On the Aesthetics of Outliners, Pims, and Personal Knowledge Applications

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 22, 2009 at 01:12 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I don’t believe that aesthetics deals
>strictly with the visual, which was my point about GrandView. GV’s beauty was in its
>functionality, both in its usability and in how it allowed you to access those
>functions.

I’d say this sums up most of my ideas on the subject. It also probably explains Apple’s success with its products: “Form Facilitates Function”

(I sincerely hoped nobody would have phrased it lilke that before, but they have: http://www.hockeymonkey.com/warrior-hockey-gloves-bully.html and http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s=e241dfc076d9312cee73c3218707072a&showtopic=833756 very recently actually)

That said, there are obviously cultural / habit influences involved as well: I have kept the same space-saving small icons / “classic” windows layout for several versions of Windows, while my screen’s resolution has been growing. Nowadays, people will look at my 11.1” 1366 x 768 notebook screen and ask “how can you work with such small letters” but for me it’s perfect.

Similarly, I appreciate simple, clear, uncluttered working spaces, and will go the extra mile to learn keyboard shortcuts for applications I use often, so that I can get rid of most toolbars.

Brainstorm is the ideal writing environment for me and in some ways it resembles Word Perfect for DOS’ empty dark screen: I use a very dark blue background with yellow letters. The fact that several contemporary software provides similar writing space (WriteMonkey, Q10, http://writer.bighugelabs.com/) probably means that I am not alone in my preference for the simple and eye-relaxing.