Putting Lipstick on a Pig

I recently took a trip that involved multiple hotel stays. One of the hotels reminded me of a certain type of internet experience. The hotel described itself as a luxury hotel, and indeed it had the amenities of luxury — the plush white robes waiting in the closet, the thick towels, the Gilchrist & Soames toiletries. However, only one burner of the kitchen stove was functional, the television played only snow, and the pillows were without pillowcases. And the fundamental structure of the building itself was flimsy and old.

Having committed to the hotel, both financially and logistically, I tried to make it work. I made my coffee using the one working burner. I watched movies on my laptop. I found pillowcases. And I tried not to look too closely at the stains, dirt, and cracked paint.

This worked for about four days, at which time I cancelled the remaining three days of my reservation and left. Satisficing ultimately wore me down, to where I dreaded returning to my room — plush robes notwithstanding.

As a web designer, sometimes my job is to dress up poorly conceived and architected websites and web applications — also known as putting lipstick on a pig. Perhaps this self-awareness is part of what made my hotel experience so uncomfortable. It was like I was living inside one of my less glamorous projects — a bit like Being John Malkovich, but without the humor.

If the basic framework is a pig, lipstick does not a luxury experience make. My guess is that this hotel has a high bounce rate, with visitors checking in, staying a few nights, leaving or leaving early, and never returning. They would be better served spending their luxury dollars on providing a solid baseline of service and cleanliness, and making their facilities fully functional. Who wears bathrobes, anyway?

The same holds true for web experiences. A clean interface that supports basic usability and functionality wins out every time over a luxurious yet buggy design (fortunately, there were no bugs).

The experience served as a good reminder. For interaction design, I need to focus on the essentials and do them extremely well, and resist the urge (or the push from clients) to reach for the lipstick until I’m sure it’s not for a pig.