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There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

37signals.com

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Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#21

Post by chc »

jasonlotito wrote: post #8
wccrawford wrote: post #6

Criticism is good for a creator. If you can't turn criticism into a force to improve your product, you're doing it wrong. (Granted, baseless criticism doesn't count.) And if they're violating Apple's HIG... Seriously, why? That should be the easiest thing to get right. They've outlined it for you.

Apple's HIG isn't the end of UI design though. Even Apple refuses to blindly follow it. It's a guideline. Not hard and fast rules that must be followed in all cases.

There's a truism in many fields, "You have to learn the rules before you can break them." It means that rules are not the end-all-be-all, but they exist for a reason, and breaking them is generally bad unless you have a very good reason.

When you're just copying an iOS interface to the Mac, to use an example from that site, that isn't intelligently deciding that you can do one better than the HIG. That's just pointlessly making the app less intuitive.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#22

Post by danilocampos »

37signals is at their worst when they adopt this sanctimonious attitude. Say what you want about their juvenile tone, the criticisms on RTFHIG are mostly valid.

What are we going to do next? Pillory literary, film and food critics because their insights are inconvenient to the sensitive feelings of creators in those realms? Come on.

Creating things for other people has a long, rich history of criticism. Some valid, some bullshit, but all essential to the advancement of whatever creative field is under scrutiny. The shovelware artists who RTFHIG pick on might find a genuine direction for improving their work. Meanwhile, we're all talking about what genuinely makes a good interface.

That these guys are provocative makes their insights more valuable, since they get more attention. If you don't have or can't grow a thick skin, you don't belong in a creative field. It's as simple as that.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#23

Post by davidw »

axod wrote: post #19
sabat wrote: post #14

I rarely enjoy 37 Signals posts, but I heartily agree with Jason Z. (new guy?). There's so much negativism on the net in general; everyone seems threatened by everyone else. And you find it here, too, a place where you'd expect to find nothing but support and encouragement. (To be fair: HN is full of supportive people; there's just more negativity than you'd expect. I'm probably guilty of that, too, although I'm maki…

FWIW, I think parents/friends give blind support and encouragment. HN/peers/tech community should give complete honesty. If that means saying "That idea is terrible" so be it.

Complete honesty can be simple, direct, and if not exactly nice to hear, certainly not mean-spirited in tone.

That's quite different from the style of "oh my god what a bunch of fucking idiots these guys are, ha ha ha". It's a cheap, easy way to get some laughs (see: Ted Dziuba) but I'm not really a fan.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#24

Post by jakeg »

“Where the heck were you when the page was blank?” - Paul Butterworth

Always such a bogus argument. This is what people say when they don't like your opinion but have no argument to counter, so they resort to a rhetorical that implies you have no authority on the issue. But the fact is you do not need to be a creator to criticize a creation legitimately. Sometimes specializing in just observation/criticism and not creation allows you more time to think things over from the standpoint of analysis, whereas creation demands that a large portion of your mental energy goes to the creation process.

I can't speak to the blog in question but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of a blog just for the sake of criticism. How it goes about that criticism and any unnecessary hostility is another issue.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#25

Post by alex_c »

axod wrote: post #19
sabat wrote: post #14

I rarely enjoy 37 Signals posts, but I heartily agree with Jason Z. (new guy?). There's so much negativism on the net in general; everyone seems threatened by everyone else. And you find it here, too, a place where you'd expect to find nothing but support and encouragement. (To be fair: HN is full of supportive people; there's just more negativity than you'd expect. I'm probably guilty of that, too, although I'm maki…

FWIW, I think parents/friends give blind support and encouragment. HN/peers/tech community should give complete honesty. If that means saying "That idea is terrible" so be it.

I agree, but there's a big difference between honest, polite feedback and negativity, meanness, or just good old-fashioned flaming.

HN is pretty good in this respect. Reddit is still decent, though it can definitely lean towards mean. YouTube / app store reviews... forget any chance of respect.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#26

Post by gyardley »

'Read the Fucking HIG' (and 'Perversion Tracker', two years ago - http://www.perversiontracker.com) is interesting not so much for the content of the criticism, but because it's a reaction to the massive influx of new developers into a development community with its own distinct subculture.

Mac developers for the longest time engaged in 'artisanal software production' (for lack of a better term) with high production values - and while a few did well, many of them were just scraping by, doing it largely out of love for the platform. Then iOS came out, everybody learned Objective-C, money began to flow freely, and like homeowners in a town that's suddenly become touristy, they found themselves economically better off but a little ill-at-ease with the new character of their neighborhood.

Because of this, I'm more inclined to give this guy a bit of slack. The criticism isn't personal - it's just one person's way of mourning a world that no longer exists.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#27

Post by bane »

I think what rubs me the wrong way about this site is not the criticism. Criticism is ok. It's lack of proposed solutions.

One thing I really enjoy is when designers take a look at some established interface and try and design a better one and put it out there for comments and ideas. That is constructive criticism in my book.

example:http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/4831151379/

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#28

Post by roc »

jzimdars wrote: post #20
jsdalton wrote: post #9

I agree that just shitting all over people's work is, well, shitty. But I disagree entirely that the anonymous critic behind Read the Fucking HIG ( http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/ ) is out of line or that this kind of criticism is lacking in merit. Firstly, it's clearly a bit tongue in cheek: "The evil doctor cackled as the thunder struck his lightning rod, giving life and sentience to his unholy creation, splic…

He may be right. But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out. I think the biggest problem I have with it is that he's insulting and attacking the people who made these apps. There is no reason for that.

> "But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out."

It's a curious community we have. Pointing out problems or reporting visceral reaction is considered not constructive. Yet speculative re-designs to illustrate what the critic might have done differently are also considered not constructive.

It seems to me that when nothing short of actually competing against a product is considered useful or valid, the real argument is that criticism shouldn't exist and isn't useful in and of itself.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#29

Post by pedanticfreak »

jzimdars wrote: post #20
jsdalton wrote: post #9

I agree that just shitting all over people's work is, well, shitty. But I disagree entirely that the anonymous critic behind Read the Fucking HIG ( http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/ ) is out of line or that this kind of criticism is lacking in merit. Firstly, it's clearly a bit tongue in cheek: "The evil doctor cackled as the thunder struck his lightning rod, giving life and sentience to his unholy creation, splic…

He may be right. But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out. I think the biggest problem I have with it is that he's insulting and attacking the people who made these apps. There is no reason for that.

I wouldn't accuse someone of adding no value when clearly the site would not exist if readers did not find it valuable enough to keep coming back. Or if the author didn't find it valuable to keep contributing.

Maybe you don't find it valuable for you. But clearly you found it interesting enough to stop and make a comment when so many other articles on "more valuable" subjects sit uncommented.

Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work

#30

Post by parfe »

jzimdars wrote: post #20
jsdalton wrote: post #9

I agree that just shitting all over people's work is, well, shitty. But I disagree entirely that the anonymous critic behind Read the Fucking HIG ( http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/ ) is out of line or that this kind of criticism is lacking in merit. Firstly, it's clearly a bit tongue in cheek: "The evil doctor cackled as the thunder struck his lightning rod, giving life and sentience to his unholy creation, splic…

He may be right. But he's not adding any value for anyone the way he points it out. I think the biggest problem I have with it is that he's insulting and attacking the people who made these apps. There is no reason for that.

Entertainment has value.

Not all time needs to be spent on productive endeavors. And maybe he just might increase the quality of these apps by shaming them into compliance. The devs might even read the HIG!

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