I’ve always been a function-over-form kind of person.  I’ll take a challenging user interface over something pretty any day – provided the payout is worth it.  Consider Dwarf Fortress :).  This is pretty difficult UI sitting on top of a complex simulation engine.  Yet, I spent a bunch of hours (more than anyone would publicly admit to) learning that UI and playing the game.

So historically, when I heard customers say “We don’t want SharePoint to look like SharePoint,” I always thought to myself, “when they see in action, they’ll be perfectly happy with it.”  I have almost always – virtually every time – been wrong about that on some level.

My colleague Lauren Jones speaks to this topic here (http://www.bigapplesharepoint.com/pages/View-An-Insight.aspx?BlogID=28&stitle=splooks&rsource=pgblog).

I’m really interested in thoughts around this topic and the tension between how we “know” that SP is a good fit while overcoming look and feel issues (what I have always called “fluff” 🙂 ).

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