I’m part of the desktop software generation. From Windows 95 to Windows 7, I grew using mostly-offline software on computers operated via mouse and keyboard, well before tablets and smartphones. Recently, I’ve been missing one particular part of that era: its consistency in design. I want to tell you about
I like using Figma and Linear as they are big but not "too big" in the space. Known but not home brands.
My gripe though, would these applications share commands even if the followed the design idioms of ye older? If both were developed for windows xp, I'd argue they still wouldnt follow the same idoms due to being different categories of software.
Yes the file, edit etc bar would be there but would that be all?
I assume there would still be custom icons used and needed in some cases as they would be doing different functions?
Maybe I'm the devils advocate. MaterialU from Google would be the next best design idiom to follow I suppose for future developers perhaps.
This is the reason no one wanted web apps at the time. Textual interfaces were even better than any of this GUI stuff, but that ship sailed. It's not coming back, and if you are interested in such things you are a Linux neckbeard.
I don't even work in tech and I must have learned hundreds of shortcuts, idioms, workarounds and software quirks. And that's before I started with Styles in MS Word. Seriously there should be a university degree in that.
This perfectly captures why the digital world feels so exhausting lately. We didn't just lose consistent buttons; we lost the mental calm that comes with predictability.
Modern software is designed to capture attention, not to respect it. This lack of homogeneity is exactly what led me to build The Square. It’s less of a tool and more of a digital manifest—using radical, Suprematist simplicity to fight back against the user puzzles we're forced to solve every day.
Sometimes, the only way to fix a broken interface is to walk away from the screen entirely.
"The checkbox is a design idiom: it’s such a common design that as a user, you know how to use it without thinking about it, and if you were making a website and had to ask this question, you would also put in a checkbox without thinking about it. To builders and users alike, it is a standard design pattern that everyone can rely on."
As a user who has been on the web since before Javascript existed, I hate this button with a passion, and no, I still don't understand how to use it. Does it apply to only the current window? Isn't it all windows on this domain, until I close the last one? (Am I supposed to keep track of all of them?) How long will I be logged in if I don't click it? Or if I do? How do I change my mind later? How can I see if my session is a "Keep me signed in" session or not? Where is any documentation for this?
Step back: why does this checkbox even exist? The only rationale I've ever heard is "It's for public kiosks", but web developers even include it on mobile-only versions of pages (I've never even heard of a public smartphone kiosk), and I haven't met anyone who used any web app on a public kiosk browser in decades.
My understanding is that leaving this unchecked means: "Please kick me out, at some random time today, while I'm trying to work", and no normal person would ever want it un-checked -- but every webpage includes the option, and leaves it un-checked by default. It's a trap.
Worse: no, it's not even reliable. Developers don't seem to test this checkbox, so some web apps (like some I have to use for work) will present this as a feature, but ignore it. It still kicks me out after a few minutes of inactivity, and I can see that the cookies it gives me are identical whether or not I click it. And of course web apps never have easy ways to report bugs.
What invariably happens is that I forget to click this (because it's often below the other controls on the log-in page, and browser auto-fill features won't touch this checkbox, for some unknown reason), and then I'm logged in, and there doesn't seem to be any way from the web app to say "Please set Remember-Me now", so I have to log out and log in again to fix that, and doing that forgets which page I was on, so now I have to figure out how to navigate back there again. Then I try very hard not to throw my computer into the nearest dumpster.
"Remember Me?" is the modern equivalent of the "Really do X?" confirmations that used to be everywhere on desktop software in the 1990's. Developers thought they were being nice by offering a choice. What was actually happening was people would click through without thinking, because mentally it's just an extra step that they always had to do, not a choice. Then the 0.1% of the time that they didn't want to do it, they still clicked Yes, on mental autopilot, and the software made them feel stupid for doing so. Fortunately, most developers have since figured out how to implement Undo, and we (mostly) no longer have to put up with that.
What you call a "design idiom" is one of the worst disasters of the modern web. It's not intuitive, it's not documented, it's not reliable, and it's not wanted. It's embarrassing that it's still so common. It should have died with the "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" gifs that used to be mandatory on every webpage.
I always intuitively conceived of these design concepts, and am known to frequently rant on such topics, but was ignorant of the exact term "idiomatic design".
