I'm increasingly of the impression that the most important aspect of product conception is figuring out how it is going to obtain users. Without a distribution strategy you don't really have a product.
Design is losing its seat at the table
11–20 of 78 posts
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#12The original title 'Designer Duds: Losing Our Seat at the Table' was more insightful and less clickbaity.
To me the original title is confusing. I wouldn't have known what was meant by "Designer Duds." Duds can be used to mean clothes, so it almost sounds like an article about designer clothing... haha.
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#13In all my time building websites the over emphasis on design has had a negative impact on the majority of projects i have encountered.
Non-design stake holders will obsess over design to the detriment of other less interesting issues, vendors are selected on the quality of mock up not their ability to deliver or technical expertise. Designer will go for gold and disregard best practice, what the user/product actually needs and what can be delivered on time and budget.
But I (like most people) do not work for apple/dropbox/megacorp... so my anecdotes are not exactly relevant to the article.
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#14Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…
> Design is intrinsically tied to function. Like how this designer chose to post on Quora, where the fixed-width header means when I hit page-down on my keyboard, I miss the first two lines of text on the next page?
Yeah. That article is really nice and is making good points. But it is really strange to read that on Quora of all places, the site that had to resort to hiding answers just to force people to sign up, whose purpose and business model seems completely unclear ("the startup that missed the chance to be bought"), and which is not really a leader in design as well (though I don't think its core is badly done), apart in using tricks to stimulate initial participation.
That is not even off-topic, he mentions it in the article and links to an answer (https://www.quora.com/Why-should-or-shouldnt-you-migrate-you...) on why people should move content from Blogs to Quora, as a counter example to Medium. But that answer is not convincing at all, there is not much in Quora that makes it more likely old content gets seen, nothing at least that beats Google's long tail for blog articles, notwithstanding that the linked article is not new. I have a blog, it is not popular, but I get so many visitors via Google on old articles that I could be quite happy about that, if it were anything to be happy about.
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#15Popularity or usage isn't the same as merit. Redesigns of apps may be absolutely amazing and objectively better but that doesn't mean they will see a lot of adoption. People don't automatically adopt things that are better. People flock to apps or interfaces like birds. That behavior doesn't tell you which things are better.
Of course, you can do a good UX design and good graphic design (both together, but they are two different aspects) and then use psychology and network effects to your advantage. Or just switch interfaces on a certain part of the users and then the rest may be jealous. Or other tricks.
Marketers want you to believe something fancy and trendy and expensive is better and so people want that status. That isn't the same as being actually better.
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#16Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…
TL;DR design != aesthetics and most "design-led" startups are actually "aesthetically-led"
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#17Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…
> Design is intrinsically tied to function. Like how this designer chose to post on Quora, where the fixed-width header means when I hit page-down on my keyboard, I miss the first two lines of text on the next page?
Sadly Quora has only gotten worse in design (in all forms) over the years.
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#18Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…
> Design is intrinsically tied to function. Like how this designer chose to post on Quora, where the fixed-width header means when I hit page-down on my keyboard, I miss the first two lines of text on the next page?
He also posted it on his tumblr and medium, if you'd prefer to read it there.
http://metaismurder.com/post/84199748362/designer-duds-losin...
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#19Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7677031
Re: Design is losing its seat at the table
#20""" Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. """ — Steve Jobs
Ironic, coming from a company with such a terrible approach to design.
"You're holding it wrong."