But design is functional. Grows organically by needs of the user. If so many people swear by Calibre, it is well designed for calibre’s use case. It is not only about the aesthetic design trends. They don’t need to apply a coat of liquid glass and modern icon treatment to make it well designed.
This appeal to authority is why we end up with everything looking like Juicero of software. Shiny, the same components and pricing plan as everything else. But absolutely soulless and often user hostile.
I don't think many of those artists were celebrated during their lifetime, or at least not until the their form became more widely accepted in the mainstream.
Which is what I said.
> If so many people swear by Calibre
There’s no true alternative. A lot of people use Calibre despite how it looks, because it does all the things. The world of messing with ebooks outside the vetted stores isn’t that big.
> It is not only about the aesthetic design trends.
I didn’t even so much as hint that. Please don’t straw man.
> They don’t need to apply a coat of liquid glass and modern icon treatment to make it well designed.
Again, no one said that. I personally dislike Liquid Glass.
> toolbox
Again, there’s nothing wrong with that nor have I claimed there is.
> This appeal to authority
There was no appeal to authority. You completely misunderstood the comment, fabricated an argument in your head and are fighting that.
Fucking hell, HN is tiring. Stop being so angry all the time, we’re not on opposing teams. Not every comment is a criticism or disagreement for you to rally against.
There are lots of things that do bits of what Calibre does (Kavita, Librum, KOReader, Koodo, etc), but nothing comes close to replacing it.
Outsider design? It means it’s designed by someone self-taught or not classically trained in the subject. It’s neither insult nor praise, it’s a classification, though often used as a way to express something as being unconventionally interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_music
> It is design produced by the user and maker of the app. If you hire a designer that's neither, doesn't that actually make them the outsider?
No, because “outsider” refers to “outside the world of design” not “outside the world of this product”.
> He's not making a traditional art form as someone who's untrained.
Your parent comment didn’t claim they were making art. But they are designing the app are are clearly untrained in design. Again, that’s not an insult. How many of us here are self-taught programmers?
> He's designing Calibre, and he's the most qualified person in the world in doing that.
That doesn’t necessarily follow. If that were the case there would be no designers, everyone would just do their thing. The point of learning design is to understand what works and why and how to apply it. It is perfectly valid for you to have a vision of what you want the thing to do but to need help in presenting it more effectively.