> But I've never seen anybody having this as a first reaction to some software. It needs some time to kick in.
It used to take time, but the association has become common enough that it's a red flag right at the start for me. It won't make me not try it out, of course, but it does set a certain expectation in me.
The effect is strongest with websites. I think the correlation between being pretty/shiny and the site being generally worthless is high enough to be roughly predictive.
I have a knee-jerk reaction to sites that reveal things or animate as I scroll down. It was cool the first time or two…years ago. Now it feels gimmicky at best, and more often it obscures the page in a way that makes me feel like I need to scroll the entire page before reading it so there’s no hidden surprises.
Of course this also boils down to intent - is the page an art thing where presentation plays a part in the interaction? Cool. But I was on a product page for a home media server that did this and it was painful - I wanted specs, testimonials, information, and I had to scroll through animations and slide-in text and all kinds of stuff to get a grip on the -product-
But I've never seen anybody having this as a first reaction to some software. It needs some time to kick in.