Designers vs. Engineers

I think this is a fairly sound assessment of both the designer and engineer psychologies. In my experience, engineers frequently fail to understand that design is the fundamental relationship between the consumer and your product, and as such, should be considered of equal importance to the quality of the code. From the perspective of the layperson who actually has to USE the software, an ugly or clumsy design may as well be a critical coding bug. And therein lies the problem: some engineers are incapable (or unconcerned) with understanding the psychologies of other people despite the fact that they are developing products that will ostensibly be used by other people. Engineers would do well to learn that code is the language of computers, and aesthetics is the language of the user.

I think tech start-ups could benefit by taking cues from architecture, where the relationship between designers and engineers is reversed, design having priority over engineering. Serious architects can go so far as to believe that design has priority over even physics -- and sometimes with good reason. Many designs have been declared by engineers to be "impossible" only to be successfully built. Usually after the architect yells enough. Of course, despite being notoriously difficult, such architects are bound to have immense value for engineers with enough creativity to execute their ambitious plans. And I'm sure that the engineers love the challenge of working with them. At any rate, it would be interesting to see the results of talented coders being challenged by the best designers in this manner.