BEAUTY vs. USABILITY

BEAUTY vs. USABILITY is a common topic for creative people such as artists and designers to be discussed. Some artists said they are a designer while some designers called themselves as an artist. Why would they think so? Maybe the designers successfully design an art piece and maybe the artist did create functionable product. This topic is a very subjective topic to discuss. In this article, I would like to share my thought about the difference and the connection between Beauty and Usability.

BEAUTY is a word people usually use to complementing the ART while USABILITY is something that shows how successful a product of the DESIGN. In my opinion Art is a subjective matter. It can be differently interpreted for every single audience. Different people may have their own perspective towards whatever they see. So from their point of view, they might get inspired by the artwork. But for Design, it is like a two-way interaction, in other words it does involve the users. When it comes to design, it require a processes from inspiration, idea, function, development and few more things to achieve the goal of creating the product. Designer needs a well plan to make the design successful so it can motivate users. When the user motivated by the product they will automatically understand the function or the purpose of the product. Meanwhile, Artist usually starts with a clean surface and just freely expressed their emotion, opinion or issues that can be categorize as personal feeling to produce an art piece. Therefore, art is a subjective caused its deliver the different message and can be interpreted differently to the audience. Some people might or did say art require talent while design require skill, for me everyone can be and an artist but to be a good artist they need to sharpen their talent. Although famous artist who was born with talent, they still produce a painting to be better. The point is, to be somebody, everyone should learn and practice until achieve what they want same as a designer. They learn and trained how to be a designer, but not everyone can easily success as a designer. Everyone can design, but can all designer without the skill success in whatever they do. Design without the knowledge of design will end up produce unfriendly product to the user. Users might understand the function but maybe it can last longer or it might not convenient at all. However, it depends to the user to consider the product of design is a good design or a bad design. It is based on what people think. Certain people will appreciate it depends on their lifestyle, and certain maybe not. Whereas art would show about taste, like what I have wrote before art can be differently interpreted. So it would depend on people taste. Now we can see the differences between beauty and usability, so I believe Art and Design should be worked together as how design can be inspired by an art and how design can make the art become something functionable. – nfab