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If you decide to study how to build bridges, you will start out with calculus, build a background in science of materials and then a guided tour of approaches t

If you decide to study how to build bridges, you will start out with calculus, build a background in science of materials and then a guided tour of approaches to structure-building. In addition, you have to learn typical environmental factors. And, of course, there are workflow patterns and human factors involved in actually constructing a typical bridge. Oh, and sure, there will be a bit of CAD. Let's apply this metaphor to programmers working on UIs: a huge chunk of practitioners right now get by via simply having learned a bit of CAD (i.e. HTML/CSS/JS). And also, yeah, they have walked over a bridge once/seen a panoramic postcard, so there's that. Very ad-hoc, very disorganized, full of gaps. Of course the impact of mistakes is magnitudes different between designing bridges and building UIs. Except for when that UI drives medical automation. Or finance (one of my faves is an anecdote about how a bad input form field cost a fund management company literally in the 8 digits of money). Our industry is of course very young, and so I think this education gap is simply a temporary issue. I am looking forward to (and am personally investing into) a day when there will be a more systematic and comprehensive education on how what a good UI looks, behaves and feels like, not just how to code buttons and boxes on a screen.

analog31 11y ago
I work in product development for things that have mechanical and electronic bits, etc. There are disciplined processes for designing things, typically applied to life support systems such as bridges and jet planes. Or, hi-reliability components like hard drives. But outside of life support products, I would guess that the majority of product development is only as disciplined as it needs to be, for what's being made. A lot of stuff is designed by seat-of-pants, by people sitting at CAD stations who mostly have engineering degrees but don't engage in engineering and have forgotten all of their math and theory. The level of organization and discipline needed to do things like design airplanes is done by the segment of engineers who enjoy that discipline and gravitate towards those industries. People who prefer to do seat-of-pants design find their own niche as well. At my workplace, I can't count the number of times I've heard: "But we don't design airplanes here." Our stuff works when it gets to the customer, but if you scrutinize our designs the way we've all been trained to scrutinize UI's, you'd be horrified.
- Klinky 11y ago
  While on the topic of airplanes, we shouldn't think they have perfect user interfaces. There have certainly been some design choices that should be criticized, and likely contributed to people dying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_factors_and_computer_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_fa...
icebraining 11y ago
Meh. If you read The Design of Everyday Things and then look around, you see so many faults with the UI of physical things, even some which have been around for more than a century. A good example is packaging: "The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused about 6,500 emergency room visits in the U.S. in 2004."
- orf 11y ago
  Lets say conservatively that 70% of Americans open at least one package a year, equalling 223,230,000 packages opened. 6,500 injuries is 0.0029%. Not bad I think.
  - hibikir 11y ago
    0.0029% for injuries that require an emergency room visit, not injuries at all. Let's go for a conservative, 100:1 ratio of minor cuts vs injuries that make you want to spend a bunch of money on doctors, and we see that it's pretty darned dangerous. Dangerous enough that at work, we have mandatory training on how to open different kinds of packages safely! That said, the state of blisters has improved, precisely because people complained about how easy it is to get injured with the older, plastic on plastic blisters that require either heavy duty scissors or a box cutter, and leave behind very sharp edges.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >0.0029% for injuries that require an emergency room visit, not injuries at all. If you get an "emergency room visit" for trying to open a package, there's also some sort of idiocy involved. I wonder if the level of E.R visits would for perfectly designed packages wouldn't be close or similar, because of idiocy.
      - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
        You've probably been downvoted (although, not be me) for using the term 'idiocy' which is a really unfair and derogatory accusation. I've cut myself on packaging before, definitely. I've probably done it in the past year. I am not 'an idiot'. ER visits could be for a number of indirect reasons; blood disorders that could prevent blood from clotting affect at least 6,500 people in the US. Just because the injury you're imagining wouldn't be serious to you, doesn't mean others are 'idiots'.
xshift 11y ago
Where/how do I learn good design? I'm an iOS developer with just under a year of full-time experience. I have never had to design anything at work, and I'm painfully aware that my design skills are horrible.
white-flame 11y ago
A bridge supporting a weight load of X in wind/water conditions Y is a testable thing. A UI that is "easy to use", "intuitive", "has the things you use most front & center", etc, are all soft subjective terms. Even when you run stats over a population to try to find generic mediums, those overall expectations will change over time as well.

analog31 11y ago

I work in product development for things that have mechanical and electronic bits, etc. There are disciplined processes for designing things, typically applied to life support systems such as bridges and jet planes. Or, hi-reliability components like hard drives. But outside of life support products, I would guess that the majority of product development is only as disciplined as it needs to be, for what's being made. A lot of stuff is designed by seat-of-pants, by people sitting at CAD stations who mostly have engineering degrees but don't engage in engineering and have forgotten all of their math and theory. The level of organization and discipline needed to do things like design airplanes is done by the segment of engineers who enjoy that discipline and gravitate towards those industries. People who prefer to do seat-of-pants design find their own niche as well. At my workplace, I can't count the number of times I've heard: "But we don't design airplanes here." Our stuff works when it gets to the customer, but if you scrutinize our designs the way we've all been trained to scrutinize UI's, you'd be horrified.

Klinky 11y ago
While on the topic of airplanes, we shouldn't think they have perfect user interfaces. There have certainly been some design choices that should be criticized, and likely contributed to people dying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_factors_and_computer_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Human_fa...

icebraining 11y ago

Meh. If you read The Design of Everyday Things and then look around, you see so many faults with the UI of physical things, even some which have been around for more than a century. A good example is packaging: "The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused about 6,500 emergency room visits in the U.S. in 2004."

orf 11y ago
Lets say conservatively that 70% of Americans open at least one package a year, equalling 223,230,000 packages opened. 6,500 injuries is 0.0029%. Not bad I think.
- hibikir 11y ago
  0.0029% for injuries that require an emergency room visit, not injuries at all. Let's go for a conservative, 100:1 ratio of minor cuts vs injuries that make you want to spend a bunch of money on doctors, and we see that it's pretty darned dangerous. Dangerous enough that at work, we have mandatory training on how to open different kinds of packages safely! That said, the state of blisters has improved, precisely because people complained about how easy it is to get injured with the older, plastic on plastic blisters that require either heavy duty scissors or a box cutter, and leave behind very sharp edges.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >0.0029% for injuries that require an emergency room visit, not injuries at all. If you get an "emergency room visit" for trying to open a package, there's also some sort of idiocy involved. I wonder if the level of E.R visits would for perfectly designed packages wouldn't be close or similar, because of idiocy.
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      You've probably been downvoted (although, not be me) for using the term 'idiocy' which is a really unfair and derogatory accusation. I've cut myself on packaging before, definitely. I've probably done it in the past year. I am not 'an idiot'. ER visits could be for a number of indirect reasons; blood disorders that could prevent blood from clotting affect at least 6,500 people in the US. Just because the injury you're imagining wouldn't be serious to you, doesn't mean others are 'idiots'.

xshift 11y ago

Where/how do I learn good design? I'm an iOS developer with just under a year of full-time experience. I have never had to design anything at work, and I'm painfully aware that my design skills are horrible.

white-flame 11y ago

A bridge supporting a weight load of X in wind/water conditions Y is a testable thing. A UI that is "easy to use", "intuitive", "has the things you use most front & center", etc, are all soft subjective terms. Even when you run stats over a population to try to find generic mediums, those overall expectations will change over time as well.