What defines a good application? It's not just one thing, of course, but in this post I do want to highlight one particular aspect of a program that makes me love it: the buttons and features should be in the right place. This is one of the reasons why I absolutely love Google. Their applications make sense.
Example: I was working on a Word document today, and I was thinking that it would be useful to be able to access this document from anywhere. In other words, I wanted to upload it somewhere. My first instinct is to gmail it to myself so I have a copy in my mailbox, but then I though: I'm sure google is smarter than that, and they already have a better solution. And they did. At the top of the page, next to Gmail and Calendar, there is Documents. Which does exactly what I expected it to do. This, for me, is what defines a good application. It's made by people who already thought of what you want, and implemented it in the most logical and reasonable way. All I have to do is think 'where would I put the button if I was a programmer/user of this feature?' and I will find it instantly. Productivity++, Google++;
Unrelated, and food for brain: I recently came across a quote by Antoine, usually seen in a programming-related context:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.If this quote is applied to life itself, it gets a rather zen buddhist-y kind of meaning, wouldn't you think?