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Design is Horseshit

yongfook.com

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Re: Design is Horseshit

#91

Post by tbod »

There may well be many startups which have a great design and no substance - but then there is also the situation where multiple startups exist in a similar space competing for traction - and in that situation having the design 'edge' is never a bad thing..

Personally I find myself in that situation, early stage startup where whilst I have the tech background, design has never come easily to me (and my co-founders are even worst). As we have bootstrapped we didnt have the money for great design and did the best we could! That said it hasnt been the make or break as we have executed well, however first impressions always count... and when looking for investment we have more than once had potential investors misjudge how far we have come or compare us negatively to others in our space as we did not have the design 'edge'. Its a shame, but its a fact of life appearances mean a lot..

Perhaps off topic but be interesting to know how others have managed to overcome gaps in skillsets when bootstrapping? we dont seem to have any contacts with good design skills and available time..

Re: Design is Horseshit

#93

Post by myspy »

I like his article. He's right. You should first solve the problem, then enhance it with great look and feel. Making it accessible.

The update is worthy to read too.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#94

Post by sporkologist »

antidaily wrote: post #5

everything is horseshit.

The definitions of everything in this thread keep shifting, it's making me dizzy (design -- are we talking about visual design, functional design??).... it devolved into philosophical arguments where people actually probably agree once the definitions are agreed upon.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#96

Post by tomelders »

You could write the exact same rant about engineers in response to an info graphic titled "Did you know about billions worth of value created by tech startups with technical co-founders?"

Re: Design is Horseshit

#97

Post by sbuk »

Another individual conflating design with aesthetic styling. The article has plenty of merit but it is lost in the continuing abuse of what the practice of design is.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#99

Post by sbuk »

fookyong wrote: post #30
cicatriz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but his countering suggestion is a single word, "value", that he doesn't define or substantiate. Beyond any simple idea of what people want, you almost always need to build a product that they can use and like to use, and that needs good design. Not graphic design -- interaction design. Why so many of these content-less posts on HN front page lately?

value = solve a real problem there is always value in that

Design is about solving problems. That's the point that you have missed entirely. While I'm on it; engineers are designers too. Pick up any book about software engineering that you care to choose and the word "design" will be used extensively, especially in reference to solving problems. With regards to aesthetics, this is simple: the more elegant the solution, the easier and arguably more desirable it is to use.

Re: Design is Horseshit

#100

Post by 6ren »

"The Design of Everyday Things" talks primarily about functionality, and frames design so broadly as to be almost indistinguishable from "solving a user problem".

As an example, Roy Fielding describes the URLs that a RESTful webservice includes in its representation of a resource (for what transitions are available to other states) as "affordances". It could even be argued that Codd's relational model was a better "design" for thinking about databases, which he presented in terms of the problem of data models being too closely coupled with storage representation.

Of course, even this broad sense of design doesn't address whether there's a market for a solution; but it does address whether you can make a solution that's better. I can see the sense in seeking a problem that needs to be solved - in being "market-driven"... but personally, I'm much more excited about creating something better (which is only possible when you already know the problem and some existing solution, because "better than" takes two operands). And that seems to be the history of all the products I admire.

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