5 ms·

Rational, practical people have always been quick to dismiss aesthetics in favour of functionality, but it turns out it's actually pretty important. People will

Rational, practical people have always been quick to dismiss aesthetics in favour of functionality, but it turns out it's actually pretty important. People will use the ugly, functional thing if they have to, but they'll leave if they get a chance. I think this dynamic alone explains a large part of the success of a number of SaaS apps priced as is often advocated here to allow individual managers to buy it on a corporate credit card without going through procurement. As an extreme worst-case scenario, consider post-war high-density architecture. With a few exceptions, they are various degrees of slum today, not because they lacked functionality (that came later when they were left to deteriorate), because anyone with the resources to left. Back to software, I have had the pleasure of replacing a good number of ugly but functional line-of-business systems, and the eagerness with which users will adopt the new thing, almost entirely because it's pretty (it often doesn't much new for many users, the main improvements are on the backend and for power users), always catches me a bit off guard. On the personal level, I've found that investing a bit of time up front in making a new thing pretty increases my personal level of happiness working on the thing, even if I end up changing entirely away from the original look as features evolve.

jacquesm 10y ago
I've seen the opposite as well: ugly looking terminal or DOS based but very productive software was replaced with spiffy looking windows or web based software that was slightly slower or unable to keep up with the type-ahead of the users and this led to huge disappointment. I'm firmly believe if it doesn't work it doesn't matter how good it looks and if it works but looks bad that's better than the reverse. Then once you've figured out what to build you can always make it look pretty.
- mseebach 10y ago
  It's not a dichotomy. I'm arguing for the importance of both, not either-or. Obviously, a thing that doesn't work, doesn't work, regardless of how pretty it might be. > Then once you've figured out what to build you can always make it look pretty. That's a lot harder than it sounds. No, of course you don't commission a big fancy design before you know what the thing should do, but you equally can't just build an ugly, but functional thing and throw lipstick on it five minutes before shipping (or after - activities schedules for when the thing is 'done' have a nasty tendency to not happen). Both, in parallel, at its time, not either-or.
- nkkollaw 10y ago
  You're comparing apples with oranges. Terminal/DOS-based software isn't ugly, it's just a different interface (GUI vs. non-GUI). Of course some technical people that know what they're doing will enjoy using the command line because you don't have a GUI that gets in the way, but using this fact to "prove" that people like ugly software better doesn't make sense—it's just a bad example.
  - sprafa 10y ago
    Most people would describe terminal software as hideous. Happiness comes from visual variety.
    - AJ007 10y ago
      Are the blind happy?
      - karmajunkie 10y ago
        Not blind, but I had eye surgery about a year and a half ago, followed by a recovery period about 4 weeks longer than I was told to expect, during which I came to appreciate things like contrast. Not coincidentally, I also realized my software was literally* painful to use for someone in my condition. I have learned to give a shit about color choices. *That's the literal 'literally', not the figurative one.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    I worked for a very large corp that wanted to convert an application that we used to process applications. It took less than a second to process 99 percent of applications. They wanted to switch from a cli app to web. I told them they were nuts. We could currently process the days queue in minutes. Sure the company could have loaded all the data and used js to feed them out quickly, but the programmers had no idea what we were doing and certainly wouldn't have designed it correctly. The company wasn't changing it to be trendy, they were changing it to make things easier. It would have had the opposite effect.
- wsy 10y ago
  It hugely depends on the target user group: admins don't mind about an 'ugly looking ... but productive software', but non-IT users mind a lot, and for them it has a significant effect on usability. It can only be '_very_ productive' for the target group, when it is also well-designed for them.
lolive 10y ago
Would you buy WinGrep?
- mseebach 10y ago
  For myself? No. For a non-technical end-user that for whatever reason needs grep-like capabilities? Yes.

jacquesm 10y ago

I've seen the opposite as well: ugly looking terminal or DOS based but very productive software was replaced with spiffy looking windows or web based software that was slightly slower or unable to keep up with the type-ahead of the users and this led to huge disappointment. I'm firmly believe if it doesn't work it doesn't matter how good it looks and if it works but looks bad that's better than the reverse. Then once you've figured out what to build you can always make it look pretty.

mseebach 10y ago
It's not a dichotomy. I'm arguing for the importance of both, not either-or. Obviously, a thing that doesn't work, doesn't work, regardless of how pretty it might be. > Then once you've figured out what to build you can always make it look pretty. That's a lot harder than it sounds. No, of course you don't commission a big fancy design before you know what the thing should do, but you equally can't just build an ugly, but functional thing and throw lipstick on it five minutes before shipping (or after - activities schedules for when the thing is 'done' have a nasty tendency to not happen). Both, in parallel, at its time, not either-or.
nkkollaw 10y ago
You're comparing apples with oranges. Terminal/DOS-based software isn't ugly, it's just a different interface (GUI vs. non-GUI). Of course some technical people that know what they're doing will enjoy using the command line because you don't have a GUI that gets in the way, but using this fact to "prove" that people like ugly software better doesn't make sense—it's just a bad example.
- sprafa 10y ago
  Most people would describe terminal software as hideous. Happiness comes from visual variety.
  - AJ007 10y ago
    Are the blind happy?
    - karmajunkie 10y ago
      Not blind, but I had eye surgery about a year and a half ago, followed by a recovery period about 4 weeks longer than I was told to expect, during which I came to appreciate things like contrast. Not coincidentally, I also realized my software was literally* painful to use for someone in my condition. I have learned to give a shit about color choices. *That's the literal 'literally', not the figurative one.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  I worked for a very large corp that wanted to convert an application that we used to process applications. It took less than a second to process 99 percent of applications. They wanted to switch from a cli app to web. I told them they were nuts. We could currently process the days queue in minutes. Sure the company could have loaded all the data and used js to feed them out quickly, but the programmers had no idea what we were doing and certainly wouldn't have designed it correctly. The company wasn't changing it to be trendy, they were changing it to make things easier. It would have had the opposite effect.
wsy 10y ago
It hugely depends on the target user group: admins don't mind about an 'ugly looking ... but productive software', but non-IT users mind a lot, and for them it has a significant effect on usability. It can only be '_very_ productive' for the target group, when it is also well-designed for them.

lolive 10y ago

Would you buy WinGrep?

mseebach 10y ago
For myself? No. For a non-technical end-user that for whatever reason needs grep-like capabilities? Yes.