Some thoughts for the future

[Brian Mury]

On Thu, 2005-06-30 at 13:14 -0700, Richard Kelsch wrote:
> > Function over form, ya know...
> >   
> Good eye candy, implemented properly should not detract from
> functionality,

That's sometimes true, and sometimes not true.

I find that eye candy, by it's very nature, can distract from the
useability.

> and should, in fact, increase functionality as not all eye-candy is
> for special effects, but can be part of function.  For example, the
> simple bouncing icon of a program loading in Apple's Aqua is, in my
> opinion, eye candy improving functionality.

I would call that a feature, or functionality; I wouldn't call it eye
candy! :-) And BTW, would be a good feature for Gnome.


> I think for those (the 1 or 3 of you out there) with a wife or
> girlfriend

Uh... girl-what???

> until programmers finally get together with artists and designers.
> Both would be surprised what the end result can do.

I think it's possible to have something that looks good without falling
under the "eye candy" classification.

Anyway, I don't think eye candy is necessarily bad; I think it's often a
(not always) a tradeoff between form and function, and I personally
prefer function. No reason not to have eye candy available, especially
if I can turn it off when it starts distracting/annoying me.