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"First of all, that's completely wrong, especially when it comes to startups." Are you saying his presentations are some kind of startup? It is completely righ

"First of all, that's completely wrong, especially when it comes to startups." Are you saying his presentations are some kind of startup? It is completely right that aesthetics don't really matter for his presentations. In my experience, aesthetics only matter when trying to sell turds as diamonds. People will use useful things, regardless of aesthetics. Sadly, they'll also use useless things because of aesthetics.

santaclaus 9y ago
> aesthetics only matter when trying to sell turds as diamonds When it comes to printed (or any kind of graphical) communication, form and function are very closely tied. The vertical text at 23:15 is (at least to my western eye) super distracting and hard to read, and I have no idea what I should be looking at on the screen.
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  Aside from the obviously messed up slides, I think everything there was pretty readable. I think odd layouts might actually help remember the content. When you mention the vertical text slide I can picture it almost perfectly in my head. If it had been just another evenly spaced, clearly typed bullet list among 50 others just like it, I would have a harder time recalling it. However, there is a time and place for aesthetics and that's after the functionality has been clearly established, since he's been giving essentially this same talk for tens of years, he probably could put a bit of time into the slides :)
galacticpony 9y ago
No, I'm not saying that. The context is startups. Design aesthetics matter, always. People care about aesthetics. Do you believe Apple is the highest valued company right now because of superior functionality? If Alan Kay didn't have his credentials, people would dismiss his UI work outright simply based on aesthetics. He's not making "beginner mistakes", he's been at it for a long long time. He either doesn't care enough or he has an impairment to see these issues. Maybe you have that impairment too and therefore refuse my point.
- deleted 9y ago
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santaclaus 9y ago

> aesthetics only matter when trying to sell turds as diamonds When it comes to printed (or any kind of graphical) communication, form and function are very closely tied. The vertical text at 23:15 is (at least to my western eye) super distracting and hard to read, and I have no idea what I should be looking at on the screen.

jasonkostempski 9y ago
Aside from the obviously messed up slides, I think everything there was pretty readable. I think odd layouts might actually help remember the content. When you mention the vertical text slide I can picture it almost perfectly in my head. If it had been just another evenly spaced, clearly typed bullet list among 50 others just like it, I would have a harder time recalling it. However, there is a time and place for aesthetics and that's after the functionality has been clearly established, since he's been giving essentially this same talk for tens of years, he probably could put a bit of time into the slides :)

galacticpony 9y ago

No, I'm not saying that. The context is startups. Design aesthetics matter, always. People care about aesthetics. Do you believe Apple is the highest valued company right now because of superior functionality? If Alan Kay didn't have his credentials, people would dismiss his UI work outright simply based on aesthetics. He's not making "beginner mistakes", he's been at it for a long long time. He either doesn't care enough or he has an impairment to see these issues. Maybe you have that impairment too and therefore refuse my point.

deleted 9y ago
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