There is an opinion that a nonstandard visual style of interface is a sign of frivolous or light application. Anyway, it is designed for household use but not for business. Moreover this opinion is fixed at the Holy Writ of Windows UX Guide:

Usually design themes are acceptable for the applications where the general impression is much more important rather than productivity. Applications with highly developed visual design should plunge user only in small period of time. Thus, design themes match games and kiosks but not the productivity application.

The nonstandard visual style is the enemy of productivity. This statement is represented like an axiom. But is it so indeed?

Alan Cooper in his books «About Face» and «The Inmates are Running the Asylum» brings our attention to the conflict of interests: it’s profitable for OS developers to limit the freedom of application developers making them wear the uniform under the threat of denying the status compatible with the platform of the application. But is it profitable for application developers? While I am involved in this conflict on the side of developers, surely while Microsoft hasn’t ordered us the new visual style of the next Windows version, I have allowed myself to doubt the fact that the nonstandard solution prevents the work done.

It is worth thinking why the web application developers do not worry about the question of severe standardization of the outlook of administration elements? In the vast web world there is no one carrying such a high prestige as the OS developer in his own tiny world. Just try to imagine a consultant offering Bloglines, Basecamp or Blinksale developers to make the bookmarks look the same for everybody supposedly for the welfare of users. Such a consultant will be made fun of and it will serve him right; it is the same like to make the form of door-handles standard. The infinite number of forms of door-handlers, not talking about its colors and texture, does not prevent us from opening and closing doors.

The visual style if designed competently and smartly, does not reduce the productivity but opposite, it should and may increase it. As while developing the visual style for some exact application we know about its users much more rather than designers from Redmond or Cupertino. What administration elements are used at the interface? What elements are used more frequently? What is the density of data presented at the monitor? Does the user work with a keyboard or a mouse? Or maybe he has a laptop with touchpad? What monitor has he? How often the application is launched? How many hours does the user looks at it? How old is the user? What education has he? His sex? Is he experienced in PC? What culture he was raised in? Just when knowing answers to some of these questions we may create the most convenient design for some exact interface rather than an averaged adjusted for everyone solution from Microsoft or Apple; I offer you to think over on how the answers to the above questions may influence the visual style of the interface.

An ideal interface may be created only for one user. The less the audience of the application is, closer we can come to the ideal:

Unfortunately, thoughtless designed skins lavished in abundance here make us value the standard visual styles of Windows and MacOS X in particular. But it is wrong to reject the idea of nonstandard design because of the law professional skills and wrong priorities of some designers.

Tatlin, the architect, advanced a slogan: move not to the new and not to the old, but to the required. Paraphrasing him, I’d like to say that the visual style of the interface should not be nonstandard because of regularity itself as well as it should not be standard just because Microsoft or Apple say so, but it should be just like your users want it to be.

And please note: I never mentioned branding here but productivity only.