131–140 of 148 posts
2. Count the number of Apple devices in use. White earbuds are a dead giveaway.
3. Go hire a designer that knows what they're doing and try and accomodate their ideas into those of engineering without making a capon out of anyone.
4. Keep iterating.
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 . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…
Fun question - is emacs well designed ? What would a reviewer on engadget etc say if they came across it. Would they concede it has a better design than say - Textmate?
When Apple fans talk about the product being well designed its inevitably about the physical manifestation of the product - how it looks, what its battery life is, its weight etc. I fully concede that apple products are well designed in their own right and have a fantastical attention to detail, but the only details that get covered in the press and by evangelists are the ones that have to do with cosmetics or physical attributes.
Lastly - someone on this thread mentioned craigslist as having bad design. I think that is the classic example of equating cosmetics with design. I have yet to find another website that allows me to finish the task at hand with as little fuss and as few clicks. There are flaws to craigslist - like their ability to curate content in realtime - but their design to me is unobtrusive and efficient.
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 . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…
When contemporary reviews pan a product for poor design they usually complain about how it looks and weighs. Few reviewers take the effort to dig in and critique what the product does. Given this status quo its hard to blame anyone for equating cosmetics with design. Fun question - is emacs well designed ? What would a reviewer on engadget etc say if they came across it. Would they concede it has a better design than…
Along with terms like "It's really easy to use". The physical manifestation of any product, be it a torch, a pizza or a web based app, is part of it's design, as is the why and how of it's workings.
I don't understand what the author is so riled up about. Why not just delegate responsibilities? Let a designer focus on design, while the engineers focus on the actual product. Does it hurt to have a designer? I don't see why it would.
Good luck trying to sell something to the general public that looks horrid. No matter how well it works.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When contemporary reviews pan a product for poor design they usually complain about how it looks and weighs. Few reviewers take the effort to dig in and critique what the product does. Given this status quo its hard to blame anyone for equating cosmetics with design. Fun question - is emacs well designed ? What would a reviewer on engadget etc say if they came across it. Would they concede it has a better design than…
>>"When Apple fans talk about the product being well designed its inevitably about the physical manifestation of the product - how it looks, what its battery life is, its weight etc." Along with terms like "It's really easy to use". The physical manifestation of any product, be it a torch, a pizza or a web based app, is part of it's design, as is the why and how of it's workings.
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 . (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, bec…
Graphic design essentially concerns itself with how information is presented and consumed. This information can be presented in many different ways; ink on paper as an example or pixels on a screen. Part of the designers job is to solve the problem of how best to present the information, which may take the form of a call to action on a website or a tear-off in a magazine or what weight and style the fonts should be right down to the basic structure of the arrangements of elements on the screen/page/advertising hoarding. I know that most people think of this as a trivial task, but it isn't. It is the fundamental difference between good and great.
Engineers are designers, if one ever tells you otherwise, they don't have an understanding of what it is that they do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>"When Apple fans talk about the product being well designed its inevitably about the physical manifestation of the product - how it looks, what its battery life is, its weight etc." Along with terms like "It's really easy to use". The physical manifestation of any product, be it a torch, a pizza or a web based app, is part of it's design, as is the why and how of it's workings.
Do you disagree that the why and the how of what a product does are under represented in contemporary reviews?
A 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…
Design is not graphical embellishment. Design is decision making of appearance and functionality.
> I love good design and I am good at design. But I’ve never called myself a designer. > 1. Designers tweet and blog > 2. Design is a cheap way to appear like you’re creating value ... > I’ve created products / services in the past that have garnered praise for their design. > 3. Everyone’s a fucking designer now Face it, you're a designer. > Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups…
He was saying that design is multiplicative, not additive. You could have an extremely beautiful and well designed app but, if the idea doesn't first provide value to your customers, you're just polishing the brass on the Titanic.
The author is not suggesting not having quality design. He isn't even saying design isn't an itegral part of product development.
he's saying everyone is skipping step one, namely figure out what problem you're going to solve. No one asks the proverbial question 'How is my product going to get them laid' (to paraphrase jwz) They just skip straight to having a great way of doing the same exact thing everyone else does just as well.