Comment instant gratification vs. long term efficiency (Score 1) 487
An Interface that one's non-techie mom can use is often not any good for real power computing. Software that has just a few big buttons to do the common tasks with is easy to figure out, but as soon as you want to do anything uncommon, or interesting, there's not a tool in sight.
Pretty interfaces often are not ideal either. Having rows and rows of hieroglyphic icons in a program looks nice, but is rather counterintuitive. My Favorite UIs are those with a lot of text buttons, like newteks Amiga-style designs. Lightwave 3d has my favorite interface of any program.
There is no perfect interface. everyone has different preferences. The Ideal solution as I see it is to start with a strong and well tested interface, and allow a huge degree of cutomization. It's not always easy to code, but imho is worth it to allow users complete control of look and feel.
