique brand designers with not only no experience but actual burning contempt for usability and human factors and accessability and affordances is the hobgoblin of little minds.
https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job
Yes, Dye botched [mac/i/tv/etc]OS 26.
That doesn't say anything about the value of whatever UI kit is in place, being shared consistently by apps. A virtue that, apparent from this thread, is no longer universally shared.
That’s why HN users constantly advocate for Vim, a program in which every single thing works completely differently from every other modern application.
Yes, if there's one lesson from historical UI research that still holds, it's that mode switching is expensive. That's why people install vi plugins everywhere.
Wait...
Vi plugins don’t even exist for the vast majority of applications.
1 reply →
Consistency is the reason why Electron is great. Consistency of the UI across operating systems.
Great for the developer. The user doesn’t use Mac, Windows and Linux. Just one for work and one at home, with mostly different apps, so they couldn’t care less if it looks the same on different platforms.
They may care, however, if they get anything at all. I do not have the resources to target something to all platforms, so the alternative wouldn't be "Users get UI targeted towards their OS", the alternative would be "Users get nothing since developers don't have the time to also target their system".
4 replies →
If you think operating systems have nothing to offer in terms of UI patterns or guidance, then yes, that's a different type of consistency.