[thelist] Safari on Windows

Jason Handby jason.handby at corestar.co.uk
Tue Jun 12 14:50:18 CDT 2007


> I think he eloquently makes the single point he wanted to make: Apple
> did the traditional Apple thing (cool first, practical after) and
> Microsoft did the traditional MS thing (practical first, cool after)

I guess you're right; on reading it again I think I was perhaps a little
hard on him.

I suppose my point is that practical vs. cool is a false dichotomy. To
me, cool things are well-designed things; they have a good balance of
form and function. Text that's jaw droppingly beautiful but not
comfortable to read is not cool.

I used to work with a graphic designer, many years ago, who would
produce really beautiful designs that were no good as interfaces. At
all. Buttons that didn't look like buttons, that kind of thing. To me
that's just as bad as things that have all the right buttons but are
really ugly.

IMHO, at one end of the scale there is "looks really nice but is not
practical or usable". I hesitate to call that "cool". At the other
extreme there is "has all the right buttons but is ugly". I hesitate to
describe that as "working".




Jason



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