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I wish more businesses would treat beauty as a function of a product just like all other “actual” functions of it, a valid part of the whole package. I know it

I wish more businesses would treat beauty as a function of a product just like all other “actual” functions of it, a valid part of the whole package. I know it won’t probably happen anytime soon, because “ROI when???”, just been thinking about it a lot after reading Beauty by Sagmeister and Walsh.

falcolas 4y ago
How much of a premium are you, as a customer, willing to pay for the beauty? How much functionality will you give up for the shinies?
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  If you've visited factories or other work places dominated by men, many of them go by the philosophy of zero attendance to neatness and cleanliness. Those are miserable places to work and even visit. Everybody working there are usually grumpy and miserable, including the boss. Working all day in ugly software is like a mini version of this. I don't think anybody considers beautiful software ad a premium, more that ugly software will not be considered at all because it can't be trusted.
- j_crick 4y ago
  These are two separate questions. > How much of a premium are you, as a customer, willing to pay for the beauty? Depends on the category of goods, but if I can afford it then I will probably choose something aesthetically pleasing to me most of the time. I can easily get by with an ugly screwdriver if it works well, but I would not like wearing bad-looking shoes. Generally if I use something often, be it tools, clothes, guitars, utensils and whatnot, I try to find something appealing to my eye. Some people seemingly don’t care much about that, but it just so happens that I do. Paying a premium for the beauty relieves me from being very irritated about something I might not like. Also, in my opinion, aesthetics, ergonomics and beauty sometimes all are side products of working hard on one of them. Beauty in tools and architecture and interfaces is not to be discarded since it makes our life more pleasing and tolerable. We could live in the holes in the ground, you know, if pure application of things to their intended purpose was all that mattered to us. > How much functionality will you give up for the shinies? I’m not sure something has to be given up at all, that’s the point.

falcolas 4y ago

How much of a premium are you, as a customer, willing to pay for the beauty? How much functionality will you give up for the shinies?

carlosjobim 4y ago
If you've visited factories or other work places dominated by men, many of them go by the philosophy of zero attendance to neatness and cleanliness. Those are miserable places to work and even visit. Everybody working there are usually grumpy and miserable, including the boss. Working all day in ugly software is like a mini version of this. I don't think anybody considers beautiful software ad a premium, more that ugly software will not be considered at all because it can't be trusted.
j_crick 4y ago
These are two separate questions. > How much of a premium are you, as a customer, willing to pay for the beauty? Depends on the category of goods, but if I can afford it then I will probably choose something aesthetically pleasing to me most of the time. I can easily get by with an ugly screwdriver if it works well, but I would not like wearing bad-looking shoes. Generally if I use something often, be it tools, clothes, guitars, utensils and whatnot, I try to find something appealing to my eye. Some people seemingly don’t care much about that, but it just so happens that I do. Paying a premium for the beauty relieves me from being very irritated about something I might not like. Also, in my opinion, aesthetics, ergonomics and beauty sometimes all are side products of working hard on one of them. Beauty in tools and architecture and interfaces is not to be discarded since it makes our life more pleasing and tolerable. We could live in the holes in the ground, you know, if pure application of things to their intended purpose was all that mattered to us. > How much functionality will you give up for the shinies? I’m not sure something has to be given up at all, that’s the point.