Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer • Hacker News Board

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#131

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

wvbdmp wrote: post #119

seanwilson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, peak usability was 25 years ago, when most applications had a toolbar and a menu that followed a standard pattern. Some things were good, but there were lots of problems too like features hidden behind right-clicks, not knowing if you had to double or single click, being required to read help/manuals to find features, too much jargon and technical language, and overuse of modals. UIs have got incrementally b…

> Some things were good, but there were lots of problems too like features hidden behind right-clicks, not knowing if you had to double or single click, being required to read help/manuals to find features, too much jargon and technical language, and overuse of modals. I dunno… all of these issues are still very prevalent. The one that probably disappeared the most is the right click context menu, which I would argue…

[deleted]

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#132

Post by rojcyk » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:06 PM UTC

ChicagoDave wrote: post #109

My startup is a non-standard domain targeting the iPad. Our need for a designer with functional knowledge and creativity is very high. I’ve muddled through with iterative designs of my own, but this challenge has delayed our beta. Designers don’t work for equity where nearly every other kind of talent will. This is a real blocker for startups.

[dead]

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#133

Post by seanwilson » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

wvbdmp wrote: post #119

seanwilson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, peak usability was 25 years ago, when most applications had a toolbar and a menu that followed a standard pattern. Some things were good, but there were lots of problems too like features hidden behind right-clicks, not knowing if you had to double or single click, being required to read help/manuals to find features, too much jargon and technical language, and overuse of modals. UIs have got incrementally b…

> Some things were good, but there were lots of problems too like features hidden behind right-clicks, not knowing if you had to double or single click, being required to read help/manuals to find features, too much jargon and technical language, and overuse of modals. I dunno… all of these issues are still very prevalent. The one that probably disappeared the most is the right click context menu, which I would argue…

Right-click is fine for power users and professional tools if there isn't a better alternative, but right-click (and long tap on mobile) is super undiscoverable because there's no indication or hint it'll do anything.

Whenever I help non-tech friends with software problems, I'm always reminded most people don't feel comfortable hunting around for functionality and for sure don't try right-clicking things on the chance it might do something.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#134

Post by svilen_dobrev » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

eh. For who want's to get deeper/broader view, there's a "bible" on UX.. called "Usability engineering" by Jakob Nielsen ~1993 [0].

IMO The first 2 (two) chapters are, like, mandatory - the what and the why. The rest, is mostly details - how. (but it has even how to organise random-street-user-tests and what to look for in those, etc)

Although, looking at recent 10 years of (software-or-car) UXs, i feel noone reads these anymore :/ Sadly.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Usability-Engineering-Interactive-Tech...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_Engineering

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#135

Post by danielmarkbruce » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

caseyohara wrote: post #33

alphazard wrote: post #10

The most obvious change that happens after hiring a graphic designer is that the app/website stops looking like shit, and adopts a pleasing color palette and set of fonts. There is real value in this, and the median graphic designer definitely chooses these better than the median engineer. But UX is a broader umbrella which encompasses interaction flows at the large end, and single function widgets at the small end.…

> It's very difficult to create good UX by design because evaluating the system by imagination is much harder than with an implementation. This is precisely why it’s a tragedy that the roles in software development have become so compartmentalized. It wasn’t that long ago that the same person designing an interface was also responsible for developing it. Or that design and development were one and the same, part of t…

This isn't just a software thing... all of corporate america has compartmentalized and while the results in churning out widgets are actually very good, the results in practically everything else are bad bad bad. Even in finance, Warren Buffett will preach that investing is not a team sport - you need all the details in one head.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#136

Post by swesour » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

savolai wrote: post #59

hliyan wrote: post #29

To me, peak usability was 25 years ago, when most applications had a toolbar and a menu that followed a standard pattern. If you're a frequent, non-power-user, you use the toolbar (e.g. "insert row" button). If you're an infrequent non-power-user, you go through the menu (Insert > Row Above). If you're a power user, you remember the shortcuts indicated through underlined letters in menu labels (e.g. Alt, I, A). If yo…

”Modern ux” can be a very political term on HN. Yes, uxers have to balance business and user needs. That is the power dynamic of business we live in, it’s not typically the driving force of actual uxers themselves. At the core the ethos of the human centered design (HCD) is being an advocate for the needs of actual users. Being seen as the ”enemy” on HN feels demoralizing, as a person that sits on both sides of the f…

> uxers have to balance business and user needs.

