I'm sorry but I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Yes, there's a difference in features, but my original point was > cartoon figures in

I'm sorry but I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Yes, there's a difference in features, but my original point was > cartoon figures in professional applications (please explain to me how Octocat is different from Clippit) Is Octocat not a cartoon figure? Is Github not a professional application? I'm not aware of any authoritative definition of user experience that excludes "aesthetic grounds" from the field of UX. How an interface looks and the feeling it conveys is a part of the user experience. The UX industry doesn't operate with this distinction -- see e.g. NN Group's oft-quoted definition (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/), which considers aesthetics, and UI design in general a component of UX, or the ISO 9241 definition. A tongue-in-cheek logo is one thing, but a goofy interface, from the ever-present logo to the overall widget design, is way out there in kindergarten land. The comparison between Octocat's use and, say, that of the Rust crab, is itself unwarranted: you can (in fact, I do) write Rust all the time and not see the crab for weeks, whereas that goofy cat critter is literally on every Github page. As for Clippit specifically, while its graphical design was obviously not the primary reason why it was hated, it was definitely one component of it -- in fact, it's one of the reasons why it was specifically considered distracting. Contemporary studies, like Swartz's notorious dissertation about why everyone hated Clippit, obviously focused on the functional aspect, but it's telling that the quantitative framework in use at the time put "fun" and "useful" in separate categories.