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I've been in many projects where people would iterate numerous times over architecture while completely forgetting what real-world problem they are actually try

by petard 11y ago

I've been in many projects where people would iterate numerous times over architecture while completely forgetting what real-world problem they are actually trying to solve. Architecture becoming art pour l'art. I don't see the point of the article being that every software developer becomes a fully-fledged UX guy, but understands the context in which the system is going to be used and not get lost in the technical rabbit hole.

paulojreis 11y ago
> I've been in many projects where people would iterate numerous times over architecture while completely forgetting what real-world problem they are actually trying to solve. Architecture becoming art pour l'art. I completely agree. Unless constrained, software developers will entertain themselves with architecture stuff ad libitum. But this is one problem; the other - a full-blown, bigger one - is truly knowing the real-world problem. > I don't see the point of the article being that every software developer becomes a fully-fledged UX guy, but understands the context in which the system is going to be used and not get lost in the technical rabbit hole. The premise is a noble one, and correct IMO. But, as above, truly knowing the real-world problem is hell. We can't really hope to solve the technical rabbit hole just by focusing in the real-world, or simply assume that we know it. Software developers won't understand the real-world context, most of the times. They aren't trained to do so. Most of the times, companies won't help: organization keeps software developers very far from customers. Hell, I'll say it: many software developers even lack the basic empathy skills to understand the user. Their model of the software is the implementation model, not the usage model. And many times they're too stubborn, and talk very cheap regarding users and usage: software developers say "this is what the user wants" as cheaply I say "the sky is blue". But the thing is that "what the user wants" is not that obvious; the only obvious thing is the mis/preconceptions we have.

by petard 11y ago

paulojreis 11y ago

> I've been in many projects where people would iterate numerous times over architecture while completely forgetting what real-world problem they are actually trying to solve. Architecture becoming art pour l'art. I completely agree. Unless constrained, software developers will entertain themselves with architecture stuff ad libitum. But this is one problem; the other - a full-blown, bigger one - is truly knowing the real-world problem. > I don't see the point of the article being that every software developer becomes a fully-fledged UX guy, but understands the context in which the system is going to be used and not get lost in the technical rabbit hole. The premise is a noble one, and correct IMO. But, as above, truly knowing the real-world problem is hell. We can't really hope to solve the technical rabbit hole just by focusing in the real-world, or simply assume that we know it. Software developers won't understand the real-world context, most of the times. They aren't trained to do so. Most of the times, companies won't help: organization keeps software developers very far from customers. Hell, I'll say it: many software developers even lack the basic empathy skills to understand the user. Their model of the software is the implementation model, not the usage model. And many times they're too stubborn, and talk very cheap regarding users and usage: software developers say "this is what the user wants" as cheaply I say "the sky is blue". But the thing is that "what the user wants" is not that obvious; the only obvious thing is the mis/preconceptions we have.