I recently went through this list of replacements for Windows shells and explorer, looking through each product page trying to find an attractive shell. Since there were a lot of these, I opened them all in tabs and went through each one quickly. I quickly came to the realization that what I was looking for was screenshots, nothing else. If the product page did not have screenshots of the shell, I closed it.

Then I realized that not only graphical and theme programs need screenshots, but every product needs screenshots. Essentially, the graphical interface is what the user will be looking at and interacting with. The point is not to necessarily have an attractive interface, but if there are no screenshots for a product at all, the user fails to establish an initial impression of the product, and thus moves on.

I know I’ve missed out on a lot of good products that do not include screenshots on their product pages (e.g. 7-Zip, Winamp, Thunderbird, etc) until recently. It’s all about marketing, and if there is no marketing at all, then the user will never see it.