Fugly Friday, a new Download Squad series
According to a statistic I just made up, almost half of all interfaces for software (web or download) look like garbage. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With that subjectivity in mind we want to ask you: what are the ugliest, most cumbersome, least effective interfaces out there? Mind you, we're talking GUI here -- command line interfaces are a kind of beauty you simply can't assail. Let's not devolve into a ClearType battle, OK?
Submit your nominees in the comments and we'll take a look at the fugliness. Web apps, downloadable stuff, on any platform you wish, we'll open it up and peek at the steaming guts. Starting next week and running for every Friday (until we wipe out bad taste from the internet, naturally) we'll highlight one special ugly duckling. We'll try to be constructive in our criticism.
Despite the harsh moniker, we're not looking to take cheap shots. The ultimate goal is for developers to learn a little something about user interface design. While we'll keep it tongue-in-cheek, there's always a lesson to be learned in doing things wrong. Considering the specialized nature of design (and UI design in particular), it's completely understandable that indie devs will do what they can. If you take a look on the iTunes App Store, you'll see dozens of atrocious designs, but those are devs who likely have no training in this area. Again, totally understandable. Hopefully we can all learn a little something from these mistakes. Keep it constructive, but don't be afraid to point out foibles, that's what I say.
