>>>>Some things like patient care and safety are more important than some GUI design rules made up in redmond.
>>>
>>>Blasphemy! Microsoft design rules must never be broken. No exceptions.
>>
>>If religion is not a sacred to me elsewhere, I don't see why it would be in programming. Even in such a fluid area as the GUI is.
>>
>>Just look at what has influenced the tablet/sphone GUI more: M$ religion or games.
>
>These design rules and the blind adherence to them; this is the sort of thing I was referring to in another thread where IT people sometimes lose sight of what role they play in a business or organization. It's not up to them to decide what the interface must look like according to some set of rules made up by MS or whoever. The client knows their business better than the developer. The client must be advised to options and alternatives. But at the end the client must decide what they in their knowledge and experience suits their purpose best. Guidelines => great, thanks for the advice. Rules => I'm already turned off.

Exactly!

I once had a client who simply hated combos. He said "give me as many buttons as I need - small, with just a 2-3 character mnemonic on them, and I'll remember what they do - far better than having to click, scroll, click or click, type". And basically he was right.