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

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

#81

Post by sfotm »

coldtea wrote: post #63
sfotm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this argument pretty frequently, but it comes off as more of an excuse. Most people aren't thumping the dictionary like a fundamentalist might a Bible, they're just pointing out that they have a different understanding of the word than another person does. Language is useful when everyone's on the same page. And especially regarding words drifting toward hyperbole, exaggeration, and sometimes simple misuse, so…

> Sincerely, a person that refuses to let to of the whole "literally" thing. I'm great at parties. Literally has been used to also (or mainly) mean "figurativelly" for centuries, including in major authors, it's not some new phenomenon from some unsophisticated masses... It's just a sound, it's not attached to some inherent meaning that must stand still till the end of time. Not to mention etymology (it originating f…

Thanks for the history of the usage. I found an article that refers to some notable authors using it in a hyperbolic sort of way, maybe I'll do some digging there.

My argument isn't really based in etymology, though, and I don't really care about the history of the words I quibble over - I'm fine with language changing in general. My issue is that making "literally" an alias to "very very" and/or "figuratively" leaves a gap where I liked the word to be and may leave it ambiguous. If I were to write about a guy who heard a joke so funny that his heart gave out, I'd be in a real pickle. A real pickle.

So the history of the word doesn't really change my opinion, and doesn't make my opinion based in some sort of ignorance. It's sort of fun to argue against the history-based argument that's usually used to support "my side" (invalidly, it seems), though.

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

#82

Post by shadowlight »

nerdponx wrote: post #74
shadowlight wrote: post #72

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 e…

This is unbelievably arrogant. Where is your UI portfolio? If UI design were easy, we wouldn't have garbage UIs all over the place.

Also unbelievably and unfortunately true. The arrogance of a statement has no bearing on truth. Keep your biases in check and examine the truth behind a statement rather then perceived arrogance. Look at https://www.google.com/.

It looks clean, and nice and well arranged.

Does it look like a work of pure talent and skill and a work of incredible skill and artistry? No. No it does not.

Sure google is probably paying some designer 200k to come up with that front page but seriously let's take a look at it from the perspective of reality. How much effort and talent is required to come up with that search page versus painting a still life painting? Let's face it: Not much talent, and not much effort either.

You can take it a notch up further and talk about complicated interfaces like gmail or outlook. For that I have to say that there's a lot of TIME involved in thinking through the placement and color coding of the interfaces. But is there talent? No. Anybody can spend the time to think about that stuff.

As for painting still life? Or the human figure from thin air? That's raw talent. Not many people can do that no matter how much time you give them. I also bet a good chunk of UI designers don't have the ability to even draw at that level.

Have you seen the netflix show Love, death, robots? The artistry in that show is amazing. I respect the people who work on those episodes. That is an example of modern artistry displaying pure talent and raw skill. UI designers in comparison? Imposters, most of them, and I'm not referring to the syndrome.

Also I'm not the one claiming I'm good at UI design. I'm calling out the imposters. Why don't you show me your portfolio and I'll give you my honest opinion on it. Good UI design is good UI but man you guys are not "artists" to the degree the people on that netflix show are actual artists.

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

#84

Post by itronitron »

nicoburns wrote: post #13
illumanaughty wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a rather broad statement. As an artist in UI design I disagree and think it's a fantastic meeting point of artistry and engineering.

I think the point is that UI design isn't really art. If you're interested in both, then great! But they're about as similar as fiction and non-fiction writing.

I see the main difference being that good UI design should be invisible (i.e. less is more, take away everything superfluous) whereas Art is all about helping people to see things.

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

#85

Post by dnissley »

dragonwriter wrote: post #64
antiterra wrote: post #2

This article feels like a bit of a mess. It doesn’t really back up either of its two statements. Imposter syndrome generally requires that you are/were in the role that makes you feel like an imposter waiting to be found out. There’s an interesting tie between UI/design and a color principle. There’s recognition that an artist may find this gratifying and relevant. But, it’s a limited example not necessarily relevant…

> Imposter syndrome generally requires that you are/were in the role that makes you feel like an imposter waiting to be found out. Actually, it requires that you perceive other people to perceive that you have abilities, etc., exceeding what you perceive yourself to have. Role is tangential, though having a role that (you perceive) creates an expectation of particular abilities might contribute to you perceiving othe…

I've heard this described as "self gatekeeping".

