Let’s get ugly! (Design on our minds)

July 14, 2006 By

Ahh, remember when I said that ugly design might be good? Well, Ze Frank takes that football all the way down the field.

I love that guy.

Kathy Sierra goes even further and wonders if the US sucks at design? Well, yes, but my iPod says it was designed in Cupertino. So there!

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  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com/ /pd

    oh yeah, US sucks at design !!

  • http://peterdawson.typepad.com /pd

    oh yeah, US sucks at design !!

  • met

    Depends on what you would call as design.

    If you think about design for usability, design for manufacture, etc – US does not suck

    for pure aesthetics – US really sucks

    Just take architecture – how many new clock towers do you see around these days? or something similar which serve less of a functional purpose.

  • met

    Depends on what you would call as design.

    If you think about design for usability, design for manufacture, etc – US does not suck

    for pure aesthetics – US really sucks

    Just take architecture – how many new clock towers do you see around these days? or something similar which serve less of a functional purpose.

  • http://urbantwelve.blogspot.com/ Chris

    The same applies to fashion.

    I wonder if the person/people/team at apple who actually designed the ipod (particularly the scrollwheel) were predominately americans.

  • http://urbantwelve.blogspot.com Chris

    The same applies to fashion.

    I wonder if the person/people/team at apple who actually designed the ipod (particularly the scrollwheel) were predominately americans.

  • http://gwhiz.wordpress.com/ gwhiz

    Mr. Scoble – Not only did he take it all the way down the field. He let the marching band on too. Should be a fun contest. You know how music sometimes gets lodged in your head… yeah, his ugly stick song is on a replay loop inside my noggin.

  • http://gwhiz.wordpress.com/ gwhiz

    Mr. Scoble – Not only did he take it all the way down the field. He let the marching band on too. Should be a fun contest. You know how music sometimes gets lodged in your head… yeah, his ugly stick song is on a replay loop inside my noggin.

  • Dom

    > my iPod says it was designed in Cupertino

    By a team led by a Brit:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

  • Dom

    > my iPod says it was designed in Cupertino

    By a team led by a Brit:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive

  • James Bailey

    I’ve always thought that MySpace pages were ugly because MySpace didn’t support non-IE browsers well. It is interesting to find out that it isn’t a lack of modern browser support, they are just ugly for no real reason except incompetence. :)

  • James Bailey

    I’ve always thought that MySpace pages were ugly because MySpace didn’t support non-IE browsers well. It is interesting to find out that it isn’t a lack of modern browser support, they are just ugly for no real reason except incompetence. :)

  • http://blog.infurious.com/ MJ

    I don’t think the US sucks at design, but it’s a huge market analogous to the Windows PC market (as opposed to, say, the Linux market or the Mac market) and the demographic being targetted is “as many people as possible”. For this the design just has to be “good enough to not totally suck”.

    So, I thik the US is probably great at design – there are design classics in your history. The probl;em being that there’s a perception that design has little value to the end user. iPod isn’t a design classic – it’s a fad – but it may be an enduring fad. The problem will be trying to break that fad will be long and expensive for your former employer.

    Put it another way – if design and user interface really mattered, we’d all be using Macs…

  • http://blog.infurious.com/ MJ

    I don’t think the US sucks at design, but it’s a huge market analogous to the Windows PC market (as opposed to, say, the Linux market or the Mac market) and the demographic being targetted is “as many people as possible”. For this the design just has to be “good enough to not totally suck”.

    So, I thik the US is probably great at design – there are design classics in your history. The probl;em being that there’s a perception that design has little value to the end user. iPod isn’t a design classic – it’s a fad – but it may be an enduring fad. The problem will be trying to break that fad will be long and expensive for your former employer.

    Put it another way – if design and user interface really mattered, we’d all be using Macs…

  • http://range.wordpress.com/ range

    Ze is pretty funny I have to agree. Watch him everyday.

  • http://range.wordpress.com/ range

    Ze is pretty funny I have to agree. Watch him everyday.

  • http://miniaturemage.blogspot.com/ MiniMage

    http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/27/does-your-product-have-c-r-a-p/
    I took your post to mean you wouldn’t bother with an iPod, but I guess you meant all the stuff on your iPod is non-DRM.

  • http://miniaturemage.blogspot.com MiniMage

    http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/27/does-your-product-have-c-r-a-p/
    I took your post to mean you wouldn’t bother with an iPod, but I guess you meant all the stuff on your iPod is non-DRM.