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Design is Horseshit

yongfook.com

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Re: Design is Horseshit

#61

Post by andrewflnr »

fookyong wrote: post #57
lisperforlife wrote: post #47

Alright Captain Obvious. Design alone is horseshit. Engineering alone is horshit. Blogging alone is horseshit. Marketing alone is horseshit. But put these together in the right proportion and you get a beautiful product. The proportion depends on your product/service. It takes a lot less selling, if the visual design of the product is impressive. It releases dopamine in your customer's head which urges them to put th…

that last sentence 100% misses my point. you were right at the start: Engineering is also horseshit. You can have the most beautifully engineered solution to a problem that nobody has or is willing to pay to have solved, and you'll still have a bullshit startup. Marketing is also horseshit. You can have the most amazingly viral video for a product that nobody wants and you will still end up with 0 sales and long-term…

Just because engineering and design and marketing each alone are not enough does not make them "horseshit". It just makes them overrated.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#62

Post by rooshdi »

Linkbait is Horseshit. See the irony? If it wasn't for the manner in which you communicated I and many others probably would've never seen your article on top of HN, let alone read it, even if it did have "value". Design isn't everything, but it's definitely not horseshit.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#63

Post by limedaring »

fookyong wrote: post #50

Updated: Some final words on this. Some people have interpreted this as me not understanding the value of good design. I assure you I do from experience, tweet at me if you want specifics. However - create value before exploring how design can enhance the experience. Solve a real customer problem. If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design! Think hard about what problem you can so…

"If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design!"

One would thinking that making your credit card form easy to use and find for customers is fairly integral to making revenue. You can have the most awesome service in the world but if you make it hard for people to pay you money, you're not going to make money.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#65

Post by vacri »

danilocampos wrote: post #58
joe_the_user wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your criticism seems to center around your dislike of him using "design" as a shorthand for "graphic design". But this is hardly unique to the author to say the least. In any case, what you go to say hardly contradicts what the author is saying ... except if you redefine what he's saying as being about you think "design" ought mean instead of how he's clearly using it.

(shrug) Words mean things. If I cry out, at the top of my lungs, that "Pizza is fucking bullshit!", then go on to say that I hate how pizza kills people, tears countries apart, and delivers atrocities, people will narrow their eyes and say "Actually, I think you're thinking of war." And then they're going to be a little weirded out that I said something so simultaneously bizarre and incorrect just to get their attent…

Pizza is a subset of war?

Re: Design is Horseshit

#66

Post by fookyong »

limedaring wrote: post #63
fookyong wrote: post #50

Updated: Some final words on this. Some people have interpreted this as me not understanding the value of good design. I assure you I do from experience, tweet at me if you want specifics. However - create value before exploring how design can enhance the experience. Solve a real customer problem. If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design! Think hard about what problem you can so…

"If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design!" One would thinking that making your credit card form easy to use and find for customers is fairly integral to making revenue. You can have the most awesome service in the world but if you make it hard for people to pay you money, you're not going to make money.

what's the point of having a beautiful credit card form for something nobody actually wants?

that's what early stage startups are supposed to be figuring out, not optimizing their credit card forms.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#67

Post by barrkel »

danilocampos wrote: post #48

This stuff was bizarre to me: > Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. > It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful > If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…

I think you're being disingenuous and deliberately misreading the OP because you wanted to write what amounts to a pet peeve. It was clear, even to you, what he meant; you admit as much in your last sentence. But you still went ahead and acted like you had not understood.

Had you merely disagreed with his terminology, and left at that - it would be more forgivable. But you're trying to use it to discount what he said by deliberately misreading it, and thereby you're not actually addressing his argument.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#68

Post by danilocampos »

barrkel wrote: post #67
danilocampos wrote: post #48

This stuff was bizarre to me: > Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that look amazing. > It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing pixels to create something beautiful > If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should look . (my emphasis) The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Gra…

I think you're being disingenuous and deliberately misreading the OP because you wanted to write what amounts to a pet peeve. It was clear, even to you , what he meant; you admit as much in your last sentence. But you still went ahead and acted like you had not understood. Had you merely disagreed with his terminology, and left at that - it would be more forgivable. But you're trying to use it to discount what he sai…

It's nice to have thoughts.

I, for example, think this has nothing to do with "pet peeves" or deliberate misunderstandings. I think that the broader discussion of the role of design is very important and powerful, and calling design "bullshit" is a profoundly ignorant position to take. I think that building a cute little straw man and then burning him adds very little of the vaunted value the author has described.

One of the beauties of thoughts is that you get to have yours and I get to have mine. The meta stuff, here, eh, not so useful.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#69

Post by limedaring »

fookyong wrote: post #66
limedaring wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you’re an early stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design!" One would thinking that making your credit card form easy to use and find for customers is fairly integral to making revenue. You can have the most awesome service in the world but if you make it hard for people to pay you money, you're not going to make money.

what's the point of having a beautiful credit card form for something nobody actually wants? that's what early stage startups are supposed to be figuring out, not optimizing their credit card forms.

What's the post of having something people want but they can't actually use it?

Re: Design is Horseshit

#70

Post by fookyong »

yonasb wrote: post #55

Great post. The only thing I disagree with is your distaste for the designer fund. I think helping designers build startups is a good thing. And it's also important to note the difference between visual design (UI) and UX. You can't create value without good UX. And good designers do both UI and UX. So design is important, the visual aspect not so much, before you have something ppl want

You can't create value without good UX

Entirely incorrect. Read the Lean Startup. Value creation is 100% possible without any UX or anything tangible that the customer "sees" at all. A delivery pizza place provides value. I call them, they deliver pizza. There's no "UX" there beyond what already existed (my phone, a working phone line).

Too many people think the first thing that needs to be solved is how something looks or feels. It's not. You can solve a problem without any UX.

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