Horseshit has been getting a pretty bad rap lately.
Design is Horseshit
21–30 of 148 posts
Re: Design is Horseshit
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not entirely sure why you are attributing things to me I never said and I’m also not quite sure in what context you are responding to me. What’s this “beautiful novelty” you are talking about?
Ah, I just meant that things can seem like a straw man if nobody is arguing the other side... but it isn't a straw man just because nobody identifies with that side (but do actually live and breathe that side). "Beautiful novelty" is the phrase he used to describe "pretty (but) shitty" start-ups (another phrase in the post).
I know what the phrase means but I think examples are kind of necessary. They don’t even have to be real.
I’m guessing people who think that looking pretty (which is not the same as having good design – though the author of this text seems to believe so) is all that’s needed are really out there. Some. Maybe. I don’t know. But that doesn’t seem to be a view embodied in any way on the website he was linking to and specifically saying he was responding to.
I can’t find the arguments he is responding to on the website he says he is responding to. I think that’s kind of important.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#23Design is not a pretty facade to a product, and designers aren't just responsible for aesthetics. Design is as much about how the product works as how it looks, and a designer worth their stock options understands that they aren't drawing pretty pictures of websites, they're designing with a purpose: to create an enjoyable experience and ultimately a functional, beautiful product that adds value to users lives.
I think he gets that. I think he sees the real tradeoff, between elegant, usable, pleasurable user experiences that in and of themselves make people want to come back to the product, and raw value creation. And he's saying, for early stage startups , raw value creation is more important no matter how clunky it is.
"that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art"
"It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful"
"Everyone’s a fucking designer now
If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look."
"no shimmering design"
"They didn’t solve problems! Who fucking cares how it looks!"
I don't think he gets it at all.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think he gets that. I think he sees the real tradeoff, between elegant, usable, pleasurable user experiences that in and of themselves make people want to come back to the product, and raw value creation. And he's saying, for early stage startups , raw value creation is more important no matter how clunky it is.
"that solves zero problems but looks like a work of art" "It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful" "Everyone’s a fucking designer now If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look." "no shimmering design" "They didn’t solve problems! Who fucking cares how it looks!" I don't think he gets it at all.
I understand why you wouldn't like the tone he's writing with, but if you reread those carefully you're going to find that they don't refute my point.
I'm so much less interested in discussing one guy's style than I am in the real point he's making. Nobody's going to remember this blog post in 2 weeks. But startups are going to continue running aground on the mistake he's pointing out.
Note carefully: by "gets it", I'm not saying he gets, like, "the universe", the "ineffable 'it'". I'm saying, the thing you don't think he gets, that there's a real material cost to ignoring design, he probably does get. The fact that bad design has a cost isn't dispositive, because the cost of bad design has to be weighed against the benefit of spending that effort somewhere else.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#25Design is clarity. Design is intention. Design is function. Design is appeal. And, sure, design is appearance. It should be no surprise that, yes, if you can pump enough raw "value" into something, however you care to define value, that you can ignore or short shrift design. Go ahead, limit your chances by killing your first impressions. Write poorly in your presentations while you are at it. I mean if gold starts po…
http://thesaurus.com/browse/design
Invoice is in the mail.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#26A 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…
I definitely do not identify as a "startup blogger". I'm not even really a blogger.
This is just a topic that bugged me.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#27Design is how it works, not just how it looks.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, I just meant that things can seem like a straw man if nobody is arguing the other side... but it isn't a straw man just because nobody identifies with that side (but do actually live and breathe that side). "Beautiful novelty" is the phrase he used to describe "pretty (but) shitty" start-ups (another phrase in the post).
I know what the phrase means but I think examples are kind of necessary. They don’t even have to be real. I’m guessing people who think that looking pretty (which is not the same as having good design – though the author of this text seems to believe so) is all that’s needed are really out there. Some. Maybe. I don’t know. But that doesn’t seem to be a view embodied in any way on the website he was linking to and spe…
I can't speak for him. But for me, "beautiful novelty" is often a site that impresses me, but doesn't convince me to use it (even if i am its target- so it's not like just because i don't have a dog, and it's a site for dog-owners or whatever).
I imagine that beautiful novelty, like beauty, is subjective and something not everybody would agree on a case by case basis. Though I bet most people have seen a site that had no flaws, was stunning (and yes all you designers- i know it's not just visual, it's interaction, etc) but still didn't convince your head or your heart.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#29Design is not just about pixel pushing and pixel perfecting. It is more than that. The blogger purely equates design = making things pretty, which is not true.
Design starts from understanding and empathizing with the user. Design helps to shape the product and connect with the users emotionally.
The Design Fund highlights the importance of designers in startups not just because they make things look pretty. Designers are usually trained to understand users emotionally. An engineer look at a problem and start using equations to solve it. A designer look at a problem, start by understanding the user, and develop a way to solve it.
Design teams in big companies have User Researchers (on the ground, understanding users, find out needs, etc), User Experience Designers (connecting the dots from research to product, how the product should function and flow), Interaction Designers (that transition effect you see in iOS? not just pretty. Helps users to orientate where they are at), Visual Designers (make things pretty).
As you can see, in the whole field of design, only Visual Designers are the ones who really make things pretty. Once again, The Design Fund values designers because they look at things differently, and they can build products with emotion. (Apple products have a lot of emotion tied to people)
*I am not part of The Design Fund.
Re: Design is Horseshit
#30It sounds like he is attacking a straw man. It doesn’t seem like anyone is making the arguments he is attacking, especially not on the page he is linking to and saying he is responding to. Specifically (for example) no one seems to claim that designers are “the new kings of startups”.
Not only that, but his countering suggestion is a single word, "value", that he doesn't define or substantiate. Beyond any simple idea of what people want, you almost always need to build a product that they can use and like to use, and that needs good design. Not graphic design -- interaction design. Why so many of these content-less posts on HN front page lately?
value = solve a real problem
there is always value in that