Fully agree. You mentioned books from decades past. Any personal favorites or recommendations?
Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things is a classic
I like using Figma and Linear as they are big but not "too big" in the space. Known but not home brands.
My gripe though, would these applications share commands even if the followed the design idioms of ye older? If both were developed for windows xp, I'd argue they still wouldnt follow the same idoms due to being different categories of software.
Yes the file, edit etc bar would be there but would that be all?
I assume there would still be custom icons used and needed in some cases as they would be doing different functions?
Maybe I'm the devils advocate. MaterialU from Google would be the next best design idiom to follow I suppose for future developers perhaps.
This is the reason no one wanted web apps at the time. Textual interfaces were even better than any of this GUI stuff, but that ship sailed. It's not coming back, and if you are interested in such things you are a Linux neckbeard.
I don't even work in tech and I must have learned hundreds of shortcuts, idioms, workarounds and software quirks. And that's before I started with Styles in MS Word. Seriously there should be a university degree in that.
This perfectly captures why the digital world feels so exhausting lately. We didn't just lose consistent buttons; we lost the mental calm that comes with predictability.
Modern software is designed to capture attention, not to respect it. This lack of homogeneity is exactly what led me to build The Square. It’s less of a tool and more of a digital manifest—using radical, Suprematist simplicity to fight back against the user puzzles we're forced to solve every day.
Sometimes, the only way to fix a broken interface is to walk away from the screen entirely.
"The checkbox is a design idiom: it’s such a common design that as a user, you know how to use it without thinking about it, and if you were making a website and had to ask this question, you would also put in a checkbox without thinking about it. To builders and users alike, it is a standard design pattern that everyone can rely on."
As a user who has been on the web since before Javascript existed, I hate this button with a passion, and no, I still don't understand how to use it. Does it apply to only the current window? Isn't it all windows on this domain, until I close the last one? (Am I supposed to keep track of all of them?) How long will I be logged in if I don't click it? Or if I do? How do I change my mind later? How can I see if my session is a "Keep me signed in" session or not? Where is any documentation for this?
Step back: why does this checkbox even exist? The only rationale I've ever heard is "It's for public kiosks", but web developers even include it on mobile-only versions of pages (I've never even heard of a public smartphone kiosk), and I haven't met anyone who used any web app on a public kiosk browser in decades.
My understanding is that leaving this unchecked means: "Please kick me out, at some random time today, while I'm trying to work", and no normal person would ever want it un-checked -- but every webpage includes the option, and leaves it un-checked by default. It's a trap.
Worse: no, it's not even reliable. Developers don't seem to test this checkbox, so some web apps (like some I have to use for work) will present this as a feature, but ignore it. It still kicks me out after a few minutes of inactivity, and I can see that the cookies it gives me are identical whether or not I click it. And of course web apps never have easy ways to report bugs.
What invariably happens is that I forget to click this (because it's often below the other controls on the log-in page, and browser auto-fill features won't touch this checkbox, for some unknown reason), and then I'm logged in, and there doesn't seem to be any way from the web app to say "Please set Remember-Me now", so I have to log out and log in again to fix that, and doing that forgets which page I was on, so now I have to figure out how to navigate back there again. Then I try very hard not to throw my computer into the nearest dumpster.
"Remember Me?" is the modern equivalent of the "Really do X?" confirmations that used to be everywhere on desktop software in the 1990's. Developers thought they were being nice by offering a choice. What was actually happening was people would click through without thinking, because mentally it's just an extra step that they always had to do, not a choice. Then the 0.1% of the time that they didn't want to do it, they still clicked Yes, on mental autopilot, and the software made them feel stupid for doing so. Fortunately, most developers have since figured out how to implement Undo, and we (mostly) no longer have to put up with that.
What you call a "design idiom" is one of the worst disasters of the modern web. It's not intuitive, it's not documented, it's not reliable, and it's not wanted. It's embarrassing that it's still so common. It should have died with the "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" gifs that used to be mandatory on every webpage.
Why? Just hire a bunch of offshore web "developers" for $10/hour and you're good.
I always intuitively conceived of these design concepts, and am known to frequently rant on such topics, but was ignorant of the exact term "idiomatic design".