Or can you get away by being bad in a consistent way? For ex. if a button which does not look like a button, but is probably the only kind of button in the application. Links which are not underlined.
Thoughts?
If you're using the word "bad" to describe something, it's probably not good. But if it's going to be bad, then yes, a consistent style of badness is preferable to one that is bad <i>and</i> inconsistent. At least that way people can get used to the specific faults and ignore or work around them as needed.<p>What you can "get away with" depends on the application and the users. A simple app for internal use can be as ugly as you like, but for something that potential clients will see before choosing whether or not to give you money (even for something unrelated) it would probably be a wise investment to get it done right.