Hacker News Reader

Comment by jgruber | Hacker News Reader

That’s like asking for “measurable criteria” for evaluating a movie or novel or song or painting. It’s art. I will offer another quote from Kubrick: “The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.”

If you don’t think apps can be artistic works, it’s no wonder you don’t understand what I’m trying to express.

View on HN

I suppose our fundamental difference is over whether these apps are best compared as tools or as works of art. When I evaluate and compare tools, in addition to cost, I'm looking at things like speed to perform key tasks, ease/speed to navigate the UI, reliability, error rate, user mistake-rate, latency, accuracy, feature discoverability. Does it effectively do what it says on the tin? And are these attributes greater than or less than those of competing tools? These are all things the developer can take as feedback, file as bugs, go back and improve, and re-measure.

If it were a video game or movie, then sure, subjective comparisons of the media content would make more sense. Does the plot make sense? Are the characters likable? But then, it's just one reviewer's opinion vs. another's rather than actionable measures of quality.

I'm looking at the article from the point of view of the developer accepting criticism and wanting to take corrective action. If I released a utility application and a reviewer told me [not your words, but for example] it felt cold and without pizazz, and it didn't zing and pop and it wasn't sleek enough, I wouldn't know what to do to fix this.

> If I released a utility application and a reviewer told me [not your words, but for example] it felt cold and without pizazz, and it didn't zing and pop and it wasn't sleek enough, I wouldn't know what to do to fix this.

The point of the piece is that there are developers that would know what to do with that feedback, and for whatever reason more of those developers develop for iOS than Android.

If you owned a restaurant and got a Yelp review like “the food was great but the ambiance was a turn-off” what would you do?

Yes. Or: “The hammer technically works when it comes to getting nails into walls, but it’s uncomfortable to hold.”

Why should developing the feel of an app be any different than the feel of a game. That’s what good apps are like. It’s like you can play a good app as much as you use it. All good tools and instruments in history have been crafted like this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com