“Hey, I want to show you something I built. Ignore the design please, it is not finished yet.”
From school science fair projects to real world product prototypes, if I had a nickel every time I heard that sentence I would be a lot richer by now. The truth is that a lot of people ask us to ‘ignore the design’ simply because we humans tend to judge anything new that is shown to us by its looks. It is a universal truth. You can talk until you tire about how looks should take the seat behind functionality, usability and any new ‘ility’ that people might come up with in the future, the ugly truth (pun intended) is that good looks are important to warrant a second look. Functionality comes next. Neither can do without the other. In spite of this a lot of people gamble on the looks of a product and in extension on the overall design by underestimating design and thinking that design is easy.
