Ugly Demos
Why, oh why, don’t most software developers and even some project teams understand that even the fastest, tightest, most memory conserving, software or libraries will be perceived as utter crap if the demo site that is pimping the goods looks like a horror show. I have been particularly aware of this heinous violation of software common sense after seeing countless new Ajax library gizmos being demonstrated on pages that are completely devoid of any design or consideration for creating a tolerable visual experience. It just doesn’t really matter that the point of the demo is the code, if the page looks like crap it won’t matter how good the code is. I know its harsh, but its true and I have seen bad products get bought because the GUI was nice, and I have seen good products get passed over because the GUI looked like shit. Come on code monkeys, lets get those HTML/CSS muscles toned up!
I worked for a startup for awhile and one thing we did right is contract an award winning designer. Sometimes when we were showing “demos” all we really had was a screensize jpg. The customers didn’t care…all they wanted was something that looked good. Get over that hump and the customers beg to throw money at you. Oh wait, no they don’t…that’s why we went under. But it wasn’t because they didn’t like what we delivered.