Design is losing its seat at the table • Hacker News Board

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#31

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:10 AM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #10

killerdhmo wrote: post #2

Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…

> Design is not how something looks You're right. But it certainly includes how it looks. You can't silo off certain aspects of interaction between products and users. The visual aesthetics of a product are subjectively at the front of the line when it comes to design. Design is a "why not both" profession. You can't have a pretty looking site that doesn't function properly and still have a great product. You also ca…

Many companies with lots of designers will actually have designers that specialize in visual (or animation, or even sound) as well as interaction (who might not be trained in visuals at all). My wife, for instance, has a graphic design background, so is perfectly capable of visual design work, but focuses on interaction design (aka usability), and even here one can specialize in things like different kinds of input (touch, gesture, speech). Her old boss (and my former colleague) was a visual designer who specialized in...color...and was quite good at that. And then you have jack of all trade web designers that do a bit of visual, a bit of interaction, a bit of CSS/Javascript, and maybe even SEO. And then industrial, material, packaging, ..., designers, of course.

Designers are really analogous programmers in the sense that there are tons of specializations and skills to consider from within.

I personally self identify as a programming language designer...which is a completely different rabbit hole.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#32

Post by olegious » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:14 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #30

bshoemaker wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It has to be the only voice"... what? I'm a product manager at a tech company, and the job is listening to that cacophony & prioritizing. Sometimes that's design, sometimes not. It's not black and white

Program managers* make poor designers, at least in my large company. They often have no training in UX, and all their UX experience is mixed with other stuff that tends to cloud it. Having real UXDs doing the product design is much much better than "design by PM" (its like, do you want your PM to write code for the product also? of course not!) * I know there is a difference between program and product mangers, the l…

If you think the only difference between project and product managers is "the latter being more focused on marketing," you must work with some terrible product managers...

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#33

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:20 AM UTC

olegious wrote: post #32

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Program managers* make poor designers, at least in my large company. They often have no training in UX, and all their UX experience is mixed with other stuff that tends to cloud it. Having real UXDs doing the product design is much much better than "design by PM" (its like, do you want your PM to write code for the product also? of course not!) * I know there is a difference between program and product mangers, the l…

If you think the only difference between project and product managers is "the latter being more focused on marketing," you must work with some terrible product managers...

At my company this is true [1]. I personally don't get to work with product managers (who work in biz dev mostly and do not work with developers/researchers/etc...), only program managers.

From wiki:

> Diverse interpretations regarding the role of the product manager are the norm. The product manager title is often used in many ways to describe drastically different duties and responsibilities. Even within the high-tech industry where product management is better defined, the product manager's job description varies widely among companies. This is due to tradition and intuitive interpretations by different individuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_manager

I only mentioned it because I was intentionally talking about project managers, who are often confused with product managers anyways, e.g. see:

https://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/42629-100151081

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-does-a-Microsoft-Product-Manager-d...

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#34

Post by rohunati » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:20 AM UTC

The service Magic is an instance of excellent design imo. It's scrappy, clever, simple, and most importantly, there is a very clear reason to use. I can't say the same about the many of the products he listed.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#35

Post by sbov » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:32 AM UTC

Success is complicated.

Expecting to do well because you champion design because that's what Steve Jobs did is like expecting to do well because you yell at your workers like Steve Jobs did.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#36

Post by phkahler » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:40 AM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #10

killerdhmo wrote: post #2

Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…

> Design is not how something looks You're right. But it certainly includes how it looks. You can't silo off certain aspects of interaction between products and users. The visual aesthetics of a product are subjectively at the front of the line when it comes to design. Design is a "why not both" profession. You can't have a pretty looking site that doesn't function properly and still have a great product. You also ca…

>> Design is not how something looks

> You're right. But it certainly includes how it looks.

I hate to use this example because it was so hyped at the time but... Pinch-zoom is awesome functionality and has NO look, only function and feel. There is no visible UI, you just grab the image/map with 2 fingers and resize it. It's one of the best UI concepts in ages. The only thing it may not be is discoverable. This is what IMO sets Apple apart - they want you to interact with your stuff, not their app. Microsoft basically builds an industrial control panel where you push buttons to get something to happen to your stuff. The difference can be stunning when done correctly and has little to do with looks, but rather how it works.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#37

Post by LiweiZ » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

Design is always among one of dimensions. Like others, commoditization and its limit in certain context could make it looks powerless. Even if so, when context changes, things will be on the other side of cycle again.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#38

Post by carrotleads » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 1:51 AM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #10

killerdhmo wrote: post #2

Design is not how something looks. It's not pastel colors, and slick animations and cutesy UI. Design is intrinsically tied to function. Design is how you think about and solve a problem. I go back to Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of Good Design often. [0] I've highlighted a few key ones here: Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but…

> Design is not how something looks You're right. But it certainly includes how it looks. You can't silo off certain aspects of interaction between products and users. The visual aesthetics of a product are subjectively at the front of the line when it comes to design. Design is a "why not both" profession. You can't have a pretty looking site that doesn't function properly and still have a great product. You also ca…

>> You also can't have a functioning site that looks like shit and still have a great product.

craigslist will beg to differ

and is an example of why functioning site with shit look is better than great look with bad function

the guys at 42 floors figured this out by testing. http://darrennix.com/our-homegrown-ab-testing-framework-at-4...

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#39

Post by nubizus » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

Design never loses. Write it down. Remember it. Simple truth is that in digital age, some computer operators with a little bit more of a visual culture are perceived as a designers. Nope. I am learning visual artistry from 6 years old. First started at school, then from old masters by serving them like a dog, then when digital era started i learned more about the medium, then learned about the business by risking it all, than learned about the psychology of perception, culture impact, age differentiation, then learned to think from user perspective, to measure reaction and get critical design data from it.... Now when i am almost 40 years old i can say that i can make a good design. Not only because of a talent, intuition or experience. Mostly because my life is a direct result of my design. And when i am designing i am a servant of people's needs. And i always learn. Write it down. Design always wins. Vanity always loses.

Re: Design is losing its seat at the table

#40

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Apr 15, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

carrotleads wrote: post #38

ryanSrich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Design is not how something looks You're right. But it certainly includes how it looks. You can't silo off certain aspects of interaction between products and users. The visual aesthetics of a product are subjectively at the front of the line when it comes to design. Design is a "why not both" profession. You can't have a pretty looking site that doesn't function properly and still have a great product. You also ca…

>> You also can't have a functioning site that looks like shit and still have a great product. craigslist will beg to differ and is an example of why functioning site with shit look is better than great look with bad function the guys at 42 floors figured this out by testing. http://darrennix.com/our-homegrown-ab-testing-framework-at-4...

I still don't get the "craigslist looks awful" or "craigslist has terrible UI" stances. It is simple and bare, unflashy, things are where you expect them to be on the first or second guess, there are no gotchas, the colors are balanced adequately such that they aren't glaring or distracting, sections of a page are appropriately positioned and proportioned, and even relatives who have to ask me how to put files on a DVD for the hundredth time seem to be able to navigate and use craigslist with ease. By what actual measure does craigslist have bad design? All I can think is that HackerNews readers have some kind of kneejerk to it because it's in minimal old-HTML style rather than the new pseudominimalist style with pointless animations everywhere instead of static page linking, text that's too big, buttons with no text on them instead replaced by icons you have to guess the meaning to rather than simple textual hyperlinks, and no Konami Code. I have never seen an actual Craigslist user complain about the interface, only internet armchair designers.