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YC Facelift: Pebble

kyrobeshay.com

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Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#21

Post by jenius »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Justifying design decisions is often extremely difficult. Although there is a science buried deep behind design decisions, unlike programming, design decisions are often very subjective and opinion-based in a debate, unless you have done A/B tests extensively before said debate. Most of the time, a designer will do something because 'it looks better' or 'it feels right', and redesign something because 'it looks bad'.

I can see what you are saying here, but at the same time you are proposing something very difficult for this designer. In my past, whenever I have been in a debate over design decisions, there is no objective criticism involved. Even if I've done extensive research beforehand and am citing what I imagine users will do and artistic theory that backs the decisions I made, it can always be disagreed with. "Yeah that might be the case, but it doesn't look as good." or "No, users would do this instead, and want this." Yes, surprisingly that flies in design debates.

I don't think that Kyro should attempt this unless he is going to run A/B tests so that he has actual data to back his reasons. Debate based solely upon opinion are fruitless, never-ending, and are bound to come up all the time in such a public and critical forum as hacker news.

That being said, I don't even think that he should be running A/B tests, and shouldn't need to provide any additional justification. Not only is this a ton of work for something he is doing for personal practice in his free time, but it's often a waste of time. A good designer must be trusted. You hire a designer if you like his work and trust his design decisions, not if you are going to nitpick and tell him to justify and test every shade of color he has used.

I think the most famous case of this happening is with with Douglas Bowman quitting at google to move to twitter as the lead visual designer. Mr. Bowman is quite clearly one of the best design and ux guys out there, and is widely respected. This article provides a lot of insight into his decision, and it came down to them questioning his decisions and asking him to prove everything, which was in the end a waste of time.

http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#22

Post by SomeComments »

Gee, it sure would have been nice to see that the watch communicates with all these marvelous devices via bluetooth.

I mean really. Why are we left to assume that it's a bluetooth watch? Why can't they just come out and say it? Are they shy or something? Do they themselves secretly believe that by stating that it is a bluetooth device that they some how lower the watch?

Why do they insult their ostensibly budding (zomg! rockstar ninja!11one) "hacker" community with stupid diagrams like this?

http://www.getinpulse.com/images/how-it-works.jpg

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#23

Post by SomeComments »

SomeComments wrote: post #22

Gee, it sure would have been nice to see that the watch communicates with all these marvelous devices via bluetooth. I mean really. Why are we left to assume that it's a bluetooth watch? Why can't they just come out and say it? Are they shy or something? Do they themselves secretly believe that by stating that it is a bluetooth device that they some how lower the watch? Why do they insult their ostensibly budding (zo…

Seriously, the first place I could find where they explicitly state that the watch communicates via bluetooth was here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getinpulse

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#24

Post by wdewind »

kyro wrote: post #18
justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Thanks for the feedback. You're not the first to suggest the need to include my reasons for design decisions I've made with these. I'll work on that for the next one.

It's not only that you need to explain your reasoning...it's also that you operate in a vacuum. The constraints of actual designers are rarely "you get a shittily designed page, do WHATEVER you want with it." (Not saying the current YC pages are shittily designed, in fact while some of them are not aesthetically pleasing they all look reasonably well thought out).

I think all OP is saying is "beware, you're only getting the aesthetic practice, and in design it turns out thats really a very minor part of what's important."

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#25

Post by [deleted] »

kyro wrote: post #11
ericabiz wrote: post #8

A couple things about this one that didn't click with me: 1) You mention "iPhone" at the top. Sorry, I've already clicked "Back"--I'm an Android user. Except Pebble is the first thing I've ever funded via Kickstarter, and I'm ridiculously excited about it, so I'm clearly in their target market. 2) I don't get the "Beam your music, Scotty." part--it's not the biggest draw for me (and I'm not a Star Wars/Trek person, d…

Fair criticisms. However, you're speaking, presumably, from the perspective of a developer – someone who'll be writing apps for and fiddling with their Pebble. I designed this from the perspective of a consumer who intends to purchase the product because of its looks and the apps available for it already. The iDevices are not advertised in a way that directly appeals to tinkerers and developers, but rather to everyda…

[deleted]

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#26

Post by replicatorblog »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

This is a popular sentiment among designers, but it is equally dangerous. The flash, sizzle, and aesthetics are a HUGE part of design. People make judgements in fractions of seconds, well before they have a chance to experience interactions or any of the deeper level design issues.

I've seen three of these redo's on HackerNews and each time the redesign is aesthetically much nicer. Sure there are some things that could be better if he understood the market or product context at a deeper level, but each service looked more professional/desirable.

I manage a team of designers and these would be great deliverables if the goal was to help establish a style guide for a brand. After this round, I would have a PM and a marketer work with the designer to optimize flow/content, but this is exactly what I'd expect from a visual designer.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#27

Post by DLarsen »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

In the first few seconds of viewing the facelift vs the original, I preferred the facelift in each case. There are plenty of folks who do judge a book by its cover. "Will first time visitors think our company/product/service is legitimate?" is a valid design problem, and I think the facelifts likely improve that important first impression.

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#29

Post by web_chops »

I think pebble is the next big thing and might even get rid of its dependence on the mobile phone in future. Just imagine Siri helping you get through your day with out taking the phone out of the pocket!

Re: YC Facelift: Pebble

#30

Post by pbreit »

justjimmy wrote: post #13

Just wanted to give my 2 cents: What you are doing is really dangerous. "In an effort to refine my design skills, I’ve decided each week or so to redesign the landing page of a YC company I dig and whose website I don’t feel so similarly about." Doing a facelift on just the landing page, or rearranging elements around a page is not design. It's a subset of design. What's worse, is that these redesigns you offer gives…

Calling this effort "really dangerous" is a tad hysterical. The current Pebble page is OK, not great. This redesign is an improvement. While it would be nice to hear more about the thought process, etc, t's not always necessary to detail out what can be inferred from observation.
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