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Comment by skratlo | Hacker News Reader

People will never stop complaining about look and feel. It's such a crap, it doesn't matter. How much clothes do you own? Computers are tools to do work and consume information, they don't exist for you to make a statement about your aesthetics opinions.

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It's really nice that you feel that way, but I hope to hell I don't need to use software you designed. "Look and feel" and "Aesthetics" are core components of usable computer software, and consistency is the way you enable users to consistently use your software.

Setting aside the purely utilitarian aspect of being required to use a piece of software to do a task or as part of a job, consistency increases efficiency by reducing the amount of time spent understanding the deviations from expectation in the user interface.

To use your clothing analogy, consider this: what would you think if you bought a button up shirt and the buttons were not spaced equally, they were different sizes and colors, and some were on the right, some on the left. It works just as well as a shirt with standard construction, but it takes longer to put on and maybe it doesn't look very good.

There's been a great deal written about how attractive things work better. It isn't crap and it does matter.

Mad props for extending the analogy to make our point. Nice job!

Now I need to find language to complement someone without it sounding like OO programming style.

HN, may I please have a simple +1 or upvote button? Needs to be usable on my smallish screen too.

perhaps a little bit like http://www.fwrd.com/product-comme-des-garcons-shirt-asymmetr... ? haha

Look and feel is more than just what colour an icon is, it's about how an application flows. Well designed applications enable you to be more productive, they usually also have had someone really think about what the experience should be as well which can help elevate them.

Who'd have thought it? People getting emotional about stuff.

When all software is designed to be consumed by other computers then we can ignore those emotional reactions, for as long as software is consumed by animals it is going to be a vitally important factor.

This alien concept (to many engineers) of beauty is a large part of makes new apps, especially web applications and SaaS startups, win or lose. Good design elements are the norm now, and expected. Gone are the days where someone would accept an ugly piece of solid software as a MVP. If it doesn't visually look as good as others in the ecosystem, your application is toast no matter how good it is otherwise.

Some drive a utility van. Others a custom hotrod.

Most (married) people are spending more time with their computers than their spouses.

Would you marry an ugly woman? An ugly man?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Beauty is created by the conniving artist. It is 'absorbed' by the user. Not necessarily all beautiful things are useful.

Beautiful software, looks good, is intuitive, doesn't complain and complements the user. Hence software is different from art.

It certainly is! That's why I choose software that I think is beautiful.

I may think a terminal window is beautiful - if I do then I will choose a terminal.

What I won't do is purposefully use user-hostile/ugly software on principle - if there is a better choice I will choose the better choice.

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