Products For People Who Make Products For People • Hacker News Board

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#21

Post by alextgordon » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 8:32 PM UTC

jeffclark wrote: post #14

neilk wrote: post #12

There is really no mystery about UI. Yes, it requires skill and a deep knowledge of how humans process information, and even a touch of design genius. But the real problem is that most shops can't measure usability in a fine-grained way. And yet everyone does have some idea that it's really important. Consequently they are bamboozled by anyone who purports to have such expertise. For the most part, so-called usabilit…

UI designer = "white space" UX designer = "mental space"

It's easy to redefine the meaning of a term if it's rendered as an acronym.

    User Interface Designer = "white space"
    User Experience Designer = "mental space"

Now how arbitrary is that? What is it about "Experience" that implies thinking and "Interface" that implies a lack thereof? What about all the designers unfortunate enough to come before the term "UX" was invented? I suppose Jef Raskin was only ever about white space.

Let me suggest an improvement

    Mediocre Designer = "white space"
    Good Designer = "white space and mental space"

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#22

Post by count » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 8:36 PM UTC

jnoller wrote: post #11

gte910h wrote: post #4

I think his "longbeards" actually do quite well on iOS where it says "Do X just SO" and you get a pretty decent design if you just follow the 1-2-3s

I don't know - they probably do, god knows it allows me to make something that doesn't look like a series of cat turds, but formulaic designs don't last long term. You need something which really differentiates you from the pack.

I think it could be argued that formulaic design/experience HELPS long term, if you have some functionality that the user needs. If your app looks/acts/feels like the rest of the OS or environment, the user will (in theory) learn it faster and use it more fluently.

A 'revolutionary' design may be awesome, and may increase the productivity or ease of use of your specific application, while causing some serious friction between your app and it's environment in the users mind.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#23

Post by jaimzob » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 8:53 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #7

Looks like Zed got some different Cooper's book than I did. Or misread it completely. "Inmates are running the asylum“ was one of the most useful books I ever read, it completely changed my attitude. It's not "don't let programmers to do interfaces", it is "build interfaces for intended users and intended usage". If Zed thinks that Cooper's book is idiotic then he is just unable to get what it's all about (like many…

Not sure why you're being down voted but I got exactly the same impression. I'm usually a big Zed fan, and Mongrel2 looks great, but I think he's totally misread Cooper's book here.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#24

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 9:17 PM UTC

krakensden wrote: post #13

On a side note, Heroku's web site is really, really pretty.

Check out their documentation for the new Addon program: http://addons.heroku.com/provider/

Click some of the links at the bottom. It's so gorgeous.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#25

Post by steveklabnik » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 9:19 PM UTC

jaimzob wrote: post #23

rimantas wrote: post #7

Looks like Zed got some different Cooper's book than I did. Or misread it completely. "Inmates are running the asylum“ was one of the most useful books I ever read, it completely changed my attitude. It's not "don't let programmers to do interfaces", it is "build interfaces for intended users and intended usage". If Zed thinks that Cooper's book is idiotic then he is just unable to get what it's all about (like many…

Not sure why you're being down voted but I got exactly the same impression. I'm usually a big Zed fan, and Mongrel2 looks great, but I think he's totally misread Cooper's book here.

> Not sure why you're being down voted

Two reasons:

> then he is just unable to get what it's all about (like many other nerds

Extremely flamebaity, abusive 'nerds,' and No True Scotsman-ish.

> I hope he sticks to building awesome web servers nobody needs.

Insulting.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#26

Post by elbenshira » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 9:30 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #12

There is really no mystery about UI. Yes, it requires skill and a deep knowledge of how humans process information, and even a touch of design genius. But the real problem is that most shops can't measure usability in a fine-grained way. And yet everyone does have some idea that it's really important. Consequently they are bamboozled by anyone who purports to have such expertise. For the most part, so-called usabilit…

You are exactly right. Making usability and user design into a science is difficult because we'd be trying to model the human mind, which is, well, pretty much impossible.

For example, in the information retrieval community, companies like Google continue to employ a lot of people to mark search results as relevant or not. Even with all this data, it's still hard for us to quantify what is "relevant" to a user. Likewise, it is hard for us to quantify what is "usable."

