Lots of good stuff in the comments field of my last post on the subject. And this from Jared Spool’s excellent recent article: “The quiet death of the re-launch” [found via ia/]

“Our findings show that consistency in the design plays second fiddle to completing the task. When users are complaining about the consistency of a site, we’ve found that it is often because they are having trouble completing their tasks. On sites where users easily complete their tasks, the users seem to pay little attention to glaring inconsistencies, often telling us in their ratings that the site was indeed very consistent”

Echoes Fiona’s view that: “Consistency is an end, not a means”.

Enough on this for now.