3 ms·

I mean designing the experience. How does it work, what goes where, what's important, etc. The "how does it look" is further down the line from there but still

by dhh 16y ago

I mean designing the experience. How does it work, what goes where, what's important, etc. The "how does it look" is further down the line from there but still integrally connected. I find that the best product designers are people who can follow the rabbit hole all the way. From thinking about the problem to figuring out how many pixels the border should be.

jeromec 16y ago
Now see, you just described me perfectly with everything you said except for that last part about how many pixels the border should be. As a programmer I'm great at all of it except border width type decisions -- which btw I don't think are the most important thing affecting user experience. It mostly just helps aesthetics. It may be that I'm rare as a programmer that's good at following the user experience rabbit hole all the way, but I don't think so.
- dhh 16y ago
  Making the connection from "how should it work" to "how should it look" is half the magic pudding of a good designer. Relegating that to "it mostly just helps aesthetics" to me signifies someone who doesn't understand that connection.
  - jeromec 16y ago
    We're experiencing some missed communication. I believe that's because "how it should look" encompasses two separate aspects -- functionality, and visual appeal. My comment about helping aesthetics was specifically regarding border width. I don't think you're suggesting a border width decision has anything to do with how something works. Let me explain it better this way. I am fantastic at putting together wireframes for sites. A wireframe requires no programming or artistic ability, because it uses simply black and white lines, yet still effectively communicates the placement of elements, site flow, and overall intended functional user experience. I believe this is the type of design you're referring to. Again, this is something I feel I'm quite good at. Now, while I'm fully capable of cutting up and building out any wireframes I (or anyone else) come up with, and putting them online, it's probably not a good idea, because black and white lines would lack visual appeal. That's where graphic artists (what I usually call graphic designers) come in -- but in that instance they're mostly just adding in shapes, colors, and gradients etc. (and figuring out border width ;) To me, building great wireframes and flow charts generally fits better with the thinking of programmers -- people most in tuned with thinking logically -- than creative artsy types, but that's just my thinking.
    - dhh 16y ago
      The visual representation of something is integrally linked with how it works. Thinking of that as just something graphic designers do to make it pretty is in my opinion the crux of the disagreement here. I don't think that this division should exist. I've certainly seen it performed like this. In fact, I believe it's the norm. But I also think it's the cause of many bad experiences. The perfect flow, in my opinion, is to have the same person responsible for how it works and how it looks because the best interfaces and applications merges those two together. Also, I largely consider wireframes and flow charts to be poor substitutions for designers capable of jumping straight from ultra-rough paper sketch to HTML. The more layers of indirection, the worse.
      - jeromec 16y ago
        I know graphic artists who are extremely talented visually, but certainly couldn't beat me for putting together Web applications. They may been drawing since they could hold a pencil, and know how to use Photoshop, but simply don't have the thinking I do when it comes to UX. In the past I built a large web application for a business that went head-to-head with a top industry version, and the owner was blown away with how much better my app was, saying it cut his training time for new employees down by around 85%. I don't think this is a black and white issue. I think, like most anything, there are many things that come down to the individual doing the job.

by dhh 16y ago

jeromec 16y ago

Now see, you just described me perfectly with everything you said except for that last part about how many pixels the border should be. As a programmer I'm great at all of it except border width type decisions -- which btw I don't think are the most important thing affecting user experience. It mostly just helps aesthetics. It may be that I'm rare as a programmer that's good at following the user experience rabbit hole all the way, but I don't think so.

dhh 16y ago
Making the connection from "how should it work" to "how should it look" is half the magic pudding of a good designer. Relegating that to "it mostly just helps aesthetics" to me signifies someone who doesn't understand that connection.
- jeromec 16y ago
  We're experiencing some missed communication. I believe that's because "how it should look" encompasses two separate aspects -- functionality, and visual appeal. My comment about helping aesthetics was specifically regarding border width. I don't think you're suggesting a border width decision has anything to do with how something works. Let me explain it better this way. I am fantastic at putting together wireframes for sites. A wireframe requires no programming or artistic ability, because it uses simply black and white lines, yet still effectively communicates the placement of elements, site flow, and overall intended functional user experience. I believe this is the type of design you're referring to. Again, this is something I feel I'm quite good at. Now, while I'm fully capable of cutting up and building out any wireframes I (or anyone else) come up with, and putting them online, it's probably not a good idea, because black and white lines would lack visual appeal. That's where graphic artists (what I usually call graphic designers) come in -- but in that instance they're mostly just adding in shapes, colors, and gradients etc. (and figuring out border width ;) To me, building great wireframes and flow charts generally fits better with the thinking of programmers -- people most in tuned with thinking logically -- than creative artsy types, but that's just my thinking.
  - dhh 16y ago
    The visual representation of something is integrally linked with how it works. Thinking of that as just something graphic designers do to make it pretty is in my opinion the crux of the disagreement here. I don't think that this division should exist. I've certainly seen it performed like this. In fact, I believe it's the norm. But I also think it's the cause of many bad experiences. The perfect flow, in my opinion, is to have the same person responsible for how it works and how it looks because the best interfaces and applications merges those two together. Also, I largely consider wireframes and flow charts to be poor substitutions for designers capable of jumping straight from ultra-rough paper sketch to HTML. The more layers of indirection, the worse.
    - jeromec 16y ago
      I know graphic artists who are extremely talented visually, but certainly couldn't beat me for putting together Web applications. They may been drawing since they could hold a pencil, and know how to use Photoshop, but simply don't have the thinking I do when it comes to UX. In the past I built a large web application for a business that went head-to-head with a top industry version, and the owner was blown away with how much better my app was, saying it cut his training time for new employees down by around 85%. I don't think this is a black and white issue. I think, like most anything, there are many things that come down to the individual doing the job.