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> I don't need to be able to build cars to recognize that something's wrong with mine. I also don't need to be an entrepreneur or an executive to spot one compa

> I don't need to be able to build cars to recognize that something's wrong with mine. I also don't need to be an entrepreneur or an executive to spot one company trying to muscle another out of a market. So much about criticizing other people's work and belittling their motivations. Actually, I disagree. I think you run the risk of missing important details if you're doing an untrained analysis. For instance, a layman might say - "Look how busy Amazon.com is - it could be so prettier with a more minimalistic interface!" They might not realize that Amazon are fanatical about split testing to get things to a minute detail. Amazon is a busy site, but it does what it's trying to do remarkably well. Someone untrained in web design could say "I don't need to be a web designer to spot an ugly website that's too busy." But they'd be looking at it entirely the wrong way.

CodeMage 16y ago
Not being trained in something will certainly prevent you from giving an expert opinion on it, but that's not what I was saying. Someone untrained in web design could also say "I don't like Amazon's look", just like someone who has no idea about why Flash is not allowed on iPad would notice that his favorite casual web game portal is not working on his iPad. Or, to use my simple example, if I don't know jack about car engines (and I don't), I can still tell that somethings wrong if the engine sounds 10x louder than usually or if there's a funny smell coming out from under the hood. There's more than a single step from that to telling my mechanic that "my conbobatron is confusticated".