How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design • Hacker News Board

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#21

Post by devilshaircut » Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

tannerc wrote: post #13

massivecali wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Look at what other apps are doing and copy it!" Agree that most of the time this is horrible direction, but I've also experienced the opposite: "We need something like X, but do Y." Where Y is reinventing the wheel for what should be a standard interface element (ie it's the best implementation on the market and ours would only be worse/confusing if we didn't try to do the same).

Utilizing existing patterns can be good for sure, especially if they're platform standards from the likes of Material or Apple's HIG. But what makes leveraging those existing designs so effective isn't simply seeing and copying them (that'll do in a pinch, but ultimately may lead to misuse). What makes standard patterns from platform sources so effective is that you don't have to wonder whether they'll meet your need…

I definitely agree that there is a perfect world where designs are fully researched with a battery of user tests and for large companies like Facebook, Atlassian, and Lyft this is critical to their success. Every design decision, large and small, matters when you have an audience of billions of people. Furthermore, there is no excuse not to conduct research when you have the resources to dedicate to doing design right.

That said, if you are a scrappy startup (or in the case of an article, a single founder who may not even be a designer to begin with), it is often necessary to simply do whatever it takes to deliver a product. Money, time, experience, infrastructure, personnel, etc., are all limiting factors.

If I were consulting on a project for a Fortune 500 I would tell them to leverage their resources to maximize their change of success. If I were consulting on a project for a small business or startup I would tell them to be smart and triage key pieces that represent their "special sauce" above features that feel more like known territory.

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#22

Post by tannerc » Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

devilshaircut wrote: post #21

tannerc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utilizing existing patterns can be good for sure, especially if they're platform standards from the likes of Material or Apple's HIG. But what makes leveraging those existing designs so effective isn't simply seeing and copying them (that'll do in a pinch, but ultimately may lead to misuse). What makes standard patterns from platform sources so effective is that you don't have to wonder whether they'll meet your need…

I definitely agree that there is a perfect world where designs are fully researched with a battery of user tests and for large companies like Facebook, Atlassian, and Lyft this is critical to their success. Every design decision, large and small, matters when you have an audience of billions of people. Furthermore, there is no excuse not to conduct research when you have the resources to dedicate to doing design righ…

This is (partially) why the major platforms have published their design decisions, and why we have open source libraries to leverage.

I agree generally, scrappy businesses should prioritize shipping (and validation, market fit, etc.) above almost all else at the start. But even if you're leveraging existing patterns and design elements, there's really no reason /not/ to spend a fraction of a fraction of your time to understand the differences between a checkbox and a radio button; especially when such fundamentals are already laid out for you online and your team can easily leverage them both in design comps and code.

Quality design doesn't require infinite budgets or unlimited time for research. A little effort to understand the work goes a long way!

It's the same thing with programming: copy+pasting something from SO might get you 75+% of the way to success, but relying solely on that approach without understanding the code also means you'll inevitably run into issues with things like memory management, technical debt by locking into approaches, etc. in your product sooner than later.

(fwiw I've also started several businesses myself, created my own products independently, and consulted with many startups; I haven't solely functioned in the deep pockets of silicon valley, if that's what my original comment came across as.)

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#23

Post by superhuzza » Fri, Mar 29, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

Nowhere in this article does he actually mention:

-Talking to users

-Interviewing users

-Doing user testing

-Making sacrificial prototypes

This is a great way to develop a product that people don't need, with no way of knowing how good the UX actually is. I've worked like this before, and it really does produce suboptimal results. You really shouldn't even be making wireframes before validating assumptions and needs first.

NNgroup has a lot of writing on trying to shortcut UX:

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-without-user-research/

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#24

Post by BucketSort » Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #7

The article doesn’t mention that as a startup it makes sense to minimize novel, homegrown UI as much as possible. Unless, of course, that’s central to your product or is the product. In Pony [0]—an email service that delivers once a day—for example, I tried making the UI as familiar as possible, perhaps at risk of not making it exciting enough. I forget who said it—maybe it was the Eameses, maybe it was the Modernist…

Look at this persons profile. He's a spammer.

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#25

Post by ptttr » Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

superhuzza wrote: post #23

Nowhere in this article does he actually mention: -Talking to users -Interviewing users -Doing user testing -Making sacrificial prototypes This is a great way to develop a product that people don't need, with no way of knowing how good the UX actually is. I've worked like this before, and it really does produce suboptimal results. You really shouldn't even be making wireframes before validating assumptions and needs…

The author mentions it in the first paragraph, just chooses to focus the article on the design part: "At this stage, I'm going to assume you've conducted some user research or at the very least, spoken to potential customers to test your assumptions. That way you'll be much better positioned to turn your ideas into actual design."

Re: How developers and tech founders can turn their ideas into UI design

#26

Post by superhuzza » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

ptttr wrote: post #25

superhuzza wrote: post #23

Nowhere in this article does he actually mention: -Talking to users -Interviewing users -Doing user testing -Making sacrificial prototypes This is a great way to develop a product that people don't need, with no way of knowing how good the UX actually is. I've worked like this before, and it really does produce suboptimal results. You really shouldn't even be making wireframes before validating assumptions and needs…

The author mentions it in the first paragraph, just chooses to focus the article on the design part: "At this stage, I'm going to assume you've conducted some user research or at the very least, spoken to potential customers to test your assumptions. That way you'll be much better positioned to turn your ideas into actual design."

He added it after I made my comment on HN (I'm fairly sure it's in response to my original post):

https://web.archive.org/web/20190329103120/https://www.simon...

Anyways, it still doesn't make sense to talk to users once and then just go crazy with UI design. A lot of user research requires having prototypes (digital ones too). It's a back and forth, rather than a waterfall of talk to users, think, whip up some design.