Long live ugly

There’s something strangely alluring about ugly tools.

My favourite animation app looks like it came straight out of the 90s.

My favourite text editors did come straight out of the 90s.

My Gmail interface has a calendar box in it, Salesforce to-dos in there, all on top of Gmail’s regular (somewhat cluttered) interface.

I think it’s kind of beautiful.

While the manicured, minimalist interfaces call you to perfect what you’re doing, they seemingly judge every typo and false start. You can feel yourself hesitating at the keyboard, not wanting to soil the prettiness with your imperfections.

But ugly interfaces? They don’t care. Make a mess. They do. Try things. They won’t judge.

Long live ugly.