I recently came across the swiTCH table/chair combo via Core77. It’s a new concept furniture design that can either be a sort of table and chair, or a more complete arm chair.
My immediate reactions is that while this looks beautiful and I love the idea of this furniture, I can hardly imagine this actually being at all remotely comfortable to sit in.
When trying to do two things, this furniture has failed at both, and failed beautifully, in the strictest sense of the word.
Parallels to the software world shouldn’t be ignored. When designing and building software – make sure to focus on one exact purpose, and succeed whole heartedly at it. No matter how beautiful your design is, no matter how well engineered, no matter how gorgeous the interface – if it doesn’t do it’s task well, then you’ve failed.