Precious fusspot
There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
121–130 of 135 posts
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think about it carefully the emphasis here is not on if he should complain or not, the emphasis is on the way he should complain.
So the people complaining about complaints over UI being about style instead of substance are themselves complaining about argumentative style instead of substance.
You still do not get the point here. His arguments may be valid, I don't know I never read the HIG nor am I a designer. But there is a way to do constructive criticism without belittling the efforts of other developers. He is acting like a "Chinese mom".
This line from HN guidelines illustrate my point:
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
I know that showing "attitude" and being cool is all the rage these days, but I still thinking politeness works like a charm.
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#123It appears that they just took my post from last week and added 500 words: http://ted-is-a-nerd.tumblr.com/post/2631616173/
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#124'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…
You've posted perhaps one of the better definitions of this guy's attitude, and I have to agree.
However, while he's criticising UI design flaws, he doesn't actually provide any real ideas/examples on how they should fix this. This might just be because he can't afford the time to do so. Ironically, this is probably also the main reason why all these bad designs exist.
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If the developers who made these apps were, instead, writing novels of similar quality, their work would have been coldly rejected by publisher after publisher after publisher after publisher. 1. If you're going to create, you need a thick skin for rejection and criticism, constructive or otherwise. 2. Everyone has a certain amount of shitty work that they need to work out of their system before they get good. If nob…
Nowadays they'd self-publish and would only have to worry about reviews from people who bought the book from Amazon (and many of them stack their book reviews with friends and family).
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#126As a basketball player, I'd gladly take any (any, really) critique from Kobe. I won't take any (any, really) shit from Joe Blow. Prove to me you can do better than me. Then, we'll talk.
What about Phil Jackson? You're probably better at basketball than he is.
You sure about that? He was a decent NBA player in the 70s and was on the NBA All-Rookie First Team (1968) along with two championship teams.
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the developers who made these apps were, instead, writing novels of similar quality, their work would have been coldly rejected by publisher after publisher after publisher after publisher. 1. If you're going to create, you need a thick skin for rejection and criticism, constructive or otherwise. 2. Everyone has a certain amount of shitty work that they need to work out of their system before they get good. If nob…
Nowadays they'd self-publish and would only have to worry about reviews from people who bought the book from Amazon (and many of them stack their book reviews with friends and family).
Well, that would be an option, but they probably wouldn't make much money, they wouldn't get the marketing support, and they wouldn't get the prestige of having published.
But that's a good point. The hideous Apps in the App Store are like the terrible self-published things that shows up in the Kindle store.
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#128I dunno, I worked with one designer who firmly believed that "users like a challenge". He loved little tricks like "hiding" clickable things by making them blend in with decorative elements, he liked unusual fonts, he liked layouts that forced the users to hunt all over the screen for the next thing they wanted. But we weren't making games, we were making corporate Intranets. So my advice is, ignore your designer and…
Really glad you didn't make any generalizations about designers there to prove a point.
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a cute metaphor, but what would you think of eating a lobster from looking at one? If you're going to be the authority on the taste of cow shit (shit tastes like shit is, of course, a tautology), you better eat some cow shit.
Let's run with the cow shit metaphor a bit. A large component of taste is smell, and I can tell without taking a bite that the smell of cow shit would foul any pleasant flavor. Likewise with UI, a large component of its quality is visual. There is plenty we can gather about an application design just by looking at it. That isn't unfair, it's just plain observation.
Your nose is trained by generations upon generations to recognize shit as something bad.
I also know a dog perfectly happy to eat his own shit, but that would refuse to eat a Big Mac or other fast-food. It's a 12 year old Rottweiler in perfect health with beautifully looking hair without special care.
So I'm not sure our nose is doing a good job :)
Re: There is no place for just shitting all over other people's work
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the proposed solution to all entries would be "Do it with the HIG in mind".
Yes, I think I get that, but if everything was done to HIG all apps would look the same (much like all writing conforming to Formal English reads the same). I think what I'm asking is this, what can they do to conform to good GUI guidelines (HIG compliance doesn't necessarily answer that mail) and still maintain a unique looking interface? Also, in many cases, the developer may not know what's wrong with their interf…
These apps are so far from the HIG that pushing this out would make the creators read the HIG, hopefully sucking in some of it.