Design is how it works, not just how it looks.
That sounds more like the definition of 'function'.
nobody's ever heralds a well-functioning program as "functions well" though, they say it's designed well or has good usability.
Design is Horseshit
111–120 of 148 posts
Re: Design is Horseshit
#112A 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…
Do you disagree with this polemic? It's pretty specific and clear: it argues that plenty of startups are successful with virtually no design at all, with interfaces as clunky as "clients call us on the phone" or "emailing spreadsheets back and forth". It implicitly argues, "early stage startups are continuously faced with a choice of spending energy on design† or on customer discovery", and "early stage startups shou…
Here's the problem with the "plenty of startups are successful with virtually no design at all" argument:
It ignores the special nature of the customer.
To talk about these successful startups, or design in general, as if there is one true answer is like talking about price. You can't have price without value, you can't have value without the exact customer in mind, so gabbling on about it in the abstract is an utter waste of time.
SOME customers are totally insensitive to good user interface, good flow, good product education, etc. They don't care if there are features which are pleasantly surprising. They don't care if they have to wade through poorly laid out, confusing forms, or configure things when smart assumptions could be made for them instead, etc., etc., etc. They are so desperate, or otherwise so used to using crap, that they just don't care. These people are also insensitive to visual design.
And ALL those things distinctly fall under "design."
MOST customers do not act like that. They crave software which is a pleasure to use, that anticipates their needs and provides them with things they never would have thought to ask for but later cannot live without, software that saves them massive amounts of time, software which prevents or eliminates anxiety & stress, software that doesn't make them do shit work, etc.
Software, in other words, which is well-designed.
The visual styling on top is a bonus -- these customers like pretty things -- but as long as it's not butt ugly, software with all those other features will do well with the majority of potential customers.
If it's pretty, the effect is multiplied. Some customers don't care or even actively dislike attractive things, but they are not the majority.
Whether or not total crap design will work for you wholly depends on who you're trying to get to give you money.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#113A 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…
I definitely do not identify as a "startup blogger". I'm not even really a blogger. This is just a topic that bugged me.
So. You definitely know the difference between visual design and interaction/workflow design.
Why the flamebait?
Re: Design is Horseshit
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
(shrug) Words mean things. If I cry out, at the top of my lungs, that "Pizza is fucking bullshit!", then go on to say that I hate how pizza kills people, tears countries apart, and delivers atrocities, people will narrow their eyes and say "Actually, I think you're thinking of war." And then they're going to be a little weirded out that I said something so simultaneously bizarre and incorrect just to get their attent…
Pizza is a subset of war?
No, as per the original post, I guess war would be a subset of pizza.
Remember the Battle of Salamis!
(One blogger took a comment I wrote out of context for humor's sake and asked if we "needed a nice violent movie about Salamis")
Re: Design is Horseshit
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
that last sentence 100% misses my point. you were right at the start: Engineering is also horseshit. You can have the most beautifully engineered solution to a problem that nobody has or is willing to pay to have solved, and you'll still have a bullshit startup. Marketing is also horseshit. You can have the most amazingly viral video for a product that nobody wants and you will still end up with 0 sales and long-term…
Just because engineering and design and marketing each alone are not enough does not make them "horseshit". It just makes them overrated.
It doesn't even necessarily make them overrated. It just means they must be in the service of larger, business concerns.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your criticism seems to center around your dislike of him using "design" as a shorthand for "graphic design". But this is hardly unique to the author to say the least. In any case, what you go to say hardly contradicts what the author is saying ... except if you redefine what he's saying as being about you think "design" ought mean instead of how he's clearly using it.
(shrug) Words mean things. If I cry out, at the top of my lungs, that "Pizza is fucking bullshit!", then go on to say that I hate how pizza kills people, tears countries apart, and delivers atrocities, people will narrow their eyes and say "Actually, I think you're thinking of war." And then they're going to be a little weirded out that I said something so simultaneously bizarre and incorrect just to get their attent…
I don't this is a good analogy except if you cry out about pizza in a place where people are used to using 'pizza' as slang for 'war'. That's the situation here, isn't it? People in the "startup community" already use the word 'design' in the narrow sense of 'graphic design'.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#117Lean Startup has been, for the most part, a trojan horse to get design thinking into engineering driven organizations. Everything the lean startup movement talks about with getting out of the building and customer validation is essentially principles of good user research that the design community has been advocating for since forever.
It's unfortunate that designers still have to battle ignorant misconceptions that their work is about pushing pixels and making things look pretty. At it's heart, design is exactly what this article is advocating for; understanding a deep user need and developing an elegant experience that fulfills that need.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#118This 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…
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Re: Design is Horseshit
#119This 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…
"""This 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."""
"""
Really? Because it seems damn logical to me.
"""The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Graphic design is a subset of design, and covers nothing close to the full scope of what goes into the design of a new product. Design is about how things work and, often, what feelings they evoke in the process. How they look can be a part of that, but it needn't always be."""
Yeah. Only in web design it almost always are. And in the specific "over-designed" startup web services he rants about it always is. We all heard the quote "design is how it works" from Jobs et co. But:
1) In most cases it's 80% graphic design and 20% though of how it works. 2) How it works still means nothing, if WHAT IT DOES does not add value.
Customers don't care how "well designed" (graphically AND in "how it works") a service is, if that service does nothing useful for them.
Example: a well designed and totally usable "social something" site -- and why would I want to use that if no one of my friends is using it?
tl;dr: both how it looks and how it works are secondary to what if offers the customer
Re: Design is Horseshit
#120This 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…
Your criticism seems to center around your dislike of him using "design" as a shorthand for "graphic design". But this is hardly unique to the author to say the least. In any case, what you go to say hardly contradicts what the author is saying ... except if you redefine what he's saying as being about you think "design" ought mean instead of how he's clearly using it.
Even if he redefines design to "how things work", the author is still correct.
Who cares 1) how well something looks, and 2) how usable something is, if that thing provides no value to him?