6 ms·

UX Is a Canary in a Coal Mine

35 points by kathliu 11y ago

kathliu 11y ago
Design team morale is a leading indicator for a company's design health.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Yes, and in fact the title contradicts the main thesis of the article -- UX is a "trailing indicator", UX Team morale is a leading indicator.
zer00eyz 11y ago
Its also the leading indicator of your companies financial heath. Typicaly "designers" get cut before engineers. IF they fire the designers and the UX people, odds are your next.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
an4rchy 11y ago
I'm curious to know how many people who've interviewed have received honest feedback about the current situation at the company. Most people don't know how bad it is, until they're in the job, unless you know someone who works there outside the interview. Morale can be a leading indicator but the honesty/transparency required to actually capture the indicator is somewhat difficult
wintom 11y ago
I don't get it, design is important but not nearly as important as engineering to any organization. All of these hipsters today in our industry doing design seem to think they are the most important, but the truth is they aren't. I got news for you, Google has one bar and one button and was built by engineers and is the most successful company in the world of software. Facebook had a shit design and UI and became the leading social network. Microsoft never gave a shit about design and did great. In the end engineers build great high tech organizations and it's especially true and even more important than ever today. Fuck design, its like icing on the cake. Without a good cake the icing won't make you eat shit. It's not that important what's important is to get a product out, you should learn code it up and see if it's any good worry about hiring the hipsters when you're rolling in the dough. EDIT: In the end I'm saying I disagree that having designers is a sign of anything in a good software company as the article seems to stipulate.
- NoCulturalFit 11y ago
  I agree with you. "Photoshop-designers" can only export their PSDs and that's it. I can actually build and design it. If the design isn't satisfactory, I can.... wait for it.. actually iterate on it. In fact, if I had another engineer instead of a photoshop-monkey we could iterate twice as fast on either device or browser.
  - wintom 11y ago
    Absolutely.
  - gjolund 11y ago
    My designers keep asking for "pair design" sessions with me, where I open chrome inspector and "tweak" things for them. So goddamn irritating. Just learn to fucking write some html, js, and css or go back to print design... if it still exists.
    - trisomy21 11y ago
      If they are your designers, it might be time to engineer a better hiring system.
      - gjolund 11y ago
        They are not "my" designers. The design department is managed separately from the Engineering department. I have no control over their tooling, hiring practices, or deliverables.
    - kagamine 11y ago
      UX degee level graduate here, had too many interviews in which an interest and ability to write code was seen as a detriment to the design process because they thought it detracted from the ability to design as a 'dumb user'. And because the people interviewing had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned anything 'engineering'. Some of these people had no idea how the Internet works or how to make a simple web page. And yes, I have do have chip on my shoulder about it, because many UX people are self-taught and have little idea about what UX is either, they just keep churning out "i think" "solutions" that never get tested.
gjolund 11y ago
"I do UX at startup.io" translated "I read design articles and tell developers what they already know."
soperj 11y ago
You look at the top classified ad site(craigslist), and it's pretty clear how important design really is.
- SapphireSun 11y ago
  One might argue that the look and feel of craigslist matches its use. It also had a great first-mover advantage and vacuumed up all the mindshare for classifieds very early on. It's hard to compete with that, even with a shiny well tested design. A lot of the comments here are pointing out outliers that succeeded due to reasons such as first mover advantage combined with network effects. In more competitive spaces, design still matters.
lindseya 11y ago
As a UXer, here's my 2 cents: "Design team morale is a leading indicator for a company’s design health. Are the designers in the company positive and happy, or do they complain about feeling disempowered or disenfranchised?" It's a bad sign when ANY entire team in the organization has low morale and is feeling disenfranchised, whether they are the design team, engineering team, or business team. "If designers are not happy, it likely reflects larger issues with the company that impact current and future products under development. Moreover, if designers are not happy, it’s really hard for them to create a joyful experience." No so. Designers are never happy. We are always striving to do better and to improve the customer experience. The fact that the experience is not the best that it could be drives us to do more. "It’s incumbent upon the design leader and CEO to rally the team to see the opportunity ahead and be excited about delivering it." The leaders need to be respected by the team in order to have the ability to rally them. In my experience, it's best to have the respected leaders talk to their teams rather than having a lead designer try to motivate a team of engineers, for example. Overall, I think this article is a lot of complaining about designers not having enough respect in a company. From my experience, if you want respect, you have to earn it by showing that you can deliver value, not by whining that the environment is not optimal. Good UX designers are able to see inefficiencies and design a better way, both for the customers and for their own work processes.

