I’m so tired of running into nearly blank screens that don’t have the information they should (particularly in iTunes, as though everyone should already know how that works), little pointless navigational quirks, and a general lack of information — I’ve seriously gone to Google a dozen times in the past hour to figure out how to do even basic stuff, only to find dozens of others with the same problems, or worse, Mac fanboys gushing over how great the iPad is without any actual information (wow, kinda like this article!)

At this point, all I’ve figured out is that even “Clippy” was better than nothing at all!

Maybe in time I’ll appreciate all this “playfulness” (as though that’s what I look for in any product), but for now I just want to toss it aside and go back to my laptop.

In response to Fred’s comments about the relationship between beauty and usability, there’s a pretty strong link established here.

This paper (1995) was one of the first to explore it.

I don’t necessarily think that anyone is disagreeing with their conclusions – that a design should be both functional and beautiful – but it’s important to point out that there is, indeed, a link here.