What does this mean? It seems that compromising the UX for a "business need" is just lazy user experience design.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#137

Post by hombre_fatal » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

caseyohara wrote: post #33

alphazard wrote: post #10

The most obvious change that happens after hiring a graphic designer is that the app/website stops looking like shit, and adopts a pleasing color palette and set of fonts. There is real value in this, and the median graphic designer definitely chooses these better than the median engineer. But UX is a broader umbrella which encompasses interaction flows at the large end, and single function widgets at the small end.…

> It's very difficult to create good UX by design because evaluating the system by imagination is much harder than with an implementation. This is precisely why it’s a tragedy that the roles in software development have become so compartmentalized. It wasn’t that long ago that the same person designing an interface was also responsible for developing it. Or that design and development were one and the same, part of t…

I think the reason UX moved into its own realm (like "UX designer") is to create the processes to get actual UX expertise.

Without deliberate UX expertise, you're on the hook for having UI implementers (software engineers) who happen to be good at UX, and that's not a great way to go about ensuring that you have good UX because you're reliant on serendipity.

And of course once UX becomes its own prong that you're trying to optimize for, the simplest thing to do is create UX positions in your company. Which is much simpler than figuring out how to hire software engineers with UX expertise or good intuitions.

Just consider how few hiring processes involve someone clicking into your github projects and evaluating them just to see what kind of code you write. That's much harder than doing a canned leetcode or canned questions interview.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#138

Post by nbzso » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

AI is not designing good? How? The tech bros hate artistic minded people.

They hate design because it is the engine of growth and change. Tech bros like sameness and libraries. They love "design patterns".

But change is inevitable and design is not in the colors, fonts, whitespace.

Design is human centered practice for solving not only functional tasks but emotional. And for this there is no Tailwind, React, AI solution, or design patterns template.

PS: I am a designer and frontend engineer with 20+ years practice with my own company and plethora of delivered solutions for my clients. The divide between engineers and designers is the most persistent thing that I have seen in my life.

It is beyond my understanding.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#139

Post by Ensorceled » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 6:22 PM UTC

patja wrote: post #120

Ensorceled wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure the form is compatible with password managers. The number of sites that go out of their way to prevent password managers, well any "paste" mechanisms, is still annoying but are becoming fewer.

Bank account numbers for ACH payments seem to be the final frontier. As if asking me to type 16 numbers correctly is better than pasting it.

The most common reason I get, professionally, is that it "prevents scripting" ... as if hackers are both using Chrome extensions at scale but also can't figure out how to defeat javascript and html form restrictions.

Re: Practical UX for startups surviving without a designer

#140

Post by conductr » Thu, Mar 13, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #54

conductr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At all times, people that are proficient at a green screen terminal application will prefer it to a web based or GUI based experience. They have muscle memory and a lot of codes memorized to switch back and forth from screen to screen extremely fast and exactly how many tabs to hit to fill out a form. It has nothing to do with SPA or whatever is currently new and flashy this has been going on for decades. The fact th…

You could still do this in the GUIs of 25 years ago, you'd just memorize the keyboard shortcuts and use them. They'd buffer so you could type a series of operations faster than the screen could render them, and basically every function was accessible from the keyboard. But the GUI had the advantage of discoverability - if you didn't know the keyboard shortcut, you could just work your way through the menus and find i…

While possible, the uptake/usage is very low once it requires lots of CTRL / ALT / CMD button sequences. Take something like Excel, which many users use daily for work, but most people likely only use less than a dozen common keyboard shortcuts. Practically nobody navigates the ribbon with their keyboard.

I'm in a role of Finance / Excel "super user" in my profession. There's a subculture of keyboard shortcut enthusiasts, but generally everyone is using their mouse a lot. I myself have about 20 that I use and rarely incorporate a new one into the mix, it has to be an action I perform repetitively for me to care enough to memorize seek out and learn the shortcut. I find navigating the ribbon usually requires too many keypresses and I instead have a custom quick access bar that I put everything I want access to so I don't have to toggle differing ribbons, I still use my mouse even though I know I could use my keyboard. It doesn't feel easier