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April 01, 2004
Usability is not cheap
Hot damn - John Gruber hits the nail on the head:
Most programmers don’t have any aptitude for UI design whatsoever. It’s an art, and like any art, it requires innate ability. You can learn to be a better writer. You can learn to be a better illustrator. But most people can’t write and can’t draw, and no amount of practice or education is going to make them good at it. Improved, yes; good, no.
It’s part of a longer rant decrying the attitude that UI is something you can graft on at the end of a gearhead project, rather than thinking about form the very beginning. And applies not just to software, but web development and most everything else where the intuitive nature of the interface just seems to be “right”. “Right” is a lot harder than it looks, kids.
Posted by jim at April 1, 2004 08:55 PM