

Have you ever uninstalled an app based on aesthetics? - MRonney


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commieneko
Yes.

Although most often I make initial _choices_ that are based, partly, on
aesthetics.

Poorly organized user interfaces are the chief culprit here. Bad typography is
another non-favorite; especially with apps that present a lot of type that
needs to be read during use.

Since I do a lot of design and development of and with graphics applications,
I'm pretty particular about the appearance of things in general. I had a
drawing application once that did a horrible job of rendering lines,
especially curves. Bunches and knots galore. While the output looked okay at
high enough resolutions, the onscreen display was a real impediment to its
use. And things flickered terribly while moving elements around.

And a certain large graphics application company switched to a dark grey color
scheme for a lot of their apps that's really an affront to my older, squinting
eyes. The fact that their UI's organization went to hell in a hand basket was
just icing on the cake.

The worse use of color that I can think of was a database editor from 25 or so
years ago. I've forgotten the name, but if you got to using it too fast,
changing screens, making large selections, etc., it could induce an epileptic
fit faster than a Pokemon episode played at high speed.

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moxiemk1
Absolutely. The dissonance caused by _re-implimentations_ of standard UI
elements has caused me to uninstall _many_ phone applications, several desktop
applications, and avoid purchasing a few mainstream applications.

If you don't think the stock UI works well for your application, then you
either have special needs, or are wrong. Special needs can be implemented
however you like, since they're by definition not handled with standard
widgets. Re-implementations of standard widgets, however, immediately stand
out to me, and make using an application similar to listening to out-of-tune
musicians.

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matthewlehner
Back in my PC/Windows days (~3 years ago) the aesthetics of all the linux
distros I tried made me uninstall them. Something about the fonts just drove
me crazy and I couldn't handle using them. For me, on an individual app basis,
it really depends on the function. There are apps that look great but all the
chrome makes a horrible UX, generally that is more likely to drive me away.
The aesthetic should be at a certain level, but beyond that it's more about
the UX for me.

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tricolon
This is just about the only thing keeping me from using a Linux distribution
over OS X.

~~~
billpatrianakos
It's funny you mention that because I use both Linux and OS X but not on the
same machine. I feel my Mac is too pretty to sully with as a dual booting
system. I know it's nuts but that's how i am.

I'm one of those who stayed away from Linux for UI (read: ugliness) reasons.
It took me a long time before I became comfortable with it. I finally stumbled
on Crunchbang Limix which gave me all the great things I loved about Debian in
a light system with OpenBox as the window manager. I mention this because my
Linux machine still has an ugly UI but I like it. Why?

I think it's because it embraces its ugliness. It's meant to be light and fast
and is all about function over form. So now my Lonux machine is used almost
exclusively for getting things done. I mean really freaking working hard. I
definitely get things done on my Mac but I use it for pleasure (maybe leisure)
whereas the Limux is For Work Only.

I think a UI can put you in a certain mentality that affects how you work. In
a world where you've got two UI's that both have equally great UX (because the
two don't always exist together) the subjectively prettier UI will probably
lend itself better to play time whereas the "ugly" one will get you more
focused on the task at hand.

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bsphil
I can't speak to "apps" as the current mobile definition (no smartphone), but
I definitely have uninstalled programs with poor interfaces.

Probably the best example for me is mp3 players. I've been using WinAmp for
over a decade now, and love it. It's stylized as a widget which is exactly how
I view a music player - a compact but powerful side tool. At the suggestion of
friends I've made honest attempts at other players like iTunes, WMP (yes),
FooBar2000, but the featureset and style of WinAmp keeps drawing me back in.

Sidenote: Are there any physical mp3 players that offer queuing for songs?
Being able to hand pick the next couple songs and then let the randomizer take
over when they're done is probably the greatest feature ever to me.

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fvryan
Absolutely.

And it goes both ways. I would have never thought I needed an app like Path,
but I gave it a try when they released Path 2.0 purely because I loved the
design. Now it has become one of my most used apps, super easy to keep my GF
and brother/sister updated on the more personal things going on day-to-day.

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whalesalad
All the time. If something is incredibly useful, probably not. If it's not
something I depend on though, I'll get rid of it real quick.

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yakshaving
Yes, but most of time time, I don't install apps in the first place that
aren't aesthetically "adequate" for consuming scarce attention.

If you consider that your time is a scarce resource, why would anyone spend
time using apps that didn't look/feel great? Unless they were objected to for
their job -- but even then, there almost has to be some alternative.

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mrspeaker
Sure, if it does the job then it does the job - but if there are two bits of
software that are pretty much equal then I'll choose the one more pretty!

As an example, I just switched from Colloquy to Lime chat as my IRC client.
Colloquy matched my needs perfectly, but so does Lime... So I switched based
on the UI.

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johndbritton
I recently made the same move, Lime Chat supports full-screen and is much
simpler than Colloquy.

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semisight
Yes. Hell, I've uninstalled apps for their icon, because they weren't useful
to me at the moment and visibly offended me.

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agalmicvinegar
I don't think most people can give you an accurate answer for this -- the
effects of aesthetics on user retention are probably much more subtle.

Example: It's possible that altering the aesthetic of an app in some way will
lead to an x% increase in the rate of uninstallation, yet none of the
uninstallers would point to "aesthetics" as the reason for their
uninstallation or even recognize it as one of the contributing factors.

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unit3
Yes. Especially if you include platform faux-pas in "aesthetics". One of the
worst offenders is when someone makes something "cross platform" while
ignoring all the conventions of all platforms except their primary dev
platform. Generally speaking, those lead to an immediate uninstall, since
they're so awful to do anything with.

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kstenerud
Nope. If it does the job and isn't a pain to use, I don't care how it looks.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Really? Are you sure? I'm surprised. What if you had a choice of installing an
ugly app that gets the job done then learn of another app that gets the job
done just as well but is prettier? Let's say they're both free. You've never
been in that situation?

Personally, I recently switched from one app to another that had less features
than the first solely because of the UI. UI can actually be a feature in
itself. In my case the UI was important enough for me to forego an app with
several extra,museful features that I replaced with other apps in a workflow
instead of an all-in-one package. I'm wondering if many people say they're all
about function over form (especially developers of any kind) because it's
looked at as a superficial reason by peers. Kind of like turning down a girl
for a date because she's on the chubby side despite her amazing personality.
You know you shouldn't be shallow so you gotta make sure you give a good
excuse. Something like "I'm not quite ready to date after my last
relationship" will do just fine as a face-saving reason.

