I have the agree with the developers that this is a Great feature because the user hardly ever notices it, but it greatly improves his experience.
Having the color scheme work with your logo is what they called a hygiene factor in business school- You seldom get any praise or notice for it being there, but you'll LOSE points if the scheme doesn't match..
I think this has to do with the fact that most users tend to worry more about content than design-
Users think "I need a logo", or "I want a photo of my cat".. They aren't thinking about Whitespace, or color choices. They're thinking about content. They're thinking about how to add Foo, not how it will look.
As a application provider (Like so many of us are or want to be) it's our job to abstract design, and let people focus on content, which what they care about in the first place.
If users aren't going to think about design, but they are going to feel bad if you don't have it, they you have three choices-
1) Ignore the problem. This is what MySpace and GeoCities do- They let the user upload whatever they want, no matter how it might look. The users focus on content rather on the looks. They'll complain about it, and you'll "lose points" with them, but they get to have all the widgets they want.
2) Force most users to display it your way, or have experts modify it. This is what WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS do. The default templates look decent, and editing them is hard for mere mortals, requiring HTML or Scripting. Creating new templates may be technically possible, but beyond the scope of most users
3) Make the user's content look GOOD. This is what Wufoo does with forms, and Apple's iWeb does for webpages. It lets you add the content, but it adds its own design special-sauce. This is the model that we should be shooting for for our Web Apps. How can we make the User's content look good?
Having the color scheme work with your logo is what they called a hygiene factor in business school- You seldom get any praise or notice for it being there, but you'll LOSE points if the scheme doesn't match..
I think this has to do with the fact that most users tend to worry more about content than design-
Users think "I need a logo", or "I want a photo of my cat".. They aren't thinking about Whitespace, or color choices. They're thinking about content. They're thinking about how to add Foo, not how it will look.
As a application provider (Like so many of us are or want to be) it's our job to abstract design, and let people focus on content, which what they care about in the first place.
If users aren't going to think about design, but they are going to feel bad if you don't have it, they you have three choices-
1) Ignore the problem. This is what MySpace and GeoCities do- They let the user upload whatever they want, no matter how it might look. The users focus on content rather on the looks. They'll complain about it, and you'll "lose points" with them, but they get to have all the widgets they want.
2) Force most users to display it your way, or have experts modify it. This is what WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS do. The default templates look decent, and editing them is hard for mere mortals, requiring HTML or Scripting. Creating new templates may be technically possible, but beyond the scope of most users
3) Make the user's content look GOOD. This is what Wufoo does with forms, and Apple's iWeb does for webpages. It lets you add the content, but it adds its own design special-sauce. This is the model that we should be shooting for for our Web Apps. How can we make the User's content look good?