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Comment by palakchokshi | Hacker News Reader

"The design of a solution is much more important than its implementation under the covers, since the latter is almost always invisible to the user and can take on so many different permutations. Whether it’s a simple web page, a data-rich online newspaper, or a full-blown interactive application - how users experience it easily trumps the underlying code used to build it."

did you just say that how an application LOOKS is more important than how it is implemented? Ok not even worth talking about this anymore.... wish I could downvote...

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In some respects, it is more important, and I say this as someone who is more of a server-side guy. Regardless of how scalable your data system is, and how secure your code is, if the front-end that people use looks like crap, they will not use it, and they'll use some other garbage system that exposes their data and crashes regularly, but it feels nice.

Looking good is important at the start of the experience, otherwise there won't be a long term relationship to demonstrate the awesomeness of the rest of the system.

He said "much more important". Sorry but that's just not true. Secondly I present to you http://sfbay.craigslist.org https://news.ycombinator.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

those are outliers, and have a network effect ('moat'?) around them that ensures the game is theirs to lose. CL and Wikipedia started over a decade ago - anyone trying to get any sort of mindshare in those markets would not succeed without something that had a design (visual and ux flow) that was appealing to the users. In rare instances that might be barebones plaintext, but in most cases it won't be.

Your quotation talks about design, not about looks. Huge difference.

Regardless, absolutely NO ONE who uses an application gives a shit about how it is implemented. All people see is the interface.

That may include elements that depend on implementation to make it responsive, but what matters is how it looks and feels to the user (i.e. fast). How that is achieved is irrelevant.

How it looks isn't "more important", it's the only thing that matters. All implementation changes are driven by design concerns.

First, a little context goes a long way. Read the article. It talks about design in the context of how things LOOK and feel NOT in the context of programming design/design patterns. Second, Just because someone who uses an application doesn't give a shit about how it is implemented does NOT mean implementation doesn't matter. You can have the slickest interface with the coolest animations but if it's not implemented correctly you can have security leaks, compromised data and in some cases absolutely NOTHING [1] behind your so called "the only thing matters" Interface. [1]http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/04/06/the-1-new-paid-app-i...

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