How relevant is UI-design?

It's one of those questions, right? Well: it is VERY relevant, even more than functionality.

The other day my daughter created a design herself to get Fluffy, the design Frederik and Harald started in Randa during the KDE Multimedia + Education sprint, just because she saw the screenshots in the facebook group and wants it so badly. Yesterday she wrote her first message in the #kde-edu IRC asking (in Italian) when it was ready. Then I told her that they were working also on the Fluffy theme for Parley and she started to edit in Parley. Today I got Fluffy for Parley. The immediate reaction: my netbook was hijacked. She wanted to do exercises with Parley having the Fluffy Bunny there ... I had no prepared file - the only one was multiplication (something she does not like at all) ... and wonder oh wonder ... she is doing multiplication exercises. This tells me that design is really relevant, and even more if we want to provide properly localized educational contents ... and what does this mean in practical terms? We do need designers from various cultures who can envision what potential users want. And eventually we should simply take up pictures kids make to create some design - even if we adults eventually find it ugly ... it can well be that kids go for it, because it is them making it.

p.s. I know it's getting almost too much, but things are happening and so I have to write notes down immediately :-)