Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#21

Post by Neputys »

jeromec wrote: post #20
Neputys wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody is essential, none is sufficient... (and craigslist has a design, it's just a different kind)

(and craigslist has a design, it's just a different kind) Yes, I agree craigslist has a design. It's a functional design , the kind I'm great at. What I'm not so good at is art/graphic design. I could have built craigslist from scratch completely by myself in a few weeks, if that long, but that's because I can lay things out and use shades of gray quite well.

I really believe you could... but the thing is - would you decide to keep it this way as they did? Really.. think about it. Wouldn't you think let's hire a "designer" to make it nicer now that we have more money (same here)? For me this is the actual kind of smart design decision and not ability to make sleek glossy buttons.

I don't want to have an argument. I'm just sharing my view on what I think good design actually is.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#22

Post by jeromec »

Neputys wrote: post #21
jeromec wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(and craigslist has a design, it's just a different kind) Yes, I agree craigslist has a design. It's a functional design , the kind I'm great at. What I'm not so good at is art/graphic design. I could have built craigslist from scratch completely by myself in a few weeks, if that long, but that's because I can lay things out and use shades of gray quite well.

I really believe you could... but the thing is - would you decide to keep it this way as they did? Really.. think about it. Wouldn't you think let's hire a "designer" to make it nicer now that we have more money (same here)? For me this is the actual kind of smart design decision and not ability to make sleek glossy buttons. I don't want to have an argument. I'm just sharing my view on what I think good design actual…

Well, that's a good question, but it depends on whether you mean a graphic designer or a "user experience" person. A graphic designer can make most any site look nicer, but that doesn't mean the same thing as providing them with a better usage experience. For example, does the position/availability of search boxes make sense.

I'm not trying to argue, either. This is an interesting topic for me. Where the purely technical/engineering world merges with the artistic world there is often interesting overlap. Is it better to have form over function, or function over form? I think the answer is that it depends case by case on the desired result, and both areas often compromise to accommodate the other. So, for example, "concept cars" usually have exotic form, and look great, but they are usually hypothetical only because in reality they wouldn't be that great functionally -- they're usually purely artistic.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#23

Post by Neputys »

jeromec wrote: post #22
Neputys wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really believe you could... but the thing is - would you decide to keep it this way as they did? Really.. think about it. Wouldn't you think let's hire a "designer" to make it nicer now that we have more money (same here)? For me this is the actual kind of smart design decision and not ability to make sleek glossy buttons. I don't want to have an argument. I'm just sharing my view on what I think good design actual…

Well, that's a good question, but it depends on whether you mean a graphic designer or a "user experience" person. A graphic designer can make most any site look nicer, but that doesn't mean the same thing as providing them with a better usage experience. For example, does the position/availability of search boxes make sense. I'm not trying to argue, either. This is an interesting topic for me. Where the purely techn…

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 harmful in some cases, I call it monkey with grenade...).

So I think if when you say designer you mean someone who has ability to understand bigger picture and uses his skills as a tool to achieve something, you definitely need one (and you'll have a hard time finding him). But if it's just about looks then I'm not sure.

btw, design is not art, design is an industrial term believe it or not. Child of mass production in 19th century:)

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#24

Post by hsuresh »

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.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#25

Post by jeromec »

Neputys wrote: post #23
jeromec wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a good question, but it depends on whether you mean a graphic designer or a "user experience" person. A graphic designer can make most any site look nicer, but that doesn't mean the same thing as providing them with a better usage experience. For example, does the position/availability of search boxes make sense. I'm not trying to argue, either. This is an interesting topic for me. Where the purely techn…

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 designers"?

btw, I lol'ed at monkey with grenade :)

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#26

Post by turph »

Bit of a tangent here...

As a UI designer I find comments to these types of questions always a bit interesting. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to see folks thinking about the inclusion of design input initially. But what I find kinda amusing is that there is this tendency to quickly begin classifying designers (rightly so into visual & workflow), but the same discussion never happens for the term technical.

Your question simply says technical, and the community just accepts the term. I have work with many "technicals" who could code a front end but their work failed because they knew nothing about latency, back end architecture or scaling. And I have worked with many back end technical folks who felt the display layer was the work of junior people as it is not "the hard stuff". Like designers, technical folks fall into two camps as well - and very few excel at both.

Not looking to start a discussion war. Just want to state that the more legs you can put under your idea, the more balanced it will be. Apple succeeds for many reasons, but one thing is true - they have the culture and more importantly the infrastructure to assemble a large team of highly talented and focused individuals.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#27

Post by apz »

As a designer and a newcomer to the bay and valley I find this thread incredibly refreshing. I came to the bay to do exactly the kind of design described here: larger picture problem solving, going beyond what something looks like to connect aesthetics and communications more meaningfully with core functionality and belief.

But so far I've found that virtually no part of process of starting and running a company currently allows for this ki d of design thinking. There is only ever a design budget for what amounts to a fresh coat of paint, way after all the meaningful design decisions have been made.

How can design become a more meaningful part of the process?

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#28

Post by dhh »

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.

You might expect that, but my sense from the real world is that it is not true. I consider myself pretty good at this stuff and I'm still humbled by the insights of our designers.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#29

Post by dhh »

jeromec wrote: post #18
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…

This is a great comment, but I'm still unclear about the intended meaning of "designer". Are we only talking about graphic/artistic design, or just product design? The two are not the same (IMO). For example, I'm a programmer at the core, completely left-brained/logical, who struggles with art/graphic design. However, I am a great product designer (at least, IMO!). So, the one thing I look for to complete projects I'…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Technical, Business, or Designer

#30

Post by jeromec »

dhh wrote: post #29
jeromec wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great comment, but I'm still unclear about the intended meaning of "designer". Are we only talking about graphic/artistic design, or just product design? The two are not the same (IMO). For example, I'm a programmer at the core, completely left-brained/logical, who struggles with art/graphic design. However, I am a great product designer (at least, IMO!). So, the one thing I look for to complete projects I'…

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 hole all the way, but I don't think so.
Post reply on HN