When I was working on TinyHatchet, I initially did not have any stylesheets. None. The web application used all the default browser styles.
Part of my reasoning was selfish - I don’t like frontend work. And to a point this is justified. If I am not excited about working on it, especially when it is essentially a hobby project, I am not going to work on it. If I get frustrated before the application actually does anything, I’m going to throw it away like week-old fish.
But the other part of my reasoning was actually taken from Rob Walling’s Start Small, Stay Small, a fantastic book on creating small software companies. He suggests in one of his chapters to make initial versions intentionally rough design-wise so that users have lower expectations. A refined design signals to users that the application is done.
How amusing is it, then, that when I announced my product to the Microconf group started by Rob Walling, the first feedback I got was how rough the design was. I mean, he was right that it was very ugly. The design had enough impact on the usability that it quickly became my top priority (solved by Milligram CSS). But it was odd that the “rough drafts should look rough” principle was lost.
I stand by it. Design is not the most important part of your product, though it shouldn’t be completely ignored. Even if you’re building chairs, the comfort and stability needs to come before design. The only possible exception is art for art’s sake, in which case the design of your art probably is the most important thing. Heck, my wife is currently baking a cake and even then your decorations and prettifying comes after the flavor and texture!
Anyway, go make something useful and then make it pretty.