Using Controls Effectively
GNOME provides a set of controls, also known as widgets, which allow users to interact with your applications. Using these controls appropriately and not altering their standard behavior is important. This allows users to predict the effects of their actions, and thus learn to use your application more quickly and efficiently. Controls that behave in non-standard ways break the user's mental model of how your application works, and dilute the meaning of the interface's visual language.