> A patient doesn't lean over the operating table and tell the surgeon where to cut.
Web design _does_ sound much easier when clients can be anesthetized. :)
Your website is not for you
151–160 of 207 posts
Re: Your website is not for you
#152This writing was effective, clear, to the point, and revealed a human perspective. I can sense the frustrated professional going behind the curtain and tidying up his reservations about dealing with his clients. It was refreshing to read in exactly the way AI slop isn’t.
This was clearly written with AI help, the tells are all over the place
Re: Your website is not for you
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bad designer can design a good-looking password form. A mediocre designer anticipates that they need to design for the case where the passwords don't match. A great designer can figure out that this particular product should actually be using magic links and not passwords.
> A great designer can figure out that this particular product should actually be using magic links and not passwords. If your designers are needing to generate input on technical issues like this, your product is already in trouble.
If you frame that issue as a purely technical one without ux/usability implications, where you'd absolutely want to have a (good) designer in the loop, your product is in trouble, too.
Re: Your website is not for you
#154The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…
The waterfall is this: Owners/managers - sales and marketing - agency - designers - coders…
…and owners’ spouses/partners… these have a final word in many cases :)
Customers or users? They are designed as persona types during sales/marketing and agency meetings.
I saw so many overdesigned sites and sentences not giving any sense that they would do better with a simple bullet list and CTA “Call us” :)
Re: Your website is not for you
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were less of a distinction? Think of old school mom-and-pop shops, which were actually a reflection of who they were, personally, vs. Wal-Mart or Target. Which main street do you prefer?
Depends on what I'm trying to do. I don't need your whole life story, Sarah, about how this recipe reminds you of your great aunt's second cousin's half sister's second home balcony plants. I'm just trying to figure out what seasoning blend makes up blackening spice. I'm not even here for the meatloaf recipe, just the spice blend.
9 times out of 10 I'd listen to Sarah's stories. Is buying a spice blend really so urgent and important? So much of life is lived incidental to transactions. Not everything improves with productivity.
Re: Your website is not for you
#156The only problem with this analysis is that in practice a lot of the designers don't understand the customer and don't understand the business. Don't understand the market, at least compared to the founders or people who've been in the space for a long time. So there's a bit of a false confidence where the designers think they know what's really right because they did "scientific approach". But in reality the founder…
Replying to my own post because it's too late to edit.
This post has clearly struck a nerve as I think it's my most upvoted post on HN ever. Behind this post is 3 companies worth of experience working with great designers (really, UXers) who vehemently advocate on behalf of the user but don't realize their own limitations to understand that user (and to therefore tone down the advocacy accordingly.)
This is particularly obvious in the business setting where truly empathizing with the user requires understanding the business they are in and their realities/pressures, not just their experience in a specific program. The UX'ers over index on what they can infer about the user experience in the absence of that broader understanding - and usually the founders/sales/whoever instinct about what's actually good or bad is valuable to at least unpack because it's grounded in some business/industry/customer intuition the UXer likely doesn't have access too.
I take from the high upvotes of this comment that this is a very common perception, that almost all UXers are oblivious to.
Re: Your website is not for you
#157My personal website is absolutely for me and not anyone else :) It’s like saying the art I made is not for me !!!?
Re: Your website is not for you
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. I've learned that lesson more than once. Maybe one of these days it'll stick... :p Specifically, I'm not a "designer", but I regularly end up making/changing UIs (mobile apps, web apps/pages, etc). When it comes to design, it really matters who the target audience is. If you're creating a UI for "mass market", you have to design to a lowest-common-denominator that balances what your average user expects, general…
> you have to design to a lowest-common-denominator that balances Something that's always stuck with me is a bit from the book "Don't Make Me Think" about cost vs. value in attention and complexity, that when you add a feature used by only a small percentage of users you're "taxing" 100% of users for the benefit of a few. That you should optimize for the common path and not edge cases. Over two decades later I still…
Menus, gestures, keyboard shortcuts, advanced versions of the interface locked behind preferences, and fully customizable menus (including user-defined macro buttons). There are a ton of ways to hide the complexity for common users without frustrating power users. The challenge for the designer is the taste/judgement to know which features to show/hide and where (as well as how to organize all the menus logically).
Re: Your website is not for you
#159My website is absolutely for me. Anyone who wants to visit is welcome though, I put it online for a reason. (You're also free to move along for that matter, that's up to you.) The article states "A website isn't art". This product mindset fundamentally makes the web a boring place. I would personally welcome all websites that are art.
One distinction the author didn't make was personal sites vs product / services sites. My personal site is for me, but the site for my SaaS app? That's for my customers.
_should be_ for your customers.
Business minded folk can convince themselves that "ads are for the consumer because they benefit from knowing about our great deals!" but everyone else knows that ads are for the business to increase revenue. If they didn't increase revenue, the business wouldn't do it.
If your website provides an actual utility, then that utility is for the customers. Everything else on the site (upsells, cross sells, branding), is for the business.
Re: Your website is not for you
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on what I'm trying to do. I don't need your whole life story, Sarah, about how this recipe reminds you of your great aunt's second cousin's half sister's second home balcony plants. I'm just trying to figure out what seasoning blend makes up blackening spice. I'm not even here for the meatloaf recipe, just the spice blend.
9 times out of 10 I'd listen to Sarah's stories. Is buying a spice blend really so urgent and important? So much of life is lived incidental to transactions. Not everything improves with productivity.
I just want to get back to my bbq and be with friends, where the interaction means something to me.