I really like the concept of practical elegance that Seth argues for. It's effectively an argument for true UX: optimising the user's experience to make it as useful and memorable as possible. As he puts it:

Creating delight before it’s expected.

That's a lovely way to think about designing anything.

Practical elegance is something that is available to all of us. If we choose, it can become the cornerstone of our work.

On failing elegantly (graceful degradation, anyone 😉):

Practical elegance doesn’t mean that the canoe will never capsize. It means that the thing we built was worth building, and it left the user feeling better, not worse, about their choice.