Elf Sternberg

I'm thinking that the attack needs to come from the other direction. Simply put, you need to allow the user to customize their own interfaces and then apply them across other applications.

In my first application I teach it that to select an item in 3d space I touch it once. As I go from appA to appB it remembers that.

You, on the other hand, grab the object. It remembers that for you.

There should probably be a default standard of the "obvious" things - the LukeW page has some good "obvious" ones that once you know them (zoom in/out) you automatically try to apply them to other things. Don Norman's point (as voidrandom mentions) is that it's not seamless inside an application/shell, let alone across experiences.

I remember with Quake, I customized the keyboard for commands extensively. Unlike 99.9% of players, I use ESDF instead of WASD. It's simply more comfortable to me. I even used the keybind file in other ID games. I hated it when I realize other games weren't going to use the same interface.

Interfaces (touch, 3d, whatever) will change. The way that we "standardize", THAT'S what has to change.