Article · 8 min read

Breaking Web Design Conventions = Breaking the User Experience

Katie Sherwin · Nielsen Norman Group Free Intermediate

Concrete evidence for what originality in the wrong place actually costs. It shows how novel patterns confuse users and slow them down, with real examples. Read it before you decide your product's checkout, search, or menu needs to look different from everyone else's.

  • Unfamiliar patterns force users to stop and relearn basic actions.
  • Novelty for its own sake reads as friction, not delight.
  • The safest place to be different is your actual value, not your plumbing.
Open on nngroup.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. Should I just copy the UI patterns of apps my users already use, or does that make my product forgettable?

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