[cookiecaper]

Agreed. I strongly dislike the philosophy espoused by the parent. "I recognize that other products are technically superior and allow me to do more things without inflicting undue hardship or learning curve, but because the animations aren't as nice, I'm just going to use this other thing." I have no interest in humoring those with such a vain and frankly indefensible perspective.

[worklogin]

What a comment! You made a binary discussion from a nuanced one. The question is whether an attractive UI (which, surprise, matters to many people) is worth focusing developer effort. Several comments in this thread advocate that non-native UIs look tacky, and that it would do well for the product to have native rendering.

As an aside, it's the no. 1 reason I don't use Atom: An ugly, slow UI that doesn't render native elements.

So no, it's not indefensible. I think your conspirator's OP comment "As a non-OSX user, I don't care about your UX" is more vain.

[jarek]

> I think your conspirator's OP comment "As a non-OSX user, I don't care about your UX" is more vain.

Sure it's vain. We all have personal priorities. People suggesting that Mozilla spend time developing the perfect OS X product are expressing their priorities as well.

I could say that I'm a BeOS user and I really think that Firefox should have a fully-integrated native UX because the way a product looks and works is important. But no one cares about BeOS UX because they're vain.

It looks like OS X users are the only ones who really care. Windows users have been dealing with non-standard UIs since tabs first stopped being MDI, and, comparing Chrome's adoption with how it looks, they're mostly fine with them. Linux users are mostly just straight-up crazy and Firefox is fine for them. Smartphone users have seen more non-standard than standard UIs and it doesn't seem to have been a problem for the Facebook app. The question is then is it worth caring as much about OS X UI, or is it more useful to make a better product for the 80+% of users who don't use OS X?

[jfb]

In what way is this a choice between "technically superior" and "nice animations"? The reasons that Firefox, for example, is terrible on OS X is not to do with the quality of the animations (although they are awful) but rather the semantics of user interaction, which are by definition different in non-native applications.

And, I'd argue, Firefox is far, far, far from "technically superior" on any number of axes, regardless.

[matthewmacleod]

It's really not indefensible, and you're sort of minimising a valid viewpoint that I wish more developers took on board.

User experience is important. Dismissing that aspect as "animations [that] aren't as nice" misses an important point - things like animation, consistency with the host system, integration with platform features and so on are really very important to the quality of an app.

Technical capability is also important, obviously. It's why I use Firefox and when building web projects on the Mac - best feature set. But I use Safari instead for day-to-day browsing, because of things like better scrolling and zooming, and better integration with platform services.

I do think the way a product looks and works is important, and developers who dismiss that are why we have so many awful UIs out in public.

[cookiecaper]

>User experience is important.

I agree user experience is important, but experience is so much more than simple aesthetics.

I'm not saying they're totally unimportant, which is why I included the qualifying clause about "undue hardship", but I have no respect for users that will put themselves at a functional disadvantage so that their experience can be "prettier" (aka "more native"). These people have their subculture, called "Apple", and frankly, I want as little to do with it as possible. Prioritizing glitz above function shows serious problems in critical thinking.

If we can make an application look better, cool, we should add that to the list somewhere. I'm not opposed to that. I strongly disagree that this should be anywhere near the primary criterion used to judge an application's value.

[girvo]

While discussing downvotes is considered bad etiquette, can someone explain why cookiecaper has been downvoted? They've expressed their viewpoint, respectfully and at some length. Downvotes because you disagree with their viewpoint is bad form.

Edited to add: And I disagree with them, however I'm downvoting to show disagreement is something that HN has always been against, to it's credit.

[kccqzy]

Because he accuses those who have different prioritization in the functional/experience tradeoff of having "serious problems in critical thinking"? It's a matter of opinion and not mental capability.

[cookiecaper]

I disagree. The person that will impede his ability to accomplish actual work because of his subjective aesthetic preferences is substantially less "mentally capable" than a person that will tolerate a bit of ugliness for greater efficiency. Again, it's a matter of degree because there are some programs that are so "ugly" that they are unusable, but the grandparent's specific example was Safari v. Firefox, and while Firefox may not conform to Apple's aesthetic standard exactly, it's far from unusable. The GP admitted that both Firefox and Chrome were superior to Safari in tangible ways that affect productivity, but that they continue to use Safari because they think it's prettier. I cannot comprehend that POV and have no respect for people who hold it, and that expands outside of software too.

[matthewmacleod]

I can see you've decided to ignore what I actually said and instead substitute your own version.

I'll tell you what I can't comprehend – people who apparently find it difficult to accept that other people have differing priorities to them, and aren't mentally subnormal as a result.

[paublyrne]

Look and feel are important to me in a product, amongst other things. I don't see that as something that needs defending.