~~~
kstenerud
With girls it's a libido thing; either she turns you on or she doesn't. It's
not the same thing as choosing software.

My only concern with software is how usable it is. If it looks pretty, but I
have to do a whole bunch of operations to get something done, it has a poor UI
and I'll pick an alternative. If it doesn't have the flexibility to do exactly
what I want, I'll look for an alternative (which is why I choose a commander-
style file manager instead of the OS default). If the UI is misaligned or has
some weird color scheme or ugly pictures, I really don't care so long as I can
get things done quickly. I don't care enough to get nit picky about looks when
it comes to software.

It's not about shallowness; it's about priorities.

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proexploit
Aesthetic? I haven't yet although I could see it happening assuming the better
looking app had the same features and I wasn't going to lose anything by
switching over.

UX however, is another story. Many well-designed apps have spent time on their
user experience and it's a component of their design. Many times the "uglier"
apps will have design issues that impair usability, rather than just not look
as beautiful.

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jamescham
I often uninstall apps based on how the UI looks.

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TeMPOraL
I did. More often, I don't install apps that look ugly, and also avoid some
companies and products for things like making aesthetically bad ads, having
crappy webpages, logos, or even stupid-sounding names. It's irrational, but
sometimes I won't use an app/webapp because I just _hate_ how the name sounds.

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baddox
I assume that by "aesthetics" you specifically mean visual beauty. With a more
general definition of "aesthetics," any time you remove an app because you
don't like it would qualify.

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skadamat
Not necessarily an app but I remember signing up for Tagged.com because
everyone was talking highly about it...but man the UI WAS HORRENDOUS so I had
to delete my account.

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damoncali
Yes - I went through several ugly iPad calculator apps before finding one that
wasn't taxing to look at.

But... I still have Illustrator and Photoshop on my mac.

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geoffw8
I'm currently looking for an IRC client, and being a relatively simple app,
I'm making my decision based solely on how it looks!

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carucez
Yes, but only with highly competitive markets, like the 4-function calculator.
_cough_ Think harder...

