4 ms·

> You'll get a competent UI with little effort but nothing truly unique or mind-blowing. 90+% of attempts at making a truly unique or mind-blowing UI produce a

by jjk166 6mo ago

> You'll get a competent UI with little effort but nothing truly unique or mind-blowing. 90+% of attempts at making a truly unique or mind-blowing UI produce a mind-blowingly bad UI. For 0.5 seconds of wow factor, you've added substantial unnecessary friction. Outside of art projects where that wow factor is the point, it really should not be attempted, most certainly not by someone without the appropriate skillset. The old skool artisanal weirdness was not a purposeful stylistic choice, it was a bunch of people trying to do the best they could with crappy tools. There may be some je ne sais quoi which is lost with the shift to mass adoption, but the reason for the mass adoption of these particular design trends was that they were objectively superior.

alberto467 6mo ago
I agree, only the very best designs (and their designers) can nicely mix utility and beauty (or the wow factor, it’s hard to define). And people sometimes overestimate their designs because beauty is subjective, and because all children are beautiful in the eyes of their parent. Also, there’s a reason why the mass adopted plastic, monobloc, stackable chair design is worldwide common and is studied as a cornerstone of design.
- DrewADesign 6mo ago
  The core principles of interface design (even graphic design to a slightly lesser extent) have nothing to do with aesthetics. People, mostly developers, dick around with an interface’s aesthetics until they get something that looks cool… but the design still sucks because they didn’t do the actual design parts— knowing exactly what the design communicates to the user about program state, available actions, etc etc etc just through things like information hierarchy, gestalt, visual patterns, focus through visual composition, and things like that. Things that are well-designed are easy to make look cool because they’re sane, organized, and have subconscious meaning to the user. A good interface designer will spend as much time on aesthetics as a chef spends on plating. It’s a nice bonus, but you can have beautifully plated food that sucks, or horrific-looking food that’s phenomenal. I do the world’s biggest facepalm when I see projects doing things like adding customizable color themes in response to people saying their UX sucks.
debesyla 6mo ago
But friction can be good, because it makes your offer stand out. Like haggling in the local market, or trying to "catch" that successful/awesome person that has limited availability. Friction makes stuff feel valuable. Of course, not absurdly confusing, but just a bit.

by jjk166 6mo ago

alberto467 6mo ago

I agree, only the very best designs (and their designers) can nicely mix utility and beauty (or the wow factor, it’s hard to define). And people sometimes overestimate their designs because beauty is subjective, and because all children are beautiful in the eyes of their parent. Also, there’s a reason why the mass adopted plastic, monobloc, stackable chair design is worldwide common and is studied as a cornerstone of design.

DrewADesign 6mo ago
The core principles of interface design (even graphic design to a slightly lesser extent) have nothing to do with aesthetics. People, mostly developers, dick around with an interface’s aesthetics until they get something that looks cool… but the design still sucks because they didn’t do the actual design parts— knowing exactly what the design communicates to the user about program state, available actions, etc etc etc just through things like information hierarchy, gestalt, visual patterns, focus through visual composition, and things like that. Things that are well-designed are easy to make look cool because they’re sane, organized, and have subconscious meaning to the user. A good interface designer will spend as much time on aesthetics as a chef spends on plating. It’s a nice bonus, but you can have beautifully plated food that sucks, or horrific-looking food that’s phenomenal. I do the world’s biggest facepalm when I see projects doing things like adding customizable color themes in response to people saying their UX sucks.

debesyla 6mo ago

But friction can be good, because it makes your offer stand out. Like haggling in the local market, or trying to "catch" that successful/awesome person that has limited availability. Friction makes stuff feel valuable. Of course, not absurdly confusing, but just a bit.