I believe the way a site/blog/app/service looks says a lot about the team that built it. And the importance of a intuitive and well designed interface is well known.
So why, does search engine
Seekum go "public" with a look that is so ugly and user unfriendly? Beta or no beta.
I'm not asking the question to rip in to the guys behind it, absolutely not. I'm a big supporter of people who launch new projects because they believe strongly in their idea.
But that's why Seekum's look worries me. What if Seekum is brilliant (and they might very well be "the next Google" for all I know), but they scare people away? And before anyone says it... no, not all potentially great services overcome a lack of for example usability because deep down they're so great that users will overlook their apparent flaws.
To the Seekum teams credit they
seem to be aware that the site has room for improvement.
At the other end of the spectrum is
Ma.gnolia. Their pitch, "social bookmarking to build an information community online", is about as vague as that of Seekum. But even the sign-up page to get an invitation to beta test is appealing!
Maybe Ma.gnolia will turn out to be a dudd. But guess what, I'll give them a go because they appealed to me with their design, tone of writing, the idea... the whole package was "there".
At the same time, looks aren't everything. After testing
Newsvine I found it to be great looking but somewhat difficult to use and actually quite boring.
If your project is worth you spending time on, make sure others want to join you (a well designed front end might be what sets you apart from the rest of the crowd). And then deliver something brilliant!
Mock up or no mock up, beta or not, search or photo sharing... regardless of what you do, or where in the development process you are, don't leave usability and good design behind. It's great if you've got the best engineers in the world working with you, but get a designer to help with the look of your project. Looks count even in beta.
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