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This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a design team in a web agency, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modificati

This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a design team in a web agency, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modification to things like colors, sizes, buttons and the like would be accompanied with several hours of "design strategy", time that the designers would waste thinking and prototyping new ideas for the corporate image of any of our clients, I say "waste" because most of the time they would end up with a design similar if not equal to the original. Their GitHub organization [1] shows significant activity, it is sad to see people spending their time, energy and resources on things that are ultimately not supported by their financial funds. [1] https://github.com/18f https://github.com/18f

cloakandswagger 10y ago
It took a couple of experiences dealing with serious, fancy pants designers to convince me that most of them are charlatans. Even something as simple as widening a button was stonewalled by "explorations", "design strategy meetings", "pattern library meetings", etc. The end result was getting even a single component mocked up took at least a week and was no better than what I could have come up with in 30 minutes.
- agravier 10y ago
  Not charlatans, but professional bikeshed painters :)
- johansch 10y ago
  Quite a few UX/design people who have actually gone through education/training (as opposed to learning by doing) seem to suffer by an extreme form of process overload. It makes sense I guess. It's really easy to teach processes and it probably makes the them feel "professional".
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    In many cases this applies to software engineering as well.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    I don't want to blame UX people entirely for that. Designers have often had to elbow their way in to traditional software processes. One way to do that is by looking impressive to executives. It's sort of an extreme version of Calvin's clear plastic binder. [1] I think it's made worse by the ubiquity of the agency business model for designers. Consulting agencies are forced to learn learn looking impressive and process-y as a vital sales tactic. It's not just design, either. Software consulting agencies have the same problem; if your clients can't directly evaluate your work, then you end up getting judged on what the people hiring you can understand. And that's often how well you dress, how glibly you talk, and how impressive your process seems. [1] http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31 http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31
  - dictum 10y ago
    I'm an UX/design person and I notice that too. I think you could put two capable teams to create a website for some company, one required to do a lot of research and documentation, and another left to design it as they please, and the result probably wouldn't differ much. It's akin to software engineers spending time to automate tasks that aren't that recurring.
- JauntyHatAngle 10y ago
  I don't think that's limited to designers. That sounds a lot like dealing with B2B consultancy companies too. IBM eat your heart out.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
whywhywhywhy 10y ago
This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a development team in a startup, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modification to things like functionality, Git workflow, Javascript framework and the like would be accompanied with several hours of "dev strategy" and scrum meetings, time that the developers would waste thinking and prototyping new ideas for the tech stack for their managers, I say "waste" because most of the time they would end up with a system similar if not identical to the original.

cloakandswagger 10y ago

It took a couple of experiences dealing with serious, fancy pants designers to convince me that most of them are charlatans. Even something as simple as widening a button was stonewalled by "explorations", "design strategy meetings", "pattern library meetings", etc. The end result was getting even a single component mocked up took at least a week and was no better than what I could have come up with in 30 minutes.

agravier 10y ago
Not charlatans, but professional bikeshed painters :)
johansch 10y ago
Quite a few UX/design people who have actually gone through education/training (as opposed to learning by doing) seem to suffer by an extreme form of process overload. It makes sense I guess. It's really easy to teach processes and it probably makes the them feel "professional".
- yoz-y 10y ago
  In many cases this applies to software engineering as well.
- wpietri 10y ago
  I don't want to blame UX people entirely for that. Designers have often had to elbow their way in to traditional software processes. One way to do that is by looking impressive to executives. It's sort of an extreme version of Calvin's clear plastic binder. [1] I think it's made worse by the ubiquity of the agency business model for designers. Consulting agencies are forced to learn learn looking impressive and process-y as a vital sales tactic. It's not just design, either. Software consulting agencies have the same problem; if your clients can't directly evaluate your work, then you end up getting judged on what the people hiring you can understand. And that's often how well you dress, how glibly you talk, and how impressive your process seems. [1] http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31 http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/10/31
- dictum 10y ago
  I'm an UX/design person and I notice that too. I think you could put two capable teams to create a website for some company, one required to do a lot of research and documentation, and another left to design it as they please, and the result probably wouldn't differ much. It's akin to software engineers spending time to automate tasks that aren't that recurring.
JauntyHatAngle 10y ago
I don't think that's limited to designers. That sounds a lot like dealing with B2B consultancy companies too. IBM eat your heart out.

deleted 10y ago

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whywhywhywhy 10y ago

This reminds me a time when I used to work closely with a development team in a startup, it was very frustrating to work with them because every little modification to things like functionality, Git workflow, Javascript framework and the like would be accompanied with several hours of "dev strategy" and scrum meetings, time that the developers would waste thinking and prototyping new ideas for the tech stack for their managers, I say "waste" because most of the time they would end up with a system similar if not identical to the original.