Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#31

Post by jcoop » Sun, Nov 14, 2010, 6:37 PM UTC

hsuresh wrote: post #24

dhh wrote: post #16

In my humble opinion, it's much more important to have a stellar product designer (decide how the thing works, then how it looks) than it is to have a stellar programmer. The slight problem is that programmers generally have an easier time making a shitty-but-workable UI than designers have putting together shitty-but-workable code. Thankfully that has been changing lately. I've talked to plenty of Rails developers w…

Design, in the sense you mention here, is something i would expect a good programmer to be good at. It is about problem solving, as well as understanding users of the solution. Designing a solution also requires a bit of algorithmic thinking. I have seen very few non-programmer designers who were good at designing a solution/application.

I think the issue here is that programmers, and MBA's for that matter, tend to be convergent-thinkers, whereas designers tend to be divergent-thinkers. Relying on a convergent thought process to solve a problem isn't the most effective way to tackle an issue and therefore involving designers in this process produces far more effective results.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#32

Post by dhh » Sun, Nov 14, 2010, 7:12 PM UTC

jeromec wrote: post #30

dhh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean designing the experience. How does it work, what goes where, what's important, etc. The "how does it look" is further down the line from there but still integrally connected. I find that the best product designers are people who can follow the rabbit hole all the way. From thinking about the problem to figuring out how many pixels the border should be.

Now see, you just described me perfectly with everything you said except for that last part about how many pixels the border should be. As a programmer I'm great at all of it except border width type decisions -- which btw I don't think are the most important thing affecting user experience. It mostly just helps aesthetics. It may be that I'm rare as a programmer that's good at following the user experience rabbit ho…

Making the connection from "how should it work" to "how should it look" is half the magic pudding of a good designer. Relegating that to "it mostly just helps aesthetics" to me signifies someone who doesn't understand that connection.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#33

Post by jeromec » Sun, Nov 14, 2010, 7:39 PM UTC

dhh wrote: post #32

jeromec wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now see, you just described me perfectly with everything you said except for that last part about how many pixels the border should be. As a programmer I'm great at all of it except border width type decisions -- which btw I don't think are the most important thing affecting user experience. It mostly just helps aesthetics. It may be that I'm rare as a programmer that's good at following the user experience rabbit ho…

Making the connection from "how should it work" to "how should it look" is half the magic pudding of a good designer. Relegating that to "it mostly just helps aesthetics" to me signifies someone who doesn't understand that connection.

We're experiencing some missed communication. I believe that's because "how it should look" encompasses two separate aspects -- functionality, and visual appeal. My comment about helping aesthetics was specifically regarding border width. I don't think you're suggesting a border width decision has anything to do with how something works.

Let me explain it better this way. I am fantastic at putting together wireframes for sites. A wireframe requires no programming or artistic ability, because it uses simply black and white lines, yet still effectively communicates the placement of elements, site flow, and overall intended functional user experience. I believe this is the type of design you're referring to. Again, this is something I feel I'm quite good at. Now, while I'm fully capable of cutting up and building out any wireframes I (or anyone else) come up with, and putting them online, it's probably not a good idea, because black and white lines would lack visual appeal. That's where graphic artists (what I usually call graphic designers) come in -- but in that instance they're mostly just adding in shapes, colors, and gradients etc. (and figuring out border width ;)

To me, building great wireframes and flow charts generally fits better with the thinking of programmers -- people most in tuned with thinking logically -- than creative artsy types, but that's just my thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#34

Post by Neputys » Sun, Nov 14, 2010, 8:43 PM UTC

jeromec wrote: post #25

Neputys wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter what the title is the thing that makes a world of difference is the reason someone designs. Nice looks are useless if they have no clear purpose, if there's no underlying reason for them to be nice. The value of really good designer is in the ability to understand what kind of design and how much of it is needed in order to make something _work_ well/better as opposed to just look nice (what can be simply h…

Hmm, good thoughts. I think you and I are thinking pretty much the same. Design is not art? Hmm... I think Leonardo da Vinci would possibly disagree with that. But maybe you're saying "design" is more mathematical in nature -- something either fits and works, or it doesn't. I could see that. Are graphic designers not usually artists? Or maybe you're saying the term should be "graphic artists" and not "graphic designe…

I think original and real meaning of term "design" is somehow lost to many people. It was coined for a reason long long after term art existed. The reason was that it was a process of creating something with aesthetic value but for business/utilitarian purpose and within certain constrains. Things like market, engineering, mass production requirements and so on. And designer is someone who has to understand these things in order to do his job well as opposed to artist who can make a car with a huge butterfly wings on it and it can still be a masterpiece as an artwork thou he has no idea what people want, how engineers work and it's absurd as a new model...

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#35

Post by dhh » Mon, Nov 15, 2010, 2:55 AM UTC

jeromec wrote: post #33

dhh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making the connection from "how should it work" to "how should it look" is half the magic pudding of a good designer. Relegating that to "it mostly just helps aesthetics" to me signifies someone who doesn't understand that connection.

We're experiencing some missed communication. I believe that's because "how it should look" encompasses two separate aspects -- functionality, and visual appeal. My comment about helping aesthetics was specifically regarding border width. I don't think you're suggesting a border width decision has anything to do with how something works. Let me explain it better this way. I am fantastic at putting together wireframes…

The visual representation of something is integrally linked with how it works. Thinking of that as just something graphic designers do to make it pretty is in my opinion the crux of the disagreement here. I don't think that this division should exist.

I've certainly seen it performed like this. In fact, I believe it's the norm. But I also think it's the cause of many bad experiences.

The perfect flow, in my opinion, is to have the same person responsible for how it works and how it looks because the best interfaces and applications merges those two together.

Also, I largely consider wireframes and flow charts to be poor substitutions for designers capable of jumping straight from ultra-rough paper sketch to HTML. The more layers of indirection, the worse.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#36

Post by jeromec » Mon, Nov 15, 2010, 4:45 PM UTC

dhh wrote: post #35

jeromec wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're experiencing some missed communication. I believe that's because "how it should look" encompasses two separate aspects -- functionality, and visual appeal. My comment about helping aesthetics was specifically regarding border width. I don't think you're suggesting a border width decision has anything to do with how something works. Let me explain it better this way. I am fantastic at putting together wireframes…

The visual representation of something is integrally linked with how it works. Thinking of that as just something graphic designers do to make it pretty is in my opinion the crux of the disagreement here. I don't think that this division should exist. I've certainly seen it performed like this. In fact, I believe it's the norm. But I also think it's the cause of many bad experiences. The perfect flow, in my opinion,…

I know graphic artists who are extremely talented visually, but certainly couldn't beat me for putting together Web applications. They may been drawing since they could hold a pencil, and know how to use Photoshop, but simply don't have the thinking I do when it comes to UX. In the past I built a large web application for a business that went head-to-head with a top industry version, and the owner was blown away with how much better my app was, saying it cut his training time for new employees down by around 85%. I don't think this is a black and white issue. I think, like most anything, there are many things that come down to the individual doing the job.