Why uglier the better?

Why uglier the better?

It’s a tiny chip from my busy UI work station.

Telecom rocks everywhere, especially when it's wireless. True, it's a hot segment. Life is barren minus communication. Pardon granted to network jamming in Bangalore. With a new brand guidelines, international presence over wireless -knowledge transfer, ultra catchy UI specifications I started my new tenure. Days are yummy with aah! like coffees, toffees, ultra thin LCD's, tightly scheduled meetings, compact neo designed cubicles, hot & sour fms, flexi hours, music flowing into earphones...

I'm delegated to understand, overhaul, redesign, refurbish, uplift the GUI of one of the successful application.I built a fair idea about the app from usability perspective. I pinged my architect to fathom the ratio of demographic application usage & web usage stats. His reply was simply astonishing. It's one of the most widely used application & is buzzing global wireless circuits in a macro sense. I was much keen on product user count, though it has less impact on my cubicle informtion architecturing & laboring !

Reason was simple. It looks like a legacy design with a marginal effort on styling & presentation. It resembles 3.1 window interface in a neo era of dynamic applications. It seems technology arrived prior to design in choked interface, aborted usability, hard coded xhtml & forbidden CSS ! Obviously, It was designed way back in '97, where UI designing has less prominence over functionality. Till date only functional updates are upfront. As a result usability & accessibility lacks to the core. But in P/L margins it's a best- of-the-breed in the par-applications segment. It's packed with tight application framework and vested with powerful technology available around.

Interestingly, it's built by one of the finest software firms of India, which is accountable for Silk Board traffic choking every morning in Bangalore !

In placid words, it's nothing new. It's a common phenomenon that applications very frequently undergo re-skining. Instantly, the query birthed like a tiny bug inside me and started nagging in 24/7 ishtyle*.

Why ? even the saddest looking applications do better business contrary to impressive ones. Why uglier the better? Why users hardly raise a flag against interface-less apps. What matters a most? The so-called 'Goodwill' factor Or the intelligent brand strategy? Comprimising nature for a good service or a strategic marketing of the company? Lack of know-how on clean UI or not bothering about it at-all? Why Slashdot rocks? Is it because of content or speed ? What matters most ?

Today, all these doubts're resolved with this nicety blog of Aaron. It's a must read simple post if you're using Gmail & Microsoft etc & STILL have queries about the sloppy interfaces.

* style, manner, in a way.