
In Defense of Eye Candy - makimaki
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy
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jerryji
Of course, we all know --

    
    
      Beautiful is better than ugly
    

but sometimes people forget --

    
    
      Useful is even better than beautiful

~~~
quoderat
But strangely, so many things in the tech world are ugly and useless. They
often seem to go hand in hand, in fact.

~~~
silentbicycle
They can be useful (capable of doing useful things), but very poor at
communicating their abilities (poorly designed interfaces). Part of the gut
feeling that a design is beautiful comes from it communicating well, not
sending a cluttered or confusing impression. What does the feeling that a
design is ugly tell you?

A lot of programmers spend so much time dealing with problems in the
"plumbing" (functional) level that they neglect interface, so in effect, using
the program is like plugging together wires and hoses in a box full of moving
gears and grease. Unix pipes are _great_ for getting stuff done, but a lot of
people don't want to deal with things at that level.

~~~
wushupork
I don't think it's programmers per se. Companies just don't think of design as
part of the solution package. I've worked at many companies where you have new
web projects and applications and we spend so much time architecting the
solution and implementing it. When it comes to the design, - oh just slap on a
nice stylesheet or have a visual/graphic designer polish it up.

Good design is more than just pretty graphics, but companies don't see it that
way. And more often than not, programmers, who have no visual or usability
training are put in a position where they must come up with a good interface
and interaction design themselves.

For many companies that is the reality.

~~~
silentbicycle
Yes, it's definitely not just programmers, but I'm expecting there are more
programmers reading here than (say) architects or urban planners, who have
their own design dilemmas.

> And more often than not, programmers, who have no visual or usability
> training...

It's not just that; the elements that affect usability _during development,
debugging, etc._ are often completely unrelated to elements affecting
usability for end users, so you get interfaces like this: <http://www.ok-
cancel.com/comic/4.html> That's a great interface for ... figuring out if
endian-ness is affecting a music player. Or something. Certainly not for using
it to play music.

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radley
I believe the point of the article is that usefulness extends beyond the
merely functional. Beautiful isn't cognitive eye candy, but rather a necessary
component of empathy.

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kznewman
I found correlations in this to the process of moving (kicking and screaming)
from a technical to business development role. No user cares (and no user
should care) about the deep underlying "how" something works. They care about
what it does for them, and like the article said good aesthetic design is more
than just beautiful.

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ivankirigin
Studies have shown people find software to be more useful if it is
aesthetically pleasing. Beauty is functional.

