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Why Software Developers Suck at UX

cakewalklabs.com

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Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#81

Post by rutthenut »

NewOrderNow wrote: post #46
whoisjuan wrote: post #14

I have a theory. I have been designing software for 9 years. I have been designing Developer products for the last 4 years of my career. Let me tell you something. The developer experience is one of the toughest and roughest experiences for anyone who uses software. From installing a library, to browsing logs. From reading documentation to deploying code. Everything in the developer experience is mined with obscure p…

I really like this take. I was mulling around a thought and I feel this might be a good place to validate it: So I was talking about this with a friend, and I believe that there is an inclusivity to UX that most engineers don't seem to care about or have the patience for. A technological Darwinian mindset where if you don't get it, then you don't get it. The UX designer holds everyone's hand as they run. The Engineer…

I think this appears to be 'blaming' the engineers, pointing to a lack of patience and so on. The parent idea seems closer, techies get used to working with technology-led tools and solutions, so rarely (less often) get exposed to usability best-practice, for them to consider that as an input requirement.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#82

Post by rutthenut »

magicalhippo wrote: post #29

For me the biggest issue with making a good UX when developing is primarily that, by virtue of being the developer making the thing, I have a perfect mental model of how the software works. This makes it difficult to view the software from the POV of someone who is not in that position. It takes a conscious effort, and even then I find it difficult. That's why I enjoy taking support calls every now and then, looking…

I think your statements are the nub of the issue - as a developer, the view is of how the software is designed and operates internally. Users don't (normally) have that same view. This is why 'Use Cases' and/or 'User Stories' can help cross the divide between what the user needs the software to do, and the technical details of how it may do it internally. Of course, Use Cases or User Stories don't easily capture the UI/UX aspects, which would come from a broader level of business modelling in the application/user domain.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#84

Post by rutthenut »

Aeolun wrote: post #54

This article ended before it really started...

Agreed. I read the article after seeing some of the discussion comments here, then thought "is that it"? Claims about empathy, little else, other than the generalisation - which I think most of us agree with - that a lot of software UX is poor, and that this is being blamed on 'engineers'. Are there no other types of people involved in delivering software applications then? Who captures requirements, architecture, design, non-functional requirements, prioritises features for inclusion (or not), etc...

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#87

Post by Tainnor »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #69
atoav wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd add: 4. Not everything needs to be a minimalistic sleek Webapp. All of this depends on who your target audience is and on which level they want to deal with the problem. A minimalistic UI isn't automatically more or less powerful than a complex one if it combines well with other tools. To make every part combine well with the other parts to get out more than the sum of the parts is worth it, but find the right de…

> 4. Not everything needs to be a minimalistic sleek Webapp. All of this depends on who your target audience is and on which level they want to deal with the problem. A minimalistic UI isn't automatically more or less powerful than a complex one if it combines well with other tools. To make every part combine well with the other parts to get out more than the sum of the parts is worth it, but find the right degree of…

I think this only works for certain classes of applications.

Applications that professional users use do typically need lots of features, no matter how you present that. The idea of "most users don't need this" is misguided because while most of the functionality won't be necessary for most users, users don't necessarily agree on which features they will need, every one of them requiring a different subset of the features.

Just take something like a sheet music composer (something like Sibelius, Finale or Dorico). There's no way in hell you can just strip out a significant chunk of the features because doing that would totally break the product for many, many users (incidentally, the YouTube channel tantacrul has some interesting videos about UX design in this space - not affiliated). Word processors, IDEs, etc. share similar fates.

Frankly, I'm often annoyed when some programs pretend that I don't need some functionality and prefer to present their minimalist UI to me that doesn't let me do advanced stuff. A lot of macOS software IMHO suffers from this problem which is maybe great if you just want a barebones e-mail reader, say, but then you get something like XCode which doesn't even have proper refactoring support because "look at how complicated IntelliJ is".

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#89

Post by stvbdn »

I think some companies tend to think of software devs as a one-stop shop. Like all you need to hire is a software dev and they can handle all aspects of the build. It would be like hiring a civil engineer to do everything, when in reality you need an architect, intertior designer, etc.

Re: Why Software Developers Suck at UX

#90

Post by slammin »

filoeleven wrote: post #34
TwoBit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the motivation for arbitrarily unique design to stand out? To look like you aren't just another commodity web site and product?

Standing out visually is helpful for branding, but the unique designs that succeed usually occur when presenting the relevant data in a useful way. So understanding helpful mappings is key. For example, I switched to iTunes when it was first released on Windows mainly because of the “artist | album | song” as a row of lists interface. It wasn’t a new interface: Smalltalk used something like it for code, and OSX had i…

i believe that inteface is called 'miller columns.' didn't realize what i was missing til i used the OSX Finder.
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