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

#86

Post by dang »

shadowlight wrote: post #72

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 e…

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: you've been breaking the site guidelines egregiously, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27857458, which is obviously not acceptable here. We ban accounts that do that, so I've banned this one.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

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

#87

Post by blooalien »

pkdpic_y9k wrote: post #41

As a practicing visual artist / art school hippie who recently got into working as a software engineer I got really excited when I saw this, noted problems aside. But I wasn't surprised to see it was limited to UI/UX. I'm having a really hard time finding other art school grads and visual artists working on the engineering side of tech and it's starting to make me feel a little crazy. Does anyone have any suggestions…

A couple few groups that I know of off the top of my head where you might find a lot of overlap between art and tech type people would be the "metaverse" (virtual worlds engines [1][2] and their users) and the closely related 3d graphic arts/game design [3][4].

[1] http://opensimulator.org/

[2] https://github.com/HalcyonGrid

[3] https://www.blender.org/

[4] https://godotengine.org/

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

#88

Post by arcticbull »

armchairhacker wrote: post #6

I think people underestimate how UI aesthetics actually improve user experience. I remember when I was younger it was a lot easier to be more productive and creative with Pages, Numbers, Keynote than their competitors (this was when they were still skeuomorphic). The pretty UI genuinely motivated and inspired me, to an extent that I actually noticed. I really believe it helped start projects easier and work on them l…

Square is one of my favorite examples. Square was always beautiful and elegant (if skeuomorphic, boy am I glad that trend is over - remember when iCal looked like "an ugly wild west" [1])

Compare Square to a classic point of sale device. Night and day. It really opened up payment acceptance in a way that I don't think it could have without the aesthetic/UI/UX.

Design and usability matter!

[1] https://gizmodo.com/ugh-god-why-is-apple-making-everything-l...

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

#89

Post by dang »

aritmo wrote: post #12
aritmo wrote: post #9

The title is a disaster. It would only make sense if they are selling training services to artists to migrate to UI design, and they want to lower their self-esteem so that they actually pay them for the training. Oh.

And 38 upvotes in just an hour. Mmm.

The upvotes are normal. Please follow the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#90

Post by deltafourone »

dang wrote: post #86
shadowlight wrote: post #72

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 e…

" Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've been breaking the site guidelines egregiously, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27857458 , which is obviously not acceptable here. We ban accounts that do that, so I've banned this one. Please don't create accounts to break HN…

Please don't shallowly ban people for no good reason. If you read that thread you posted my reaction to him was pretty reasonable. He told me to go study physics. A small violation of the rules? Yeah sure but did I incite anger? No. I was responding to his insult... hardly worth a ban.

Additionally who's to judge that is a shallow dismissal. YOU simply JUST don't agree with it. That's the main problem here. I WROTE reams of text to justify that dismissal. It is literally the OPPOSITE of shallow.

Is it a dismissal? Yes. It is an unpopular opinion? Yes. Is it a shallow dismissal? No. Are you incurring your own bias to ban me here? Absolutely Yes. The evidence is UTTERLY clear from my description above. If anything the one person who responded to my post had the most shallow reply. He literally dismissed most of the design content out on the internet as "garbage" with not even a sentence to support that assertion. That is the definition of Shallow.

And that is why I will always be creating accounts that will NEVER break HN's rules. These accounts will however ALWAYS break your own biased interpretation of your own rules. You are absolutely not a neutral arbiter here. You take sides and your bias here is on the side of considering UI to be artistry and you ban anyone who doesn't share your opinion by calling anyone who doesn't share it "shallow."

Take a look at the thread again. It wasn't insulting and it was FAR from shallow. You really piss me off Dang.

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