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[sparkes]

The artist formally known as Peter Cannon was heard to say...
> On Thursday 24 Jun 2004 10:41, sparkes wrote:
>
>> if you would choose form over function there is no saving you ;-)
>
> I want, no DEMAND both!
>
> Next time you buy say an ornament take a look at the bottom if its rough
> and
> nasty then the piece is nasty that is because the creator was lazy they
> took
> the view no one sees the bottom so why work on it.

This is a different thing again.  An ornament is something that is created
with it's form as it's primary reason for being.  It looks nice.  It
doesn't do anything else.  Any attributes it has that add to it's function
(ie, mass making it an ideal paperweight) are freebies.  You don't buy an
ornament for what it does you buy it for what it is this is why the better
craftsmen will smooth off the bottom, pride in the form that is created. 
A figure with a rough bottom is just as useful as one with a smooth bottom
it's just less pleasing to you when apreciated from certain angles, it
doesn't stop being a valid expression of someones taste in interior design
but a bad interface does stop good software from working where a bad piece
of software can not be fixed by polishing the bottom ;-)

> The same can be said
> for
> software I installed that Copydisk4 yesterday at my customer bearing in
> mind
> I made over £2000.00 on the deal the software to create the covers for the
> disks was OK but the installer GUI looked like a four year old had created
> it
> as did the base program given that this machine cost around £3000.00 you
> would expect something better.

Now you are talking my language.  I have been a professional programmer
for almost 10 years and in that 10 years I have met thousands of other
programmers.  Out of every 10 programmers you hire only one has a clue
when it comes to usable interface design.  The company that developed the
software is run by engineers and employs engineers.  They can't see the
software is crap because they can only see it doing the job it was
designed for.  They need to hire at least one more team member and listen
to them when they arrive on the scene and attempt to fix all the problems
they have.

The growth of the internet as a interface development tool has led to an
even bigger problem because you still have software guys who can't design
and now you have designers who can't program at it as well ;-)  But the
internet has also spawned people who try to understand the design
principles people working in other industries take for granted.

It was Rob and Aq who started us all off on this track.  One designs
buildings, buildings have to be built to code, fit for the primary purpose
they are needed for and ultimatly can end up being beautiful objects.

Aq, on the other hand, decides how information should fit together, he
designs to a spec (like Rob), it all needs to be fit for purpose (like
Rob) and when finished it can ultimately be considered a thing of beauty
(although like buildings most of the art is under the skin and the average
person won't see it)

It's obvious when a building isn't fit for purpose, it's obvious when
information architecture isn't fit for purpose, this is because they both
fall down.  software interfaces don't collapse in such an obvious way and
developers can be very blind to the mistakes on the surface of the program
(the human computer interface) when the undersides work well and don't
fall down in a pile of smoking ruins at your feet.

Because the developers in question havn't got dusty shoes and an office
full of rubble they assume that the software is good.  It passed all the
tests they gave it to ensure it is fit for purpose what they didn't do is
test it from the perspective of a new user or someone who has to work with
it every day for 2 or 3 years.  You should make a complaint but before you
do you can't just say it looks crap, because series land rovers look crap
but they can be driven anywhere and fixed by people with bits of tin cans
in the desert, you have to have valid points about where the improvements
to the interface you make the user experience better.

>
> By the same token just because something has a gorgeous front end doesn't
> mean
> that it is any good.
>
which is where we started ;-)

> Give me one good reason why an application cannot have some nice eye
> candy?
> will it detract from the functionality? I don't think so, in fact I would
> have thought it would make you use it more because it looks good or is fun
> to
> watch.

