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If I say navision is at the same time bad and ugly would I be off topic?
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Hey,
I'm a designer for the web.

This discussion has been around for awhile.
I kind of depends on your understanding of 'design'.

Aesthetics is one factor of the overrall design but it is still an important one.
There are design studies that show that a pretty interface is easier to use then an ugly one, or at least is assumed to be by the user.

The way I try to look at GUI design is that if the user has to think what to do next (e.g. "what button to press") or is unsure wht to do next (e.g. "I pressed button but screen is blank") then something is "wrong".

Although the screen is hires the buttons are quite large - mainly by design the GUI has to be simple to be usable.

The best thing to do is to get feedback from other users or while you are designing your app do a quick mock-up (e.g. screenshots or via qt designer). Maybe post stuff online.

I think boobie-shaped buttons would look great.. You can animate them and make them jiggle.

Like:
"..The sound of one hand clapping.." or
"..If a bear farts in a forest does it make a sound or smell although nobody is there to hear & see it?".

No.

More like concentrated around fit blondes and old hags. (A separate UI for either of those isn't necessary, the web browser is well capable for both of these use cases)

I'm just hoping that we would get actual examples of what people think being good and bad, instead of just stating that "some of the apps are ugly". Dare to stand behind your opinions, name out the ugly ones, and there's a better chance that they will be fixed.

Ok my understand of it is like this (will try and post some screenies as well).

On the ipod touch I have a number of apps I like using, BMI calculator, convertabot, TVListings etc So how do these compare to apps on maemo????

Ok lets look at convertabot as an example. It has a sleek UI, little animations, nice glowing text for the numbers and cool audio around some of the button pushes.

Now lets take the converter app in maemo, does exactley the same underlying function. Except, no swish gfx, no sounds, no animations...just an app.

So thats not a bad thing, but is it pleasing on the eye, fun to use, make me want to show my friends and go hey look at this and what it can do but more to the point does it make my friends go Ooooo now thats cool I want one of those!

I think another good example would be an alarm clock app. I want something that looks like an alarm clock at the side of my bed, behaves like an alarm clock but is a n900. The font should resemble that of a real alarm clock, not just Times font increased to max size....that makes me think...errrm doesnt really look like an alarm clock so why would I use it.

Note: Nice blondes / old hags = same function

How about...... http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=48411

where do you find Qt designer?

http://qt.nokia.com/products

Ok, good example. Here a clock app on the Iphone:



Show these two clocks to the average (smartphone) user out there and ask which one they prefer. I'm sure 99% will choose the iPhone app (even without the weather forecast).

I prefer apps that have consistent GUI with apps shipped with maemo 5 (except for Ovi Maps which look quite different and are rather diffucult to use). That holds especially for widgets, they all should really have the dark grey background -- I like the look of:
Desktop command execution widget
Personal dataplan monitor
Foreca widget

OMweather - little different, but okay

I dislike the look of:
nametag widget - the widget works well, but I took it off my desktop because it simply does not fit in..