I did some sleuthing over the weekend and found an interesting development in filmmaker Mel Brooks' views on criticism. At first, in The Critic (1962), which I've explored previously, Brooks envisioned the critic as an everyman, sticking it to elitist pretension with an unwavering honesty few else were brave enough to muster.

Over the past several months, there has been a surprising resurgence of interest in user interface aesthetics. For a short moment, a particular subset of UI designers paid attention to something besides prototyping tools, flat UI colors and the latest design "disruption."