> 2: People are more tolerant of minor usability issues when the design of a product or service is aesthetically pleasing.
I think this is true for someone’s first interaction with a thing. But if you rely on something, minor usability issues skyrocket in importance, and aesthetic importance drops really fast.
But I've never seen anybody having this as a first reaction to some software. It needs some time to kick in.
It used to take time, but the association has become common enough that it's a red flag right at the start for me. It won't make me not try it out, of course, but it does set a certain expectation in me.
The effect is strongest with websites. I think the correlation between being pretty/shiny and the site being generally worthless is high enough to be roughly predictive.
Of course this also boils down to intent - is the page an art thing where presentation plays a part in the interaction? Cool. But I was on a product page for a home media server that did this and it was painful - I wanted specs, testimonials, information, and I had to scroll through animations and slide-in text and all kinds of stuff to get a grip on the -product-
IMHO it bothers me more because I'm forced to experience it more. It's like the annoyance accumulates. I may care more about UI than the average user though, or maybe I'm just more able to articulate my thoughts about it because of my profession? Not sure.
I know people that have quit jobs, because they were forced to use software that “I could never learn”. (Salesforce) It got in the way of them doing their job.
However, I’ve seen way more people tolerate an outdated or badly styled UI because “it just works for me, ok?”. No one is quitting a job because their CRM is aesthetically unpleasing.
I signed up for a Lemmy instance a while ago, and just stopped using it because the default lemmy web UI adopted 2010s worst trend of making buttons, text areas, and combo boxes all the exact same featureless rounded pill. It’s legitimately difficult to use on a phone. One big pile of pills that do random things.