11–20 of 49 posts
As a design/product guy I'd love to work at your startup IF the problem you're trying to solve is compelling. A good number of startups fail that litmus test for me.
If your idea is awesome, I'm in.
Stephen Fry
It's very hard to tell when design or functionality makes or breaks a site. I think we shouldn't be asking that question at all. The whole thing is completely situational. For Craigslist the function is most important and credit should go to the back end guys. Something like Twitter would give it to the front end guys. I'm leaving scaling out of the equation for now and assuming all sites will perform the same under…
Are you implying Craigslist is not an ugly site? not trying to be sarcastic, genuine question.
It's very hard to tell when design or functionality makes or breaks a site. I think we shouldn't be asking that question at all. The whole thing is completely situational. For Craigslist the function is most important and credit should go to the back end guys. Something like Twitter would give it to the front end guys. I'm leaving scaling out of the equation for now and assuming all sites will perform the same under…
This, right after talking about Craigslist, a site that enjoys a monthly cycle of "Craigslist sucks, it's so ugly!" ranters who are reliably and continually proven to be clueless.
Becoming?
It's very hard to tell when design or functionality makes or breaks a site. I think we shouldn't be asking that question at all. The whole thing is completely situational. For Craigslist the function is most important and credit should go to the back end guys. Something like Twitter would give it to the front end guys. I'm leaving scaling out of the equation for now and assuming all sites will perform the same under…
It's very hard to tell when design or functionality makes or breaks a site. I think we shouldn't be asking that question at all. The whole thing is completely situational. For Craigslist the function is most important and credit should go to the back end guys. Something like Twitter would give it to the front end guys. I'm leaving scaling out of the equation for now and assuming all sites will perform the same under…
A site that is ugly doesn't get used. This, right after talking about Craigslist, a site that enjoys a monthly cycle of "Craigslist sucks, it's so ugly!" ranters who are reliably and continually proven to be clueless.
It drives me crazy that Craig won't allow image previews for apartment listings. It's a poor design decision. But since they own that space of mind, it's extremely difficult for someone else to come along and dethrone them with a better product.
From the lens of a role-playing gamer (big fan of Bioware games), I think this realization can best be described by the distribution of attribute points. You can drop all your points into strength, and sure enough there will be times that you excel as you bash things with swords, but there will be times when you think, boy it would be nice to have a bit of magic or better charisma or whatever to solve this problem (usually bad guys) and then you start going all magic... usually the best builds that provide the best overall advantage are the ones that are balanced. So again, as much hype as these Design people might be getting now, don't forget about the other "attributes" as it were.
Building a product is composed of two (blurry) stages: creating something that solves a problem, and adapting that solution to suit the person who will be using it. Arguably, without design, there is no product - by making decisions that are necessary to take something from paper into reality, you are going through a process of design. Design is most acknowledged in consumer goods, but it is present everywhere. Imagi…
I used to think of myself as an engineering-type person. I engineered solutions. Indeed, my undergraduate education was in math and physics. But then I began a lengthy graduate design education in architecture and, in the process, began to design solutions. I had become a design-type person.
Yet when I reflected on these two types of tasks -- engineering and design -- I realized they were not different types of tasks at all. Rather, engineering and design are two different approaches to the singular task of creation: design is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon qualitative metrics; engineering is creation in which decisions are based primarily upon quantitative metrics. I was instead simply a creative-type person, just one with an ability to approach problems with both engineering and design eyes.
Perhaps my most important observation is that engineering and design are fundamentally more similar than different. And by improving your abilities in either, you are improving your abilities at that which is similar: the creative process itself.