What is "ugly" software?

Posted by Paul Korm
Jul 11, 2018 at 07:52 PM

I see comments here and there in this forum and—sometimes mild, sometimes very stern—in the vein “this software is so ugly I cannot / refuse / have a hard time using it”.

I’m a sucker for nice looking design anytime—Agenda is my current swoon—but is interface really all that important? I enjoy using Mathematica—which has almost zero design sense. I’m ok with Tinderbox because I know where it came from and what the developer’s challenges have been over time. The only software I find myself rejecting is software that turns out not to do anything useful, or does something poorly that should be useful. The operative word is “does” or “does not”, not “looks like”.

Obviously a question of preference with no possible basis in fact, but the question is: can design really be everything? If software doesn’t have a pretty face is that a permanent thumbs down?