35 points by kathliu 11y ago

kathliu 11y ago

Design team morale is a leading indicator for a company's design health.

Tloewald 11y ago
Yes, and in fact the title contradicts the main thesis of the article -- UX is a "trailing indicator", UX Team morale is a leading indicator.

zer00eyz 11y ago

Its also the leading indicator of your companies financial heath. Typicaly "designers" get cut before engineers. IF they fire the designers and the UX people, odds are your next.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

an4rchy 11y ago

I'm curious to know how many people who've interviewed have received honest feedback about the current situation at the company. Most people don't know how bad it is, until they're in the job, unless you know someone who works there outside the interview. Morale can be a leading indicator but the honesty/transparency required to actually capture the indicator is somewhat difficult

wintom 11y ago

I don't get it, design is important but not nearly as important as engineering to any organization. All of these hipsters today in our industry doing design seem to think they are the most important, but the truth is they aren't. I got news for you, Google has one bar and one button and was built by engineers and is the most successful company in the world of software. Facebook had a shit design and UI and became the leading social network. Microsoft never gave a shit about design and did great. In the end engineers build great high tech organizations and it's especially true and even more important than ever today. Fuck design, its like icing on the cake. Without a good cake the icing won't make you eat shit. It's not that important what's important is to get a product out, you should learn code it up and see if it's any good worry about hiring the hipsters when you're rolling in the dough. EDIT: In the end I'm saying I disagree that having designers is a sign of anything in a good software company as the article seems to stipulate.

NoCulturalFit 11y ago
I agree with you. "Photoshop-designers" can only export their PSDs and that's it. I can actually build and design it. If the design isn't satisfactory, I can.... wait for it.. actually iterate on it. In fact, if I had another engineer instead of a photoshop-monkey we could iterate twice as fast on either device or browser.
- wintom 11y ago
  Absolutely.
- gjolund 11y ago
  My designers keep asking for "pair design" sessions with me, where I open chrome inspector and "tweak" things for them. So goddamn irritating. Just learn to fucking write some html, js, and css or go back to print design... if it still exists.
  - trisomy21 11y ago
    If they are your designers, it might be time to engineer a better hiring system.
    - gjolund 11y ago
      They are not "my" designers. The design department is managed separately from the Engineering department. I have no control over their tooling, hiring practices, or deliverables.
  - kagamine 11y ago
    UX degee level graduate here, had too many interviews in which an interest and ability to write code was seen as a detriment to the design process because they thought it detracted from the ability to design as a 'dumb user'. And because the people interviewing had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned anything 'engineering'. Some of these people had no idea how the Internet works or how to make a simple web page. And yes, I have do have chip on my shoulder about it, because many UX people are self-taught and have little idea about what UX is either, they just keep churning out "i think" "solutions" that never get tested.

gjolund 11y ago

"I do UX at startup.io" translated "I read design articles and tell developers what they already know."

soperj 11y ago

You look at the top classified ad site(craigslist), and it's pretty clear how important design really is.

SapphireSun 11y ago
One might argue that the look and feel of craigslist matches its use. It also had a great first-mover advantage and vacuumed up all the mindshare for classifieds very early on. It's hard to compete with that, even with a shiny well tested design. A lot of the comments here are pointing out outliers that succeeded due to reasons such as first mover advantage combined with network effects. In more competitive spaces, design still matters.

lindseya 11y ago

As a UXer, here's my 2 cents: "Design team morale is a leading indicator for a company’s design health. Are the designers in the company positive and happy, or do they complain about feeling disempowered or disenfranchised?" It's a bad sign when ANY entire team in the organization has low morale and is feeling disenfranchised, whether they are the design team, engineering team, or business team. "If designers are not happy, it likely reflects larger issues with the company that impact current and future products under development. Moreover, if designers are not happy, it’s really hard for them to create a joyful experience." No so. Designers are never happy. We are always striving to do better and to improve the customer experience. The fact that the experience is not the best that it could be drives us to do more. "It’s incumbent upon the design leader and CEO to rally the team to see the opportunity ahead and be excited about delivering it." The leaders need to be respected by the team in order to have the ability to rally them. In my experience, it's best to have the respected leaders talk to their teams rather than having a lead designer try to motivate a team of engineers, for example. Overall, I think this article is a lot of complaining about designers not having enough respect in a company. From my experience, if you want respect, you have to earn it by showing that you can deliver value, not by whining that the environment is not optimal. Good UX designers are able to see inefficiencies and design a better way, both for the customers and for their own work processes.