Ask HN: Is the app model straightjacketing designers

If you study the design of a windows app on any platform, such as windows, linux or OSX, the basic design context you have to follow is start with a menu and draw the user deeper into the apps functionality from there. If you go deeper into the design of menus, there is a definite expectation on where things go and in what order. This was done with the thinking that since users were not used to UIs, creating guidelines on their design would make it easy for a user to learn a new app's UI. Today's user is a lot more PC savvy than that targeted user was.

For today's user, a UI should be designed around the goals of the app and not in the interests of maintianing consistency with a bunch of other apss that have different goals than the one being designed. This will improve the efficiency of the app for the user and the design process for the designer.