Steve Krug on Conventions and Web Usability.

“Designers are often reluctant to take advantage of them (conventions). Faced with the prospect of using a convention, there’s a great temptation for designers to reinvent the wheel instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve been hired to do something new and different, and not the same old thing. (Not to mention the fact that praise from peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on criteria like “best use of conventions.”) – Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think!

Our challenge as creatives: be the next one to come up with an accepted convention. Exercise restraint and creativity to develop an extension of the human brain’s thought process. Be intuitive, and think for the user- without letting them know they’re being “thought” for.