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Comment by dm8 | Hacker News Reader

As a designer, I couldn't agree more. Skeuomorphism can be great if done right. Nowadays visual designers (who are wannabee UX folks) think any sexy texture (leather patterns) can increase usability of an app. Even startup founders think the same. They don't realize design is not the shiny new coat of paint, design is how it works. In fact if your users think "it works fine", it means you've done great job. Your objective is not to hear "wow it has sexy design".

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I've been a software developer for many years and sexy design sells. For good or bad, that's the way it is.

Somewhat agree. Dropbox didn't sell because it had shiny icons for folders or sexy web interface. It sold because it provided immense value and it just worked. Same can be said about Google, YouTube, Microsoft Word etc. None of them had sexy design to start with but they simply worked and provided great value to end-users.

You've picked apps with necessarily minimal interfaces; the only exception being Microsoft Word. Word doesn't need a new UI every other year but it gets one because, without making the UI sexier each year, people don't buy it.

I like this anecdote from Raymond Chen on this subject: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/05/25/14125...

"You've picked apps with necessarily minimal interfaces;"

Necessarily? Have we really forgotten what search engine UIs looked like before Google came along?

From a usability standpoint yes, but there are more to it than that. If a purely aesthetic design choice enhance sales or just tailor to the target customers taste it can it self be seen as providing a function.

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