But even though the programmer may own this toolbox of quantitative methods and whatnot, most of them do not use it when it comes to usability. Why? Because the toolbox is quite empty. The advantage that these "snobby" designers (just like how programmers are "snobby" about their choice of programming languages and tools) have over programmers is that designers have more empathy towards the everyday man. So there is some emotion involved. Sure, there might be a science behind all of this, but since no one figured it out yet, we'll have to go use our intuition of what a good design is.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#27

Post by zedshaw » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 9:50 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #7

Looks like Zed got some different Cooper's book than I did. Or misread it completely. "Inmates are running the asylum“ was one of the most useful books I ever read, it completely changed my attitude. It's not "don't let programmers to do interfaces", it is "build interfaces for intended users and intended usage". If Zed thinks that Cooper's book is idiotic then he is just unable to get what it's all about (like many…

I don't know what book you read but the title alone, "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" is offensive since it implies I'm the inmate. But take this quote just from the product description at Amazon:

"The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. Business executives have let the inmates run the asylum!"

Don't get much clearer than that, but let's talk about the damage the book caused. For a book that purports to try to improve things for humans it sure caused a ton of damage to humans. It was lacking in almost any real substance and was effectively a thinly disguised rant about coders. It was used to fire programmers, boost fake ass business guys, and created the plague of crappily implemented products that may look slick, but fail in horrible ways.

In my own personal experience with the book I have had numerous executives and biz people toss it on my desk and say they read it and they agree. I've had friends fired or demoted because of this book. It also spawned whole generations of "UX consultants" who fleeced people using the phrasing and words in the book. I personally had to deal with consultant after consultant who would come in, looked at the best we could do, and then insult us. And any time a programmer tried to show who was really in charge and to blame, out came this damn book to prove us wrong.

I could go on, but no matter what little snippets of text you remember, the impact of the book the way I remember it is one of negativity toward a group of people who were not to blame: programmers.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#28

Post by jnoller » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 10:00 PM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #20

jnoller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really good point - but I think a really big issue is that a lot of programmers (and I don't know why) seem to think that a good User Interface (API, Visual, Docs, etc) is just not needed. That; and the attitudes range from "who cares" to downright hostile "if you can't understand it, you're stupid". I say this as a programmer (who spends a lot of time on the "user" facing components), not as a business pers…

Interesting that you compare "a lot of programmers" to "good business people." It is no surprise that the programmers fare poorly in comparison. What do you have to say about Good Programmers? Or A Lot of Business People? May I attempt to find common ground between our points of view by suggesting that 90% of programmers have this attitude? And that by the same token, 90% of business people are busy demanding flash w…

Well, the larger HN community seemed to not take kindly to my comment, which seems odd in and of itself.

Regardless, I concur with you - I can't speak to business people directly as it's not my particular domain, but yes - I've seen the same behavior that you have.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#29

Post by pavlov » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 10:23 PM UTC

zedshaw wrote: post #27

rimantas wrote: post #7

Looks like Zed got some different Cooper's book than I did. Or misread it completely. "Inmates are running the asylum“ was one of the most useful books I ever read, it completely changed my attitude. It's not "don't let programmers to do interfaces", it is "build interfaces for intended users and intended usage". If Zed thinks that Cooper's book is idiotic then he is just unable to get what it's all about (like many…

I don't know what book you read but the title alone, "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" is offensive since it implies I'm the inmate. But take this quote just from the product description at Amazon: "The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, le…

I had actually misinterpreted the title as implicating that the users are the inmates.

That is, I assumed it means the following: when you're building software, you have to accept that the users are the ones "living" in it. Even if the users are bat-crazy, you need to build them an asylum that makes them feel like they're running the show, rather than treat them like inmates to be subdued.

Re: Products For People Who Make Products For People

#30

Post by binomial » Sat, Sep 25, 2010, 10:37 PM UTC

alextgordon wrote: post #21

jeffclark wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI designer = "white space" UX designer = "mental space"

It's easy to redefine the meaning of a term if it's rendered as an acronym. User Interface Designer = "white space" User Experience Designer = "mental space" Now how arbitrary is that? What is it about "Experience" that implies thinking and "Interface" that implies a lack thereof? What about all the designers unfortunate enough to come before the term "UX" was invented? I suppose Jef Raskin was only ever about white…

Well, there's also the fact that some "UX" guys don't have any great ability in graphic design, but are great when designing the use and flow of an interface. It's not necessary that an ability in the latter implies similar ability in the former.