LOOKIN' GOOD!

Dick Pountain/PC Pro/Idealog 215 07/06/2012

I just upgraded my mobile phone from a ZTE San Francisco to a ZTE San Francisco 2 and it's a significant improvement. It has a faster processor, a far better camera with flash, and it runs a later version of Android. But most important of all, it doesn't have those two chrome strips down either side. "Er, is he going soft in the head"? you may be thinking. Well no, I don't actually give a damn about those chrome strips, but most of the online reviews of this phone I've read mentioned them in their first paragraph. It appears (geddit), that people are becoming as obsessed with the appearance of their gadgets as they already are with their haircuts, clothes, cars and sofas. And it's not only physical gadgets like phones but also software interfaces. I'd love to write a smug, judgmental column that argues everyone else is obsessed with appearances whereas I just don't care about such trivia, only the deepest essences of things. I'd love to, but in all honesty I can't, because I'm no better than anyone else in this respect. I don't give a damn about those particular chrome strips, but I'm fanatical about software user interfaces and have dumped many perfectly functional utilities because I couldn't stand the cut (or colour scheme) of their jib.

This phenomenon is not of course confined to the IT business. Reflect for a moment about the explosion of interest in all areas of design - from consumer goods to architecture and engineering - over the last three decades or so. Apple design guru Jonathon Ives was just knighted, while architects nowadays have the celebrity status of movie stars. This is a real social phenomenon, and it's of far more than just sociological interest because its economic consequences are profound. How many new car models failed because a consensus emerged that they looked awful (and I don't JUST mean the Sinclair C5, that's a lazy choice: there's also the BL Mini Metro, especially in that unique poo-brown paintjob). The plain fact is that everyone's a critic and aesthete nowadays, with major consequences for industries (both consumer and technical) that can hardly be overestimated. If you produce something that potential users find ugly you're in big trouble, and in areas like computer or phone operating systems, where development budgets run into the billions, that can matter a great deal. Which explains the almost comically paranoid behaviour of certain big IT companies, because some of the design decisions involved are now too big for mere mortals to make without going a little bit mad.

Two of these terrible quandaries are examined by RWC columnists in this very issue. Jon Honeyball writes about Microsoft's dithering over the look-and-feel of Windows 8, which is approaching Hamlet-like proportions. Redmond chickened-out from incorporating the final look into the Release Candidate build and Jon suspects this is because they're panicking, still trying out different tie-and-handkerchief combinations on secret focus groups. Locked in a death struggle with Apple's iPad, the stakes are too high to get it wrong, but the decision is too big for anyone's sanity. We do know that they've dumped the "Aero-glass" theme for window borders they so proudly introduced with Windows Vista, describing it as now "dated and cheesy" and certainly not "en vogue". (Interpreted, that means we're terrified that YOU think it's cheesy, and we want to get our capitulation in before your attack). Actually I like the Aero look, as indeed I like cheese, but there's a certain grim irony in this situation because it was Microsoft who started the whole trend 20-years ago, fussing over the look-and-feel of early Windows versions, being first to hire big-bucks graphic designers and useability teams. 

Meanwhile in his column Simon Jones describes a user revolt among programmers over the colour-scheme in Visual Studio 11 Beta. Its designers  decided to remove most colour from its user interface, substituting small indecipherable monochrome icons and menu options in ALL CAPITALS. I'm hardly surprised developers are on the warpath. Programming is the worst area (except perhaps for writing) to radically fiddle with user interfaces: those hypnotically repetitive loops of edit, compile, run, edit, compile, run are only made tolerable because you've totally internalised the position of every single button and option, so your fingers run on autopilot without conscious intervention. Upset that rhythm and productivity may be ruined for months until you've internalised the new set. The designers may have been right and that too much colour was distracting - doesn't matter when people are adapted to that distraction.

For similar reasons I personally loathe Facebook's imposition of the new Timeline, which depresses me because my profile is now 34 feet long and extends below the floorboards. I've always hated Facebook's interface anyway, but had just about achieved immunity. And the iPad's lack of a hardware back-button still makes me swear ten times a day, another design decision taken for the sake of elegance over utility. (I'll probably get challenged to a duel for saying that). Judging by appearance is here to stay and manufacturers know it, leaving them with only two choices: either get really good at giving us what we didn't know we wanted, like Ives, or else let us customise to our eyes content.