In some cases it does.

example: A project I did some years ago for a large factory installation
had some eyecandy I thought would improve the interface when we where
asked to add it by a suit.  I showed the conveyor belt moving when I
thought it was moving.  The computer man machine interface didn't control
the belt the plcs did.  I just told them what they should be doing.  It
works perfectly unless the e-stop button is pressed.  Emergency stops are
a strange thing.  You can't trust them to software.  they have to be
hardware unless you won't a busted harddrive or a dodgy plc to rip
someones arm out ;-).  So my program didn't know the e-stop had been
pushed and I continued to think the conveyor was moving it was just taking
longer for each scanner and plc on the route to tell me things had
arrived, it was a large system and things could go out of order anywhere
and arrive at any time.  The customer didn't like this so we needed to
make it stop when the conveyors where stopped in an emergency.  So each
e-stop was rigged up to every plc on the floor to say when an emergency
had occured on that section and each of these had to report the condition
to the master plc which spoke to my server and then to each of the
terminal machines.  Doing my bit took about an hour but it took the
electricians a day to wire it all up and the guy programming the master
plc longer to free up enough registers to store the estop data from each
plc in the system (this was a massive factory covering the area of several
football statiums)

That bit of eyecandy cost the main contractor 25k a day in penalty fees
and a bunch of software and electrical engineers a weekend at home with
their families (and me a weekend on the piss cos I wasn't a father back
then).  All because the boss (who wouldn't ever be seen on the factory
floor once business comenced) wanted some eyecandy on the interface.

>
> As a last example I quoted a company a couple of years back for three web
> servers they were a good deal and they placed the order subject to a site
> visit to our premises to see the stupid things working (Huh?) when they
> came
> they were not happy "We cant see anything happening" (Aye?) 20 minutes
> later
> installed some LED lights "Cor thats fantastic when can you install"

En Blinkenlighten always work wonders when dealing with the mistery that
is upper management but they didn't sell the product, you did.  They just
halted the buyers remorse these people always get when they open their
checkbooks.
>
> I've said this before WE BUY WITH OUR EYES.
>
But the interface isn't just about our eyes it's a combination of all
available interfaces.  Sound, Sight and Touch as all as important as each
other in interface design otherwise when your favourite sense is taken
away from you the interface becomes unusable.  Each important interaction
needs to be made using at least two senses (normally sight and sound, but
force feedback technology will add a tactile degree to interfaces more and
more in the future) beeps need to be accompanied with a visual change,
visual warnings need a beep.  By concentrating on the eyecandy you forget
the ear candy ;-) and the tactle feedback that brings me back to a certain
mouse.

You also don't buy interfaces you buy solutions to your problems. features
and benifits are what I believe sales guys talk about ;-) If it was all
about eyecandy I would be a millionaire by now ;-) I could bang out pretty
websites one after the other, they wouldn't need any complex code to solve
business problems and I wouldn't have to help the client understand the
return on investment because that doesn't matter.  They brought the
website with thier eyes and their clients will buy off them with their
eyes too.  eyecandy is all we need.  Don't bother getting a fuel efficent
car just get the one in the nicest color ;-)  Infact we would all be rich,
Rob build me a ten story gothic mansion on sand dunes, Aq put all the data
in one table it's more simetrical that way, Ron tell them the cases will
be the same colour as the potted plants and that the firewall is being
replaced by a fishtank, Jono pick the words that fit best in a picture of
tux and not those that make sense, Matt stop writing now and think about
how a little bit of poetry would sell those services better, Kat tell
clocksoft they are doing it all wrong, call speedie and tell them the
system is now all blue to match the corporate image,  David, forget high
availablity it's all about high fashion, everybody on help desks get each
caller to minimise all windows and choose a nice desktop image and
mediatate on that for a while, sysadmins put away your bofh excuses and
tell everyone to go and work outside on with pens and pad while you remove
all the buttons from keyboards because they are not pretty enough and
replace them with strawberries (you will need a PFY to do this but I hear
the hell desk will be making some redundancies so you can get the
workforce there) ;-)

I'm being a bit flippent there but we might impulse purchase with our eyes
but hard business people work out what they need from a product and good
looks aren't top of the list (normally, there are the odd execptions that
prove the rule, all swans arn't white and neither are all interfaces)
perhaps you just have a knack for turning hard nosed businessmen into
impluse purchasers and that's why you see it this way?  but from an
engineering point of view it has to work before it can look nice and if
the budget only covers one or the other you have to go for working
everytime.

sparkes