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Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

joshuasortino.com

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons and tons of layers, I mean literally hundreds.

To elaborate, for anyone who hasn't used Photoshop (in several years): you can have layer groups which act as folders containing several related layers, so when you're browsing layers, it isn't just a mess of 500 some-odd rows.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that. You can also stuff a lot of component images into a psd that wouldn't necessarily make it into a final web design.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#22
post #12
post #2

"Engineers should teach engineers GIT, designers should teach designers GIT." is git part of modern design workflow ? how are designers using git ?

At any scale, git is probably not going to be your best bet. svn might actually be a better option as it allows you to checkout just the parts of the repository that you need. More crucially, it doesn't keep the entire history locally (just working copy and a the latest(ish) version in the repository). This really starts to matter when you have 200mb PSDs. There are probably even better options out there (though prev…

git does allow you to check out only a selection of version history

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#23

> Designers are generally right brained and engineers are usually left brained Is that true? Even if it's a myth of left vs right side of the brain are designers and engineers really that different in the brain?

In my experience working with designers, and having done a decent amount of design-y work: yes, definitely.

In my experience, designers tend to be more holistic in their view on things, to a point where they might outright hate it when things are picked apart and defined and categorized. Which is exactly what engineers excel at.

I also find designers to generally be more... emotional, or at least they show their emotional side more, or allow it to express itself.

And then there's the strong value they place on the 'design' of things. The feeling, the cohesion, etc.

One of the best examples of the difference I can think of is when I showed worrydream.com to a designer friend. I was excited about Brett Victor's talks, his views on programming and interfaces and whatnot, and figured my friend would be at least interested in the UX stuff. This friend, however, hated how the site felt bloated and slow and how that in itself was pretty much enough for him to not take this guy's articles seriously. It was an affront, and surely anyone who had anything interesting to say on design and UI would take care of his own site!

Now in many cases the difference between designers and engineers might not be so pronounced. I suppose it's a spectrum. But I notice very clear differences between developers and designers, and it seems to be a common cause of conflict.

I've also noticed this difference within myself. For the past two years I mostly focused on development, after a long time of taking care of more of the whole pipeline (especially client contact and the 'social' aspects of design). I noticed that I started caring markedly less and less about the end result's 'beauty' or logic, and more and more on the internals. I actually stopped noticing things that would've bothered me tremendously in the past: fonts, padding, margins, UX, and so on.

In part, maybe it's also a role you step into (where either role somehow excludes the other).

And the mere fact that I come across very few people who seem to be both excellent designers and engineers supports the idea that there's a difference.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#24
post #22
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At any scale, git is probably not going to be your best bet. svn might actually be a better option as it allows you to checkout just the parts of the repository that you need. More crucially, it doesn't keep the entire history locally (just working copy and a the latest(ish) version in the repository). This really starts to matter when you have 200mb PSDs. There are probably even better options out there (though prev…

git does allow you to check out only a selection of version history

Oh ok, but that's not how it would operate, right? So, say it was just me working on a project using a psd. If I committed it a couple of times a day, I'd end up with all the old copies in the local object store. Maybe it's possible to clear those out, somehow? Either way, you'll find that you have to jump through hoops to get reasonable behaviour with git in this use case.

I see I've been downvoted for my previous comment. I'd appreciate a justification from the downvoter as this is actually an area in which I have some experience.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#25

I agree with pretty much everything, except designers using Git. Sadly, Git doesn't work for PSD files properly. Some of the PSD files I've worked with before (900mb+) for larger websites and applications would definitely not be a good fit for Git. Although I think the blame lies mostly on Photoshop's end not being the right tool for web design, but being used by designers anyway. I think whatever tool ends up replac…

It's unfortunate that PSD files don't work with git because so much of the development and release process ends up being built around git (e.g. merging code into trunk triggers the continuous integration tests). If designers don't use git, they can end up out of sync with their engineering peers. As the author said, designers who code are at a big advantage, even if they spend most of their time designing.

As a compromise, we had some luck syncing the PSD files with Box and checking in the exported static assets to git, but it was more of a patch than a solution.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#26
post #5
post #4

The thing that stood out for me is that over a billion unique people use the service. Does it really underpin that much of the modern Internet?

How many of those are voluntary, active users, though? I see them more as "victims" of it, who are subjected to it without giving much consent at all. Somebody loads a blog article or some other web page that uses Disqus for accepting and showing comments, and without necessarily wanting to use it the page's visitors have become "users" of Disqus.

i cant stand disqus, i leave articles more than not because i dont like to be forced to comment using the system. it blows and needs to die... i thing webmasters use it because they are lazy, not because it is good.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#27
post #11
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those are voluntary, active users, though? I see them more as "victims" of it, who are subjected to it without giving much consent at all. Somebody loads a blog article or some other web page that uses Disqus for accepting and showing comments, and without necessarily wanting to use it the page's visitors have become "users" of Disqus.

sheesh. That's a bit much. The site owner chooses a commenting system. People who want to comment, comment using it. Victims?!

yep, speak my peace or not, have no voice or use their crap system. victim is about right imho.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#28

I agree with pretty much everything, except designers using Git. Sadly, Git doesn't work for PSD files properly. Some of the PSD files I've worked with before (900mb+) for larger websites and applications would definitely not be a good fit for Git. Although I think the blame lies mostly on Photoshop's end not being the right tool for web design, but being used by designers anyway. I think whatever tool ends up replac…

Git doesn’t handle image files well at all, because it wasn’t designed for it. That said, I think the OP is talking more about designers using Git for code, not images. Designers don’t just make images, etc.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#29

> Designers are generally right brained and engineers are usually left brained Is that true? Even if it's a myth of left vs right side of the brain are designers and engineers really that different in the brain?

I’m a systems-minded designer who can code. Left/right-brained signifiers work decently well in theory, but fall apart with real humans. People aren’t that binary.

Re: Things I Learned Designing at Disqus

#30
Does anyone have any thoughts on Disqus, particularly reviewing the usability and/or design aspects?

I see the service itself as meeting a need for those with static sites or who otherwise don't want to deal with managing their own commenting system. Disqus has also made some business decisions to increase revenue that have upset a few HN'ers¹. I haven't heard any complaints about usability or other design issues, though.

¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5220072

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