alt Hacker Newsthe beauty is in the consistency.
why do we build with right angles, straight lines, regular curves, etc? Why not random angles, crooked lines, etc for style and "excitement"?
Why don't we assemble a furniture set from a random assortment of pieces from flea markets? People sense that that is ugly.
A better example might be why we build stairs with a standard riser height and tread run. If you've ever accidentally tripped on an unusual or non-standard stair, you already know this.
Users don't need to think about how to use them; they are ubiquitous and familiar, and therefore intuitive and automatic.
If every set of stairs (or, worse, if every stair in a set) was radically different, every time you approached some stairs you would have to think carefully about how to use them so you don't fall.