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Why Software Developers Suck at UX

cakewalklabs.com

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Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#71

Post by ReactiveJelly »

pfraze wrote: post #40

Some devs do lack empathy for users, but that's a trope with lots of professions. I think it's more... 1. UX is a skill you need to train separately from the rest of your engineering skillset and not everybody does. I strongly recommend "Refactoring UI" to get some fast training. 2. Not everybody does user testing where you sit down with new users and watch them use it. Until you've done that multiple times, you won'…

> Not everybody does user testing where you sit down with new users and watch them use it.

I'd really like to. Management rarely lets me. When they do, they don't take my advice.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#74

Post by OrangeKnucles »

kodah wrote: post #57

> I think great UX designers just grew up naturally having much more empathy towards others and having a much better ability to place themselves in others shoes and see the world from their eyes. This is nothing more than a trope.

Most developers are Asians and Indians. Hiring SWEs is very meritocratic, you can't get in just because you are of a certain race or ethnicity.

UX and design have several Beckies. Hiring is much more fluid/subjective.

By painting UX as requiring "empathy" and claiming that white women have this magical quality but Indians or Asians are soulless robots who don't have empathy; it is subtle racist attempt to keep them out while favoring Beckies or handsome white guys.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#75

Post by OrangeKnucles »

75dvtwin wrote: post #47

>But the reason I wanna mainly talk about is that engineers, developers, whatever you want to call them ... > I think great UX designers just grew up naturally having much more empathy towards others and having a much better ability to place themselves in others shoes and see the world from their eyes. Wow, ok. So software developers (or whatever we call them...) grew up naturally to have less empathy for others, tha…

Most developers are Asians and Indians. Hiring SWEs is very meritocratic, you can't get in just because you are of a certain race or ethnicity.

UX and design have several Beckies. Hiring is much more fluid/subjective.

By painting UX as requiring "empathy" and claiming that white women have this magical quality but Indians or Asians are soulless robots who don't have empathy; it is subtle racist attempt to keep them out while favoring Beckies or handsome white guys.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#77

Post by SilasX »

brundolf wrote: post #32
bichiliad wrote: post #7

This article is close, but misses the mark. Talking about how UX researchers must grow up having more empathy sounds like an assumption that's pretty hard to back up, considering I can point to plenty of software engineers that got into the profession because they want to build a better world for others. I have a double degree in something that's effectively user experience. The one thing I heard in school over and o…

I think the word "empathy" is an overloaded term and was the wrong one for the author's point. Some people take it to mean "the ability to care about others on a moral level", and others take it to mean "the emotional intelligence to detect and understand the nuances of another's thoughts and feelings". I believe the author was talking about the second, not the first. It's entirely possible to be an idealistic and go…

It would still be wrong to say that UXers as a class have more empathy, even under that definition. The fast majority of sites feel like they're giving me a middle finger, especially on mobile, and they tend to get worse on sites that invest more in UX designers. If I pointed a camera at my phone, and showed my typical use, I could a dubious decision or unnecessary hurdle every five seconds.

See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24760150

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#78

Post by l0b0 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #55
l0b0 wrote: post #15

> I think great UX designers just grew up naturally having much more empathy towards others and having a much better ability to place themselves in others shoes and see the world from their eyes. If UX designers are so good at empathy, how is it that I, as a developer, keep having to point out that - making links show up as buttons and vice versa is bad UX, - mixing heading levels willy-nilly is bad UX, - bringing in…

> - bringing in a giant JS framework to make sure a single type of input field works the same for a single buggy browser + OS + device combination (Firefox on Android on Samsung S-something) as for the others is bad UX, and This is a business solution, not a UX problem. You've got a billion users. 0.01% use the buggy browser with the bad input field. You're losing $X per hour. The input pays for itself.

Your argument assumes that bringing in a giant JS framework has zero negative effects, but this should never be taken for granted:

- The framework may well be buggy for a small percentage of users who happen to this time not include someone vocal. Result: you've lost users and you won't know it.

- The framework might be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of load times or cost. For some reason it seems to be rare to test for slow devices on slow, unreliable, metered connections, even though it's pretty much a given that the UX designers' devices and connections will be in the top 1% in all of these. Result: you've lost users and you won't know it.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#79

Post by egberts1 »

Nothing beats the following during UX development:

1. early preview of customer requirements

2. Seat in their Physical operating environment

3. Silent observation and noting of their daily use

4. And an eye for streamlining their steps

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