Every reductive reasoning is horseshit. Someone needs to write an article about: "Start ups are frequently so complex that their behavior is emergent: it cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone."
Design is Horseshit
101–110 of 148 posts
Re: Design is Horseshit
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think he gets that. I think he sees the real tradeoff, between elegant, usable, pleasurable user experiences that in and of themselves make people want to come back to the product, and raw value creation. And he's saying, for early stage startups , raw value creation is more important no matter how clunky it is.
The problem is, design is not something you just slap on later. If it is not here from the start it won't be there at the end unless you redo everything from scratch. Design as an afterthought is a lipstick on a pig.
I don't think design should ever be slapped on. But I do think it makes the most sense to test and launch a first version with what amounts to a functional wireframe/prototype, if possible.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#103And yet Apple is/was the most valuable company in the world, largely due to design. Saying "design is horseshit" makes about as much sense as saying "engineering is horseshit" or "writing well is horseshit". Read: it makes absolutely no sense.
Apple is a not a particularly pertinent example. I'm not particularly familiar with Apple's history, but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately--people actually had a use for their stuff that nobody else could supply. Then, thanks to design (and marketing, and fashion, and engineering, and...) they grew. The whole point of the article is that the foundation of any successful company lies in the val…
> but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately
And there is inherent value to delivering overall value quicker.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is a not a particularly pertinent example. I'm not particularly familiar with Apple's history, but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately--people actually had a use for their stuff that nobody else could supply. Then, thanks to design (and marketing, and fashion, and engineering, and...) they grew. The whole point of the article is that the foundation of any successful company lies in the val…
In short, he didn't really mean that design is completely worthless Seriously? Because the term horseshit sounds pretty worthless to me.
I take it you've never bought manure. Selling shit is business.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#105This stuff was bizarre to me: > Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. > It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful > If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…
"Design is about how things work"
True, but this definition is a bit vague. Even if we think that this is not vague, then people with graphics design background should stop calling themselves designers, and engineers (who have years of training on some aspect of how some things should work) could call themselves designers. There will always be a debate on what exactly 'design' is, and who exactly a 'designer' is, because this is a bit artifical terminology in my opinion. (Long years ago, when engineers created mostly buildings engineers were also meant to be designers.)
I am an engineer/programmer, but I would feel extremely sad, uncreative, and a worthless biorobot if I could not see myself a 'designer' if we take the meaning of design very broadly.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#106A startup blogger writes a polemic with a blatantly baiting headline. Within 24 hours, another startup blogger will write a rebuttal with an equally baiting headline. Both will incite winding debates on Hacker News. Meanwhile, other people will somehow manage to create value, ostensibly the goal of both bloggers, without writing confrontational screeds, perhaps even writing insightful blog posts intended to inspire a…
And somehow HN still manages to find a way feel superior to both. Meanwhile, other people will somehow manage to create value, ostensibly the goal of HN posters, without writing snarky comments, they will succeed to create something truly new and inspiring.
Maybe it's posting on HN that is horseshit.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#107The author of this post is so misguided it boggles the mind… I'm a developer, but I chose to study design in college rather than computer science, because in my opinion design is much harder to master than programming is, and can be a much greater catalyst to success than pure engineering alone can be. I see design as an enabler. Engineering is where the heavy lifting is done, but design is what makes that possible.…
Not sure if you got his point. But design much harder than programming is; that's highly debatable. Sure, a lot of people can write code which kind of 'works', that's not really what I would call programming (and I don't think anyone here). As it takes about 10 years to really master writing great code and then get a lot of experience in the trenches, I believe this process is hard and takes a lot of time. Less than learning design. And you can do IA design even though you cannot make things pretty; a lot of people have a feeling for it.
If I (programmer, no design education or talent whatsoever) sit down with a pen and paper and draw a user interface (1 page) 100 times, the 100th time, it'll be quite optimal, consistent and nice. After that it goes through the pretty machine, an artist who cannot do IA, but can do pretty. It's a great combi. With programming, you cannot really do the same trick; you'll end up with crap.
I do agree that it an be a greater catalyst than pure engineering. I don't think it can be much of anything without engineering and value and that was the author his point. Of course when you made a product you want to make it look good and work well ergonomically, but you want the value and the engineering in place first. After reading the article I felt like his real beef is actually with nonsensical vaporware looking pretty to attract investors and morons signing up anyway.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#108The whole thing is a strawman. The blogger defined design as a "nice looking user interface" and then proceeded to knock it over.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#109Forget design. I want performance and reliability. GUI's failed to deliver. Some users avoid the command line at all costs. I avoid GUI's at all costs. I've found the costs are minimal while the benefits are substantial.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#110This stuff was bizarre to me: > Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. > It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful > If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…
Graphic design is multi-faceted and isn't just the process of creating pretty pictures. It's a holistic process encompassing form and function