In Defense of Eye Candy

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofeyecandy

by makimaki • 17 years ago

70 17 17 years ago

jerryji• 17 years ago

Of course, we all know --

  Beautiful is better than ugly

but sometimes people forget --

  Useful is even better than beautiful

quoderat• 17 years ago

But strangely, so many things in the tech world are ugly and useless. They often seem to go hand in hand, in fact.

tvon2• 17 years ago

I don't think it's limited to the tech world, I think the tech world is just where we (the HN demographic) focus our attention.

(that doesn't make your statement any less true, just sayin...)

silentbicycle2• 17 years ago

They can be useful (capable of doing useful things), but very poor at communicating their abilities (poorly designed interfaces). Part of the gut feeling that a design is beautiful comes from it communicating well, not sending a cluttered or confusing impression. What does the feeling that a design is ugly tell you?

A lot of programmers spend so much time dealing with problems in the "plumbing" (functional) level that they neglect interface, so in effect, using the program is like plugging together wires and hoses in a box full of moving gears and grease. Unix pipes are great for getting stuff done, but a lot of people don't want to deal with things at that level.

tvon2• 17 years ago

I'd also like to add that beauty can be useful.

oneplusone2• 17 years ago

This implies that design is a zero sum game where you can have either beautiful or useful. This is not the case and never was.

chime• 17 years ago

It may not be a zero sum game but it is definitely a major issue. Real life has constraints and unless you're one of the very few creative designers who understand beauty and UI very well, you have to decide how much time to spend on making something prettier vs. making something more useful. For most people, these two are not the one and the same thing.

nadim• 17 years ago

The article states that beautiful = useful.

I think that's one of the main points.

wmeredith• 17 years ago

Did you even RTFA? The whole point was that they're inseparable.

kznewman• 17 years ago

I found correlations in this to the process of moving (kicking and screaming) from a technical to business development role. No user cares (and no user should care) about the deep underlying "how" something works. They care about what it does for them, and like the article said good aesthetic design is more than just beautiful.

radley• 17 years ago

I believe the point of the article is that usefulness extends beyond the merely functional. Beautiful isn't cognitive eye candy, but rather a necessary component of empathy.

ivankirigin• 17 years ago

Studies have shown people find software to be more useful if it is aesthetically pleasing. Beauty is functional.

In Defense of Eye Candy

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