peterme.com		Thoughts, links, and essays from Peter Merholz
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Home Archives Archives before June 13, 2001 RSS Feed Adaptive Path (my company!) About peterme Coordinates Most of the Time Oakland, CA Interests Current American history around the time of the Revolution, figuring out how to marry top-down task-based information architecture processes with bottom-up document-based ones, finding a good dentist in San Francisco Oakland Perennial Designing the user experience (interaction design, information architecture, user research, etc.), cognitive science, ice cream, films and film theory, girls, commuter bicycling, coffee, travel, theoretical physics for laypeople, single malt scotch, fresh salmon nigiri, hanging out, comics formalism, applied complexity theory, Krispy Kreme donuts. surf Click to see where I wander. Wish list Show me you love me by buying me things. Spyonme Track updates of this page with Spyonit. Clickee here. Essays [Editor's note: peterme.com began as a site of self-published essays, a la Stating The Obvious. This evolved (or devolved) towards link lists and shorter thoughtpieces. These essays are getting a tad old, but have some good ideas.] Reader Favorites Interface Design Recommended Reading List Whose "My" Is It Anyway? Frames: Information Vs. Application Subjects Interface Design Web Development Movie Reviews Travel		Norman's getting soft! Posted on 05/02/2002. Don Norman begins his latest post to CHI-Web with, "I'm starting a new career phase: Ugly is out, beauty is in." He's seeking examples of beautifully designed works, that are still functional and usable. In related news, a Google search for "truth and beauty" turns up a bunch of interesting links. 3 comments so far. Add a comment. Previous entry: "One word: Kerning." Next entry: "Spindly search." Comments: COMMENT #1 How funny is that! I gave up beauty today! Beauty is out, ugly is in. What's the ugliest thing you can think of that's highly functional and usable? That's what I want to do. Posted by andrew @ 05/03/2002 01:27 AM PST [link to this comment] COMMENT #2 Pumping gas? Posted by Ben @ 05/06/2002 02:26 PM PST [link to this comment] COMMENT #3 I agree with Norman, the best software is both functional and beautiful. Maybe the worst is ugly and not functional, and beautiful and not functional or functional and not beautiful falls somewhere in between. Posted by sue @ 05/07/2002 08:43 AM PST [link to this comment] Add A New Comment: Name E-Mail (optional) Homepage (optional) Comments Now with a bigger box for text entry! Whee! All contents of peterme.com are © 1998 - 2002 Peter Merholz.