Good point! Aesthetics is really powerful and its effect on people's emotions is instantaneous. Therefore the need to use it as an integral component of the design (IMHO).
I would like to argue that there is an important emotional charge coming from usability too. Perhaps in a much slower fashion but as equally critical. And that a potential mismatch of these two forces can ultimately jeopardize the wow effect even if aesthetics helps make the users more tolerant to other design issues. I have seen marketing people bossing designers into improving the look-and-feel aspect of a "broken" product to promote it out of Beta or justify changes on pricing. That's the traditional "lipstick on the pig" approach that encourages a misuse of aesthetics. My fear is that aesthetics-over-usability could be interpreted by others in that fashion, even though I know that's not what it means to you. Usually the contention has its origin in the lack of proper planning or one-sided vision from other departments, stakeholders or customers. I try to address that early enough to make sure time is fairly allocated to address usability and aesthetics as a whole and in an iterative approach, allowing for gradual and integral improvements over time. This is one of those rare situations where I become a bit draconian; nowadays, I opt to not compromise one over the other (and I get in trouble from time to time because of that). I would abide to your first principle here (holism over centrism) ;) Gilberto p.s.: I celebrate Norman's approach on this subject; I'm just trying to find a middle ground. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 2:00 AM, dave malouf <dave....@gmail.com> wrote: > Gilberto, I totally agree w/ your take that aesthetics can lead to > usability and even the opposite, that usability can lead to > aesthetics. > > Jared, it isn't absolutely a dichotomy and maybe, I'm using the > wrong terms. > > While I agree that a beautiful interface that doesn't work (in some > ways) may become ugly, but I also agree with Norman's assertion that > something emotionally appealing can basically make up for its lack of > usability. Beauty and the positive emotional impact associated with > that creates a pain threshold that I'm not sure I have observed the > other way around. I have really seen a "usable" product really make > me feel more engaged. > > For clarification and for the purposes of my post and I'd like to > suggest for this thread I am speaking usability quite narrowly > possibly. I'm considering usability the quality of a product related > to the efficiency and rate of success towards completing a desired > activity. Basically, whether a user can or with what level of > consistency and efficiency they can complete an intended task in the > product design. > > So again, I do think that I would if the 2 areas became in contention > and I have many experiences where they have, learn towards the > aesthetic over the purely usable b/c aesthetics can be used to engage > in ways that pure usability does not seem to in my experience. > > -- dave > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45640 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
