"Don't spend any time on making it look good...it's only for internal use. All it has to do is work right."

I'm wondering how many times we've heard that statement from customers. I can't tell you the exact number but I can tell you it is a lot.

Every time somebody tells us they don't care how their application looks, we laugh. Not a mean laugh--it's a nice laugh--but we laugh nonetheless. That's because (a) we know they're lying and (b) we know we're going to make it look good, anyway.

Mind you, they don't mean to be lying--more often than not they're just trying to save a little money--but the truth is, it's not the truth. Not even close. They do care how it looks, even if they haven't quite admitted it to themselves yet.

Fortunately (for them), building ugly applications is something we're not willing to do. Blame me for that, if you like, but, personally, I can't stand to even work on an ugly application, let alone use it. I certainly don't want to stick any of our customers with one, even if they have, for all intents and purposes, asked for it.

Why not? For a lot of reasons, the most important of which is I know that, at some level, design matters to pretty much everybody.

"Not to me," you say. "Function matters a lot more than design. Design is just a nice-to-have." Uh huh. Yeah. I hear what you're saying but I don't believe you. Design is integral to everything we do and everywhere we go, every day of the year. Like it or not, you see and touch and use great (and terrible) design work all the time, and somewhere inside that function-is-all-that-matters head of yours, you not only know the difference, you care about it, too, a least a little bit.

An example? Sure...

Consider the two beverages shown above. Let's assume they have exactly the same beer on the inside and that the cost per ounce is identical. So, same beer, same price. The only difference is the printing on the cans. Which would you rather buy? Which would you rather drink? Which would you rather serve to friends?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you didn't choose the beer on the left.

But maybe that's not quite fair. Let's leave your friends and all that peer pressure out of it for the moment. Let's even change the price a little. This is just beer for internal consumption among the members of the household. Nothin' fancy. Your friends and outsiders won't have to see it and the good news is the one on the left is now a penny an ounce cheaper. Still the same stuff inside the can but with the plain one you can save more than two bucks a case. I'm sure you'd be OK with the one on the left now, wouldn't you?

After all, it's the same beer, but cheaper. Clearly, the smarter buy. And, it's just for the "employees" of the house, anyway. Surely they won't care.

Or will they?

What if you did it another way?

So now your buddies are over to watch the big game. "Who wants a beer?," you yell from the kitchen, and everybody accepts. "I've got Boddington's. Anybody care what can it's in?," you ask again.

"As long as it's cold...," they tell you. They don't care. It's all about function, baby.

So, you bring each of the guys one of the plain-looking beers, but bring one of the pretty ones for yourself. How's that going to go over? I mean, c'mon. It's the same beer. Same flavor, same temperature. The only difference is the can, which they're going to thow out anyway. They won't care about that...will they?

Yeah, right. Of course they're going to care. Is it logical? No. Is there any functional advantage? None.

But they're going to care anyway. I'm betting the first guy to go and get himself a refill gets one of the pretty ones and starts working on a strategy for him to keep drinking the pretty ones while sticking the other poor schmucks with the plain ones.

So, maybe function is not everything.

Or what about the cars below? You can have either one to use for as long as you like. You can't sell it (that would skew the decision), but you can have it. So, which will it be?

Now wait...before you just jump for the first pretty face you see I should point out that the AMC Pacer, on the left, has rear seats, excellent visibility, and a great deal of cargo room. By comparison, the Alfa 8C on the right seats only two, has limited visibility, is expensive to fix and--because its engine is much too large for the car--gets terrible gas mileage.

The Alfa would be worse on less-than-perfect roads, would scrape on the way into even moderately-steep driveways, and would be hard to parallel park. You'd have a hell of a time getting a set of golf clubs in it and the carbon-fiber body would be prohibitively-expensive to fix.

By comparison, you'll never have to worry about getting the Pacer scratched or dinged in parking garages, you'll not find yourself constantly cleaning off the fingerprints of adoring teenage boys, and you'll be able to insure it for a fraction of the cost.

The decision here is pretty easy. Surely your hand is up for the much more practical Pacer, right?

How about an easier decision?

The photos below are both of the same woman. Same woman. Choose the version you'd rather go out with:

Um. Yeah.

So let's just agree that looks do matter, whether we want them to or not. It matters in beer cans and cars and chicks, so what makes you think the same thing is somehow magically not true in the applications you build?

Yes, of course it's easier to build a butt-ugly application. Heck yeah, anybody can do that, as they have proven over and over again. And, no, if you ask your client/boss/supervisor if they want to pay to make their application prettier, they aren't likely to say "sure!"

Just like it doesn't matter what kind of can the beer is in. That's completely irrelevant, it's all about the beer...until you see the other choices.

How you make your applications look has everything to do with users' acceptance of those applications. The better your apps look the better people will like using them. You don't think so? Explain the raging success of the iPod then. It's good technology, certainly, but it's not spectacular technology. And yet it has pretty much crushed the competition.

Why? Because it looks good and it feels good. It's simple. It's easy to use. There's an easy way to get more music on it for a reasonable price.

The iPod didn't change the world because it is so much better at any one thing. It changed the world because its design was so compelling that all those idiots back at your office who you say don't know or care anything about design had to have it because it was beautiful and made them happy just to hold it in their hands.

When your boss/client/supervisor says he/she doesn't care how the application you're builiding looks, keep in mind that (a) he/she is probably lying and (b) his/her boss/client/supervisor may very much care about how it looks. And, when he/she asks your boss/client/supervisor why the thing looks so terribly awful, your boss/client/supervisor is not going to say, "Oh, I said it was OK if it looked like shit."

