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> But what if I ask whether a person without any tech skills can become a design guru? Usability isn't something you just pