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A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

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Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#11

Post by gavinballard »

raganwald wrote: post #9

The question of free or cheap is important, but not why I would not submit a design to a competition like this. (I'm not a "designer," so what follows are simply general remarks about my personal experience with things like this.) Software design of all types, including UX, is an attempt to solve a problem given a set of constraints. There are thus three things involved: 1) solving, 2) the problem, and 3) the constra…

I think this is a great point, and the one that designers (and anyone feeling threatened by the evil onslaught of spec work) should be focusing on rather than the notion that the mere existence of 99designs is "insulting" to the profession.

Spec work is a good way to quickly and cheaply solve a simple problem where top quality is not the primary concern.

Many problems (and I would agree that the Skype UI is one of these) are more complex and require a more specialised approach. The latter is where top designers spend all of their time anyway.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#12

Post by efields »

You know what 99designers can't do? They can't visit your clients' offices. They can't justify their decisions in realtime. They can't 'sell' their design beyond simply clicking 'upload.' Basically, they can't be convincing to the people who hold the purse strings.

But you can. That's your job. You're a designer.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#13

Post by raganwald »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #4

You are trapped in the same Hell as other creative types, such as musicians: there are countless young aspirants who are willing to do this work for free just for a shot at "making it", but precious few people who sign checks who are able to discriminate the quality of the work. Engineering and accounting, your two comparison fields, don't suffer this problem.

Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations. The imbalance of supply and demand takes care of the rest.

In those two fields, you can see that when supply is unfettered, compensation does fall. For example, accountants in Canada make fairly good money, but unlicensed "tax preparers" do not.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#14

Post by olalonde »

This post is nothing more than propaganda to protect established designers from competition (those who are starting out or are just not very good at marketing their skills). Perhaps this was not the author's intention but it is the consequence of his reasoning. I don't think many designer want their profession to be protected by a trade union and this kind of mentality is what leads to it.

I say, if you are not an established designer with a large base of clients, do participate in the contest!

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#15

Post by mgkimsal »

Caution: wild stab in the dark here.

"Playing the game" isn't going to lead to $0 for the 'winner' and Skype just rolling out the submission immediately. I'd be willing to be there would be some paid consultation between the 'winner' and Skype, although they probably won't commit to a specific winning $ amount up front.

I understand the basic argument of "they're getting our work for free!". Really, I do. But the notion that "hiring a professional UI designer to fix it" will cut it might not be correct.

First, they've paid people to come up with the current one, so simply paying people doesn't necessarily get the best results.

Second, Skype in particular is used by a huge number of people, all with various needs and experiences. Getting input from a broad range of people informed by their usage of Skype and other apps should yield a final product better than the mind of one "professional UI designer". Possibly not, but the odds are in favor of a crowdsourced approach coming up with something as good or better than pinning this all on one hand-picked by Skype with no input from the community.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#16

Post by samdelagarza »

raganwald wrote: post #13
joblessjunkie wrote: post #4

You are trapped in the same Hell as other creative types, such as musicians: there are countless young aspirants who are willing to do this work for free just for a shot at "making it", but precious few people who sign checks who are able to discriminate the quality of the work. Engineering and accounting, your two comparison fields, don't suffer this problem.

Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations. The imbalance of supply and demand takes care of the rest. In those two fields, you can see that when supply i…

I'm not sure how it is for other engineering professions, but for software engineers we have a similar competition but instead of people willing to work for free it's people willing to work for peanuts out of India.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#17

Post by enra »

benologist wrote: post #10

A Call to All UI Designers: You're being disrupted. There's millions of amateurs and pros moonlighting for extra cash all over the world, and they're all hungrier, cheaper, and want to work whether it's for fun or for money. For every established designer who sneers at Skype's competition there'll be 1000 who submit and cross their fingers hoping a) their work reaches 10s of millions of people and b) Skype or others…

Yes like there are millions of people trained to be programmers that are hungrier than people in the Valley, so everything will be outsourced via elance. (No)

I think everyone can choose how they go on with their profession, so if you don't like contests, it's fine not participate in them. I've participated in contests and even won few, but usually they've been for some non-profit or small a startup looking for a sticker design.

The distinction here is that 1) I don't think Skype needs my help (they could hire anyone) 2) their contest is not about some funny sticker, but the UX of their core product 3) which leads to the fact that Skype doesn't take their UX seriously. Either they're willing to let anyone to design their core product without decent brief or experience with the problems and constrains or they're fishing for some ideas, which will not be implemented.

(Anyway I would be happy with a world of more designers since still most products are crap)

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#18

Post by olalonde »

raganwald wrote: post #13
joblessjunkie wrote: post #4

You are trapped in the same Hell as other creative types, such as musicians: there are countless young aspirants who are willing to do this work for free just for a shot at "making it", but precious few people who sign checks who are able to discriminate the quality of the work. Engineering and accounting, your two comparison fields, don't suffer this problem.

Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations. The imbalance of supply and demand takes care of the rest. In those two fields, you can see that when supply i…

I totally agree with your reasoning although I'd say it only applies to regulated professions (accounting, construction engineering, etc.). Computer/software engineering isn't regulated.

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#19

Post by bad_user »

benologist wrote: post #10

A Call to All UI Designers: You're being disrupted. There's millions of amateurs and pros moonlighting for extra cash all over the world, and they're all hungrier, cheaper, and want to work whether it's for fun or for money. For every established designer who sneers at Skype's competition there'll be 1000 who submit and cross their fingers hoping a) their work reaches 10s of millions of people and b) Skype or others…

This "disruption" you're speaking of has been going on ever since the nineties, when the web became popular.

To many companies design and UX is something that anybody can do, especially software developers and managers/customers with strong opinions, so why hire somebody that does design/UX for a living? Also many other companies hire crappy designers with 2/3 mediocre websites in their portfolio and that are listing photography as their hobby -- for cheap.

The end result is something you can see for yourself -- lots of crappy designs and unusable apps out there.

And crowd-sourcing is the alternative to the above. But IMHO, a good designer is more valuable to user-facing applications than a good developer, and if you want your app to kick-ass, the designer must is a crucial part of the development process.

So it's nothing new really -- good designers will always be paid handsomely, bad designers will have to work harder -- isn't that the same thing happening with software developers?

Re: A Call to All UI Designers: Do Not Play Skype’s Game

#20

Post by joblessjunkie »

raganwald wrote: post #13
joblessjunkie wrote: post #4

You are trapped in the same Hell as other creative types, such as musicians: there are countless young aspirants who are willing to do this work for free just for a shot at "making it", but precious few people who sign checks who are able to discriminate the quality of the work. Engineering and accounting, your two comparison fields, don't suffer this problem.

Engineering, accounting, and other +regulated+ fields use social engineering to solve the problem of how to be paid handsomely. What they have done is convince society that there should only be a limited number of engineers and accountants, those that are highly trained and have passed rigorous examinations. The imbalance of supply and demand takes care of the rest. In those two fields, you can see that when supply i…

I'm not sure if you are just trying to make a supplemental point, but this isn't really where I was going.

Either my cell phone drops its signal, or it doesn't. Either my books balance and my checks clear, or they don't. In engineering and accounting, there are absolute and obvious measures of success.

When it comes to UI design, who decides when the design is successful? My boss? He approved the Pontiac Aztek. Lord help us all.

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