No, my friend, the two of them are going to turn and look down the finger of your boss/client/supervisor which is pointed at you.

In this world of toughened economics, there's always somebody wanting your job. The better you make your applications look, the better people are going to think they work and, in turn, the better a job they'll think you're doing. Humans think ugly people are dumber than attractive ones. It's not actually true but they think it anyway. You think they're any smarter about software?

The world is filled with managers who think Notes is an old, dumb, inferior technology. That that opinion--like the notion that less-attractive people are not as smart as prettier ones--is not actually true is pretty much unimportant to the conversation. Reality isn't reality, perception is reality. You know why they think Notes sucks? It's because every Notes app they see looks like crap.

Looks like crap = must be crap.

We're giving the enemy the ammunition they need to destroy us. Don't looks so surprised when they try.

Go back to your office and spend some time prettying up the application you're working on. It will be good for you. Honest.

1. David Schaffer08/25/2009 04:58:07 PM
Homepage: http://bloginprogress.us

Scott: It's a cute way to make your point but let's not confuse good design -- ease of navigation, consistency, intuitive interface, easy to view at all resolutions and lighting conditions -- with pretty. In the latter category I would include rounded corners, elaborate color schemes, 3D buttons. Those do indeed make an application look good. But, in most cases, they don't help make it easy and comfortable to use. They're great to have -- but not at the expense of good design and function. I've had folks on the business side who seem unable to evaluate something because the demo lacks the pretty features even if it has all the functionality they've asked for. But they'll buy an app from a pretty mockup with no idea of what it will do. I don't get it; but then I would probably choose the Pacer.

David

2. Scott Good08/25/2009 05:11:12 PM
Homepage: http://www.scottgood.com

David,

You're right. Well, not about the Pacer--that's just a butt-ugly car--but otherwise I agree with what you're saying. I don't particularly care about rounded corners or elaborate color schemes. A quick look at the Apple web site shows the value of clean and simple.

What matters more are mostly little things. Simple colors. Things that align. Consistent fonts. These things are easy...EASY...and yet they are almost always wrong.

What also matters is how the page is arranged. Just because the paper version of the form is in a particular order doesn't mean it makes sense. You shouldn't approach the project with blinders on...you have to actually think some about how it's really going to be used.

Everything you opened with are, I completely agree, critically important: ease of navigation, consistency, intuitive interface, and so on. That's what we need to be doing but, from what I've seen--which is a lot of apps built by other people over the last 16 years--is not what we are doing for the most part.

When you say, "...they'll buy an app from a pretty mockup with no idea of what it will do...," you're right. And that's pretty much what I'm talking about. If we want our applications to be treated seriously, we have to make them look like serious applications.

Not flashy thingies and bouncing balls, but simple, clean, well-thought-out, easy-to-use and attractive software applications. And, the thing is, it's not even all that hard to do.

Scott

3. Andrew Pollack08/25/2009 10:48:05 PM
Homepage: http://www.thenorth.com/apblog

You make a great point here -- though I'm not always comfortable pointing my finger at ugly. Always seemed a bit of a glass house problem.

4. Devin Olson08/26/2009 04:54:54 PM
Homepage: http://www.devinolson.net

Excellent post Scott.

However, I think your choices of cars for comparison is hardly fair, and doesn't properly illustrate your point. A 1978 AMC Pacer and a 2007 Alpha 8c are worlds apart -comparing the two goes way beyond appearances. You pointed out the differences between the two, but I think you would have been better served comparing two vehicles in the same (or similar) class.

For example, a 2009 Toyota Yaris http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200808/2009-toyota-yaris-pr_460x0w.jpg vs. a 2009 Mini S http://www.ridelust.com/wp-content/uploads/921-500x376.jpg

The two vehicles are small, light, economical, and handle well. Both are supposedly* fun to drive. They have similar cargo and passenger capabilities. Both are well engineered and should (with appropriate maintenance) a long time.

However, one of them costs thousands more than the other.
One of them is a thing of beauty, a sculpture of metal, glass, leather, and plastic, a true work of art. The other is the most breathtakingly ugly vehicle ever to spring forth from the tormented nightmares of the world's worst designer -orders of magnitude uglier than even the Pacer you pictured.

If looks didn't matter, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever to even consider the woefully expensive Mini. But they are selling like hotcakes -dealers can't keep them in the showroom for more than a couple of days. Why? Because looks matter.

5. Devin Olson08/26/2009 04:57:24 PM
Homepage: http://www.devinolson.net

*supposedly - I know for a fact that Mini's are an absolute blast to drive. I will never know about a Yaris, because (unless I'm dead) I will never ride in one.

6. Vitor Pereira08/26/2009 06:18:22 PM
Homepage: http://www.vitor-pereira.com

Great post Scott!

@Devin - What is it with you and the Yaris? Are you on a crusade or something? You should start a IHateYaris site.

7. Scott Good08/27/2009 07:21:10 AM
Homepage: http://www.scottgood.com

@Devin, yeah, I agree the two cars I picked aren't terribly comparable. I started down that road until my head caught fire trying to think of something unbearably--and unquestionably--ugly and something everyone might agree was beautiful. Mine are worlds apart in many ways.

I skipped the Yaris because I can see how it could have an attraction to some. And, yeah, the Mini is a blast to drive.

@Vitor...thanks!