One of the design goals was when you saw it you wanted to lick it.
When Mac OS X first came out, Steve Jobs bragged that they were making an interface so beautiful you just wanted to lick it. Now, I don’t know about that, but having a beautiful interface is definitely not going to hurt you. Take a look at this MacHeist ad I just got yesterday. MacHeist repackages third-party Mac apps and sells them in bargain bundles- often including a puzzle to be able to buy it. Notice anything interesting about it?
There are only 2 things being sold here. That’s right. Yes I can count the 7 apps in the bundle. But really they’re selling on two points. The app icons and the bundle price.
These aren’t apps that make sense to be sold together. They’re a pretty good hodgepodge of functionality. They’re also not ‘essential’. But they normally cost a lot more. And the icons look nice and are presented beautifully in the email. Yes, there’s a description of each app, but it’s so short as to be simply a note about what you’re buying- they’re not a full description of each app.
Take a moment and look at your app icon. Is it lickable?