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> Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed. Wow that's the fir

> Backend programmers kept piling functionality into these apps and at some point no matter how good a designer is it just gets overwhelmed. Wow that's the first time I have heard the problem phrased this way. Usually it's the other way around -- the designers and product leads want to pile on so many features and the backend devs can't keep up, so the codebase turns into a rotten pile of shit.

ThomPete 10y ago
I don't think thats actually true. Designers are mostly very good at not adding too much because it goes against their aesthetic mission. What you are talking about is product people or product owners not designers.
- mianos 10y ago
  Do you think it's the product people asking for grey fonts on a light grey background? (What the article is saying).
- flukus 10y ago
  > Designers are mostly very good at not adding too much because it goes against their aesthetic mission. That's what's fashionable today (or yesterday? I can't keep up), but it hasn't always been the case.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Can you elaborate? When wasn't it been the case? For the last 20 years I have been doing this it was the case. Before that too. So not sure what you are referring to.
    - flukus 10y ago
      ~10 years ago UX was all about adding animations, glow effects and colors as hints to the user. Colors are still used (but much more sparingly) and animations and glow effect have fallen out of fashion.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        Not sure what you are talking about. You sure you are not confusing campaign sites with actual digital tools and resources? It's never been a trend by designers to want to overcomplicate the design. The strive for whitespace runs so deep in most designers that you simple don't get the used car salesman mentality where every little pixel left untouched is one to much.
        flukus 10y ago
        Not confusing it with campaign sites, I'm talking business/productivity apps. It's entirely possible my experience was atypical, the I did a lot of reading about UX at the time and this seems to be what the "best practice" was at the time. So if a dialog was shown the best way to do it was to have the dialog expand from the clicked element for instance. Now dialog's are frowned upon.
acveilleux 10y ago
How that story goes seem to be a cultural thing depending on the org culture. I've seen places where the loop goes: 1. BizDev and/or Sales identify a feature set that would enable a deal or broaden the market suitability. 2. Dev team tasked with adding feature XYZ. 3. Designer brought in to figure out how to add the feature to the UI with minimal effort. 4. Repeat. I think this version is much more common in enterprise software and less so in mass consumer stuff. As we all know, enterprise software is unsexy and not worthy of YC/Startup culture. High touch sales also favors fewer deals with more customer leverage and really fat commissions for sales people.
- douche 10y ago
  Yup. I don't know how many times we've shoe-horned in a feature because it is a "must-have" for some prospective customer, and they either don't end up purchasing, or they purchase, but the must-have feature never gets used. It lingers on, forever, in ratty old functions and crufted-up database tables, and cognitive load.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I've been at a few companies that have failed because they were letting customers design their product. As in sales reps would meet with customers who would buy the product if we added x, y and z which they found absolutely critical. Customers don't have to consider things like applicability to other customers, stability, performance or maintenance.
noobiemcfoob 10y ago
I've been involved in a handful of projects that fell into a situation were UI development was much slower than backend development. Specifically, one was primarily a visualization tool. It was trivial to add various data transformations. However, the UI to render and interact with any one of those transformations would take substantially longer.
mianos 10y ago
There was a lot of functionality added so to address this, they reduced the contrast of all the fonts? Nope. A more likely story is, as they added more functionality they delegated what could have done by people with less skills than a programmer because there are not enough of them. The end result is the people who care about well something works are just working on the program. The rest of the hangers on are trying to make their mark by using uber cool typography. I'll be the first to admit the lighter fonts look cool but they don't help you with your real job.

ThomPete 10y ago

I don't think thats actually true. Designers are mostly very good at not adding too much because it goes against their aesthetic mission. What you are talking about is product people or product owners not designers.

mianos 10y ago
Do you think it's the product people asking for grey fonts on a light grey background? (What the article is saying).
flukus 10y ago
> Designers are mostly very good at not adding too much because it goes against their aesthetic mission. That's what's fashionable today (or yesterday? I can't keep up), but it hasn't always been the case.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Can you elaborate? When wasn't it been the case? For the last 20 years I have been doing this it was the case. Before that too. So not sure what you are referring to.
  - flukus 10y ago
    ~10 years ago UX was all about adding animations, glow effects and colors as hints to the user. Colors are still used (but much more sparingly) and animations and glow effect have fallen out of fashion.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Not sure what you are talking about. You sure you are not confusing campaign sites with actual digital tools and resources? It's never been a trend by designers to want to overcomplicate the design. The strive for whitespace runs so deep in most designers that you simple don't get the used car salesman mentality where every little pixel left untouched is one to much.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Not confusing it with campaign sites, I'm talking business/productivity apps. It's entirely possible my experience was atypical, the I did a lot of reading about UX at the time and this seems to be what the "best practice" was at the time. So if a dialog was shown the best way to do it was to have the dialog expand from the clicked element for instance. Now dialog's are frowned upon.

acveilleux 10y ago

How that story goes seem to be a cultural thing depending on the org culture. I've seen places where the loop goes: 1. BizDev and/or Sales identify a feature set that would enable a deal or broaden the market suitability. 2. Dev team tasked with adding feature XYZ. 3. Designer brought in to figure out how to add the feature to the UI with minimal effort. 4. Repeat. I think this version is much more common in enterprise software and less so in mass consumer stuff. As we all know, enterprise software is unsexy and not worthy of YC/Startup culture. High touch sales also favors fewer deals with more customer leverage and really fat commissions for sales people.

douche 10y ago
Yup. I don't know how many times we've shoe-horned in a feature because it is a "must-have" for some prospective customer, and they either don't end up purchasing, or they purchase, but the must-have feature never gets used. It lingers on, forever, in ratty old functions and crufted-up database tables, and cognitive load.
- flukus 10y ago
  I've been at a few companies that have failed because they were letting customers design their product. As in sales reps would meet with customers who would buy the product if we added x, y and z which they found absolutely critical. Customers don't have to consider things like applicability to other customers, stability, performance or maintenance.

noobiemcfoob 10y ago

I've been involved in a handful of projects that fell into a situation were UI development was much slower than backend development. Specifically, one was primarily a visualization tool. It was trivial to add various data transformations. However, the UI to render and interact with any one of those transformations would take substantially longer.

mianos 10y ago

There was a lot of functionality added so to address this, they reduced the contrast of all the fonts? Nope. A more likely story is, as they added more functionality they delegated what could have done by people with less skills than a programmer because there are not enough of them. The end result is the people who care about well something works are just working on the program. The rest of the hangers on are trying to make their mark by using uber cool typography. I'll be the first to admit the lighter fonts look cool but they don't help you with your real job.