It used to be pretty natural for me to use this in product announcements (along with other catchy words: 'innovative', 'game-changing', 'amazing', etc...). "Why not, I think it's beautiful, so will everybody else!!"

My manager taught me that it was far, far better for my users to discover the beauty themselves. "Under promise, over deliver." Let the user get excited about the functionality - the most beautiful or easy to use products don't need to list 'beauty' as a feature.

To the point where it's becoming nearly meaningless...

Gone are the days of "It just works!" because, well, people expect that it will just work. All the major platforms, at their core, all work the same and all just work. The visual appearance is the differentiation now.

I want more specific honesty in these announcements. Example: "Volvo — they're boxy but they're good."

They learned from the master.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZS8HqOGTbA Apple Keynote by Steve Jobs in 180 sec.

Today we are here to announce our new feature, it's called "Beautiful". Beautiful is the most...crap guys we didn't think through the naming of this feature very well.

It is also all about "You" and stories, life, friends, etc.

Because it's BEAUTIFUL, duh, Captain Obvious!

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