Artists, shrug off that imposter syndrome – the tech world needs you

I feel UI designers are all imposters pretending that their job is some kind of ultra high value skill set. The UI designer is an important job but to compare it to a still life painting? Laughable.

Literally, that still life painting takes 1000x more skill to render than arranging text, pictures and geometric elements on a website. ANYONE can arrange these elements on a website in a pleasing way. It takes time and effort to consider the best way to arrange these elements but it doesn't take extraordinary talent to do this... anyone can do it.

Mind you there are some programmers that are really inept at all forms of "art" but this post isn't direct at those people. On average arranging text in a pleasing way is a trivial exercise. Adding this "color" and "depth" theory on top of it (there's no real science theory here) is just pretentious. Yes these "theories" are sort of applicable but at the same time "what just looks good" also works just as well.

This is unbelievably arrogant. Where is your UI portfolio?

If UI design were easy, we wouldn't have garbage UIs all over the place.

Within the context of contemporary art, UI design and artists are at complete odds with each other.

Afaik, contemporary art deliberately rejects art as a tool for expression of traditional aesthetics, utilitarian maximization or broad appeal to the untested eye. Commentary, metaphor and art as a reaction to other art is the norm. None of these trainings lend themselves well to UI Design which is fundamentally about aesthetics facilitating function.

IMO, architects would make for great UI designers, as it is another profession that mandates a level of function from the art. They also tend to be quite comfortable with complex software work due to common architectural tools. (a couple of my friends did make the architecture -> UX design transition, and are quite happy)

Software engineers are famously stubborn when it comes to their aesthetics. One may say they're sensitive to aesthetics. But IMO, it is more that they're willing to put in a lot of time to learn abstruse interaction patterns and will defend them to death, irrespective of their general purpose appeal or intuitiveness. Git and Vim are amazing examples. Nothing against the tools. But if they needed widespread adoption from the populace then they'd be dead in the water on day 1. (They are amazing despite their terrible UX, not because of it)

I like to believe that I am quite sensitive to aesthetics and a well designed UI can elevate a mediocre tool to near unbeatable in their competition space. (The financial planning tool someone posted a few days ago on HN is a great example of UI/UX done right)

_______

On another note:

Being an artist is also about status and class. Tech is the Noveau-Riche of this half-century. It is the lowest status thing you can be.

We see it all the time. Tech bros are the butt of every joke and their hobbies/culture/lifestyles are widely mocked. You never see the same level of disdain towards lawyers in DC or finance bros in NYC as you see for tech people in places like Seattle. It doesn't help that the demographic is generally male, traditionally unattractive, nerdy and socially awkward. (This is slowly changing, but not quickly enough. The appeal of tech to a certain demographic also isn't necessarily a bad thing. I will concede that very likely other professions have occupied this same chair in different eras)

The only company that manages to look cool to artists is Apple, and they are very careful about hiding that they are a tech company first, rather preferring to highlight themselves as a fashion company. (The fictionalized steve jobs founding myth also helps a lot)

_________

I would love to see more artists come into tech with a mindset of cooperation and good faith towards the community than disdain and disruption. Maybe we'll see truly great UI design.

Both imposter syndrome and alice in wonderland syndrome have the individual feeling like an imposter/alice in wonderland in this case?

art is often a political choice to prioritize something above money. so its entirely antithetical to lots of people to do what your suggesting. though there's always the urge to sell out to some degree. but this kinda shit comes off like a religious person telling you to join their religion. "tech" in its modern conception is more about money than anything, which often results in extremely lame stuff. you feel sorry for artists who are poor, but they might feel sorry for you because what you do is so lame.