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> Design is how it works, not how it looks. After over a decade of people jumping into these discussions with this line, I’ve gotta push back: Design is also h

> Design is how it works, not how it looks. After over a decade of people jumping into these discussions with this line, I’ve gotta push back: Design is also how things look, and how things look can be important. Consumers care about how things look. If we dismiss presentation and drive people towards UX stuff every time it comes up, then the people we talk to are going to end up having good ideas that no one buys because the packaging is a mess. Yes: If you have a pretty modal but it can’t be dismissed by clicking outside of it, that’s Bad Design. But when you’ve hammered in all those errant nails and built something that works well, often you look at it and go “I wish it weren’t so ugly”. And we do need books/resources to give people the building blocks they need to make an app that people will agree is “basically good-looking”. (And then hopefully more advanced books/resources about particular styles so people can develop their own stylistic voice)

threatofrain 4y ago
I'd also note that despite Jakob Nielsen's prominence nobody designs like he suggests. We should be open to the idea that beauty and delight may be more important than usability or features.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > We should be open to the idea that beauty and delight may be more important than usability or features. Oh, please no. We already have more than enough of that line of thinking. In software, especially, we see far too much pretty stuff that is horrendous to actually use. I'll take the ugly thing that makes my life easier over the pretty thing that does the opposite every single time.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Respectfully, fuck that. Beauty matters the first time you use it, whereas functionality matters every single time. Or, in business terms, beauty has terrible ROI.
  - HelloNurse 4y ago
    It depends. For typical software and websites, beauty matters every single time: when you like something more and more and more every time you use it, to the point of increasing usage, recommending it, spending money and so on; and when you hate something so much that functionality is effectively reduced by avoidance, distraction, fatigue, rage quitting etc.
  - pedalpete 4y ago
    Where do you get the idea beauty has terrible ROI? Look at almost any premium product and the premium that is being paid for is in the beauty. Rarely is it in the actual quality of the product.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      In B2C aesthetics are important. In B2B it's usually ease and speed of operation that's more important
      - jbigelow76 4y ago
        In B2B it's usually ease and speed of operation that's more important SAP (everything), Workday (HR), Service Now (help desk), Archer (compliance), SailPoint (compliance), and other applications that have been inflicted on my miserable existence over the last 25 years of corporate IT; all B2B enterprise applications that I guarantee did not consider either speed or ease of use to be remotely important.
        paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Your pain only proves my point. You know it is supposed to be better, regardless of how it looks. There are outliers who neglect the end users, usually because they are too big or well connected to be replaced.
        jbigelow76 4y ago
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  It was a long time I looked in that book but I hated it. Not because it was ugly, I like ugly. But the advice didn’t make sense. It’s been years sincy I thought of Nielsen, maybe I should give at a peek again.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- masfuerte 4y ago
  How long is it since any vendor cared about usability and features? HCI is dead. The only thing that matters now is UX: optimising the software to maximise sales. And you're right. Beauty sells. But this is not an insight. It's been standard practice for years. And as an end user it sucks.
  - uxcolumbo 4y ago
    > UX: optimising the software to maximise sales That’s not the definition of UX. UX is multi disciplinary, an umbrella term for many things, eg design research, IA, HCI, UI Design, …
- sizzle 4y ago
  This is the first time I’ve seen someone on HN argue against usability in favor of aesthetics the form vs function design debate. There is so much to say on the topic, books have been written arguing at length even. I would never argue for worse UX if I had a choice, there should be a baseline “good” visual design, but poor UX can and will sink your product in most metrics that matter in the business world.
lambdasquirrel 4y ago
People tend to take care of things that are both well put together and beautiful.
- epolanski 4y ago
  I think this era of thinking is over. People judge apps by how they look more than how they work. If it looks professional and good looking they give it more credit and chances than it deserves. If UX is good but looks are not airbnb/apple wannabe they tend to distrust it.
  - goodlinks 4y ago
    I hold out hope that when the tool is in a market that delivers actual value functionality and usability still tend to win out. I think that a lot of software is inherently low (or even negative) value and thats why shiny wins. Could easily be dreaming tho
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      There is a market for good things anyways, but not sure how niche. I’m on your team tho
gregbander 4y ago
Design like most words has a definition that’s generic so it can be applied as needed. There is no immutable rule when to use it. The cone of shame my dog has right now “looks cool”; very sleek and streamline for a disposable thing, the designer surely was paid a premium, but the fasteners mechanics were poorly designed; vet tech said even she struggles with them and she puts them on dogs all week. Design is how it looks and works as “designers” come up with both. The whole idea we can just put our foot down regarding definitions is not at all how reality works since nothing works on divine mandate. It’s relative.
- pazimzadeh 4y ago
  "We talk about design often. At some point during any human lifetime, they will use the word design, and that's a big deal. Aside from 'the' and the 'a' and the 'an' in various languages, design is the fourth most popular word used. Before design was constructed we had the Mesopotamian era, and we all know how that was." -Reggie Watts, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABm7DuBwJd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABm7DuBwJd8
adventured 4y ago
More specifically there can be no separation between how something looks and how it works, they're bonded (and for good reason). There is no scenario where you can actually fully break the two apart. Any attempt to try harms one side or the other or both sides. How it works and how it looks go in tandem in all cases, they heavily influence eachother, either making the whole better or worse depending on how you go about creating for that reality. Anybody telling you different is arguing from a pretty severe bias. If you're designing on the basis of how something works, and not also on how it looks at the same time, you're going to create a subpar outcome.
tshaddox 4y ago
> > Design is how it works, not how it looks. > I’ve gotta push back: Design is also how things look To synthesize these two comments: How it looks is a huge part of how it works.
- TuringTest 4y ago
  There's even a name for that effect: Emotional Design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_Design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_Design
1letterunixname 4y ago
Form and function. The intersection is the qualitative property of subjective taste, an intelligence quality of designers who must balance engineering with art.
somat 4y ago
Conversely, A lot of time something looks good "because" it works well. I had one old structural engineer spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that beautiful bridges were stronger than than ugly bridges. because our ideas of beauty are so tied to what works well. I am not entirely convinced, I have seen the sins some of these so called designers do in the name of "looking good" but I do see his point.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  Even beautiful bridges shouldn't be trusted too much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi
- sbuk 4y ago
  I’d argue that the elegance of a design solution—engineers design things—is what the structural engineer was referring to. The next question is what is elegance in regards to a solution to a problem? Simplicity? Economy, both financial and technical? Aesthetic? The difficulty we have is that few people agree. When I studied industrial design in the early nineties, we were taught that design is merely the process of solving a problem. In fact, when dissecting a brief, the first goal is to establish the problem that needs solving is. The aim of a designer (or indeed an engineer) should be to incorporate all three elements that I mentioned. Sadly, those that struggle with the aesthetic, dismiss it’s importance out of hand.
- thisOtterBeGood 4y ago
  Many people (including me mostly) don't understand why their eyes feel something as "good-looking" or "beauty". It boils down to symmetry being a big part of it, and sometimes symmetry creates working solution. A bridge being the perfect example for that since you need to balance the weight between both sides of the bridge it's easy to get this while also "looking good". But I believe symmetry is not the only thing our brain accounts to beauty. I would love to know more about that topic.
beezlewax 4y ago
I've worked as both a designer and developer and for the life of me I can't help but gravitate towards prettier looking applications even at times over more functional ugly ones. It's a contradiction to what I "should" want as a developer and I'm very aware of this.

threatofrain 4y ago

I'd also note that despite Jakob Nielsen's prominence nobody designs like he suggests. We should be open to the idea that beauty and delight may be more important than usability or features.

JohnFen 4y ago
> We should be open to the idea that beauty and delight may be more important than usability or features. Oh, please no. We already have more than enough of that line of thinking. In software, especially, we see far too much pretty stuff that is horrendous to actually use. I'll take the ugly thing that makes my life easier over the pretty thing that does the opposite every single time.
falcolas 4y ago
Respectfully, fuck that. Beauty matters the first time you use it, whereas functionality matters every single time. Or, in business terms, beauty has terrible ROI.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  It depends. For typical software and websites, beauty matters every single time: when you like something more and more and more every time you use it, to the point of increasing usage, recommending it, spending money and so on; and when you hate something so much that functionality is effectively reduced by avoidance, distraction, fatigue, rage quitting etc.
- pedalpete 4y ago
  Where do you get the idea beauty has terrible ROI? Look at almost any premium product and the premium that is being paid for is in the beauty. Rarely is it in the actual quality of the product.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    In B2C aesthetics are important. In B2B it's usually ease and speed of operation that's more important
    - jbigelow76 4y ago
      In B2B it's usually ease and speed of operation that's more important SAP (everything), Workday (HR), Service Now (help desk), Archer (compliance), SailPoint (compliance), and other applications that have been inflicted on my miserable existence over the last 25 years of corporate IT; all B2B enterprise applications that I guarantee did not consider either speed or ease of use to be remotely important.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Your pain only proves my point. You know it is supposed to be better, regardless of how it looks. There are outliers who neglect the end users, usually because they are too big or well connected to be replaced.
        jbigelow76 4y ago
actionfromafar 4y ago
It was a long time I looked in that book but I hated it. Not because it was ugly, I like ugly. But the advice didn’t make sense. It’s been years sincy I thought of Nielsen, maybe I should give at a peek again.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
masfuerte 4y ago
How long is it since any vendor cared about usability and features? HCI is dead. The only thing that matters now is UX: optimising the software to maximise sales. And you're right. Beauty sells. But this is not an insight. It's been standard practice for years. And as an end user it sucks.
- uxcolumbo 4y ago
  > UX: optimising the software to maximise sales That’s not the definition of UX. UX is multi disciplinary, an umbrella term for many things, eg design research, IA, HCI, UI Design, …
sizzle 4y ago
This is the first time I’ve seen someone on HN argue against usability in favor of aesthetics the form vs function design debate. There is so much to say on the topic, books have been written arguing at length even. I would never argue for worse UX if I had a choice, there should be a baseline “good” visual design, but poor UX can and will sink your product in most metrics that matter in the business world.

lambdasquirrel 4y ago

People tend to take care of things that are both well put together and beautiful.

epolanski 4y ago
I think this era of thinking is over. People judge apps by how they look more than how they work. If it looks professional and good looking they give it more credit and chances than it deserves. If UX is good but looks are not airbnb/apple wannabe they tend to distrust it.
- goodlinks 4y ago
  I hold out hope that when the tool is in a market that delivers actual value functionality and usability still tend to win out. I think that a lot of software is inherently low (or even negative) value and thats why shiny wins. Could easily be dreaming tho
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    There is a market for good things anyways, but not sure how niche. I’m on your team tho

gregbander 4y ago

Design like most words has a definition that’s generic so it can be applied as needed. There is no immutable rule when to use it. The cone of shame my dog has right now “looks cool”; very sleek and streamline for a disposable thing, the designer surely was paid a premium, but the fasteners mechanics were poorly designed; vet tech said even she struggles with them and she puts them on dogs all week. Design is how it looks and works as “designers” come up with both. The whole idea we can just put our foot down regarding definitions is not at all how reality works since nothing works on divine mandate. It’s relative.

pazimzadeh 4y ago
"We talk about design often. At some point during any human lifetime, they will use the word design, and that's a big deal. Aside from 'the' and the 'a' and the 'an' in various languages, design is the fourth most popular word used. Before design was constructed we had the Mesopotamian era, and we all know how that was." -Reggie Watts, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABm7DuBwJd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABm7DuBwJd8

adventured 4y ago

More specifically there can be no separation between how something looks and how it works, they're bonded (and for good reason). There is no scenario where you can actually fully break the two apart. Any attempt to try harms one side or the other or both sides. How it works and how it looks go in tandem in all cases, they heavily influence eachother, either making the whole better or worse depending on how you go about creating for that reality. Anybody telling you different is arguing from a pretty severe bias. If you're designing on the basis of how something works, and not also on how it looks at the same time, you're going to create a subpar outcome.

tshaddox 4y ago

> > Design is how it works, not how it looks. > I’ve gotta push back: Design is also how things look To synthesize these two comments: How it looks is a huge part of how it works.

TuringTest 4y ago
There's even a name for that effect: Emotional Design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_Design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_Design

1letterunixname 4y ago

Form and function. The intersection is the qualitative property of subjective taste, an intelligence quality of designers who must balance engineering with art.

somat 4y ago

Conversely, A lot of time something looks good "because" it works well. I had one old structural engineer spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that beautiful bridges were stronger than than ugly bridges. because our ideas of beauty are so tied to what works well. I am not entirely convinced, I have seen the sins some of these so called designers do in the name of "looking good" but I do see his point.

HelloNurse 4y ago
Even beautiful bridges shouldn't be trusted too much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi
sbuk 4y ago
I’d argue that the elegance of a design solution—engineers design things—is what the structural engineer was referring to. The next question is what is elegance in regards to a solution to a problem? Simplicity? Economy, both financial and technical? Aesthetic? The difficulty we have is that few people agree. When I studied industrial design in the early nineties, we were taught that design is merely the process of solving a problem. In fact, when dissecting a brief, the first goal is to establish the problem that needs solving is. The aim of a designer (or indeed an engineer) should be to incorporate all three elements that I mentioned. Sadly, those that struggle with the aesthetic, dismiss it’s importance out of hand.
thisOtterBeGood 4y ago
Many people (including me mostly) don't understand why their eyes feel something as "good-looking" or "beauty". It boils down to symmetry being a big part of it, and sometimes symmetry creates working solution. A bridge being the perfect example for that since you need to balance the weight between both sides of the bridge it's easy to get this while also "looking good". But I believe symmetry is not the only thing our brain accounts to beauty. I would love to know more about that topic.

beezlewax 4y ago

I've worked as both a designer and developer and for the life of me I can't help but gravitate towards prettier looking applications even at times over more functional ugly ones. It's a contradiction to what I "should" want as a developer and I'm very aware of this.