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> "A lot of the design problems have been solved already. Questions such as when modals are appropriate, how to design forms effectively, what makes a good call

> "A lot of the design problems have been solved already. Questions such as when modals are appropriate, how to design forms effectively, what makes a good call-to-action, and how to structure IA effectively have been answered. Companies no longer need teams of people to work out answers to these questions, just one or two good leaders to evangelize the answers that are already established, and a team of UI engineers that can execute them well." Perhaps I'm taking this the wrong way, but the tasks you listed there don't even begin to scratch the surface of existing design problems a UI designer will face on a daily basis. EDIT: ex. Consider the design work that went into this product http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/watson/watsonpaths.shtml http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/watson/watso...

mtrpcic 11y ago
I think you two are saying the same things. The examples he provided are the problems that have already been solved, so you don't need teams of people to figure them out. Instead, you just need two pros who are excellent in specific areas, and "industry best practices" fills in the gaps. 10 years ago, there were no best practices, so this wasn't quite as possible.
theoh 11y ago
Looking at WatsonPaths, I'd say that it it's an "expert system" (very old idea) with one UX gimmick added, the path visualization of Watson's best guess at each stage. It's a totally appropriate application of that type of infographic, but IMO the insight that it could aid visualization to use it is a high level concept. I'd be curious to know whether the idea led to the WatsonPaths project, or if it was discovered in the course of an exploratory initiative (presumably with another name). What it definitely isn't is UX design "as usual". (That kind of diagram is not a new invention: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/daily-chart-1 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/daily-c... )
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
snegu 11y ago
Those actually are the design problems a UX designer working on a company's marketing site will face on a daily basis. That's why all the interesting UX work has moved away from "web design," as discussed in the article, into designing the types of tools you link to.
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  But the tool I linked to was just a prototype. The actual product will be accessed via the web.
burgessaccount 11y ago
It seems to also depend very much on who the website is for. The reality is that many organizations (small businesses basic organizations restaurants schools nonprofits etc.) need sites that do basic, routine things, in which case, the hard problems are solved, and good templates are available. In that case, having an in-house person who understands the company's needs is better than having a sophisticated specialist. It seems like, as the # of websites has increased, one would have expected the demand for web designers to increase proportionately, but it hasn't, because the orgs with the most complex site needs were the first to build.
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  Website is also a minomer now more than ever. If it's online and you access it via the web is it a website? A product? A web product? A web app? SaaS app? Is it mobile? Is a webkit app a website? Is a website wrapped in a mobile browser ported to a phone a website? One could certainly argue in either direction for all of those questions. The skills are all very similar, the technologies are mostly the same (foundationally). I don't think work is drying up nor demand going down. I think designers are more important now more than ever, they just might not be traditional web designers.
jamiesonbecker 11y ago
The web designers who designed the WatsonPaths diagrams that were probably already intimately familiar with the same type of diagram in Google Analytics: http://www.webs9.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Social_visitors_flow.png http://www.webs9.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Social_visit...

mtrpcic 11y ago

I think you two are saying the same things. The examples he provided are the problems that have already been solved, so you don't need teams of people to figure them out. Instead, you just need two pros who are excellent in specific areas, and "industry best practices" fills in the gaps. 10 years ago, there were no best practices, so this wasn't quite as possible.

theoh 11y ago

Looking at WatsonPaths, I'd say that it it's an "expert system" (very old idea) with one UX gimmick added, the path visualization of Watson's best guess at each stage. It's a totally appropriate application of that type of infographic, but IMO the insight that it could aid visualization to use it is a high level concept. I'd be curious to know whether the idea led to the WatsonPaths project, or if it was discovered in the course of an exploratory initiative (presumably with another name). What it definitely isn't is UX design "as usual". (That kind of diagram is not a new invention: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/daily-chart-1 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/daily-c... )

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

snegu 11y ago

Those actually are the design problems a UX designer working on a company's marketing site will face on a daily basis. That's why all the interesting UX work has moved away from "web design," as discussed in the article, into designing the types of tools you link to.

ryanSrich 11y ago
But the tool I linked to was just a prototype. The actual product will be accessed via the web.

burgessaccount 11y ago

It seems to also depend very much on who the website is for. The reality is that many organizations (small businesses basic organizations restaurants schools nonprofits etc.) need sites that do basic, routine things, in which case, the hard problems are solved, and good templates are available. In that case, having an in-house person who understands the company's needs is better than having a sophisticated specialist. It seems like, as the # of websites has increased, one would have expected the demand for web designers to increase proportionately, but it hasn't, because the orgs with the most complex site needs were the first to build.

ryanSrich 11y ago
Website is also a minomer now more than ever. If it's online and you access it via the web is it a website? A product? A web product? A web app? SaaS app? Is it mobile? Is a webkit app a website? Is a website wrapped in a mobile browser ported to a phone a website? One could certainly argue in either direction for all of those questions. The skills are all very similar, the technologies are mostly the same (foundationally). I don't think work is drying up nor demand going down. I think designers are more important now more than ever, they just might not be traditional web designers.

jamiesonbecker 11y ago

The web designers who designed the WatsonPaths diagrams that were probably already intimately familiar with the same type of diagram in Google Analytics: http://www.webs9.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Social_visitors_flow.png http://www.webs9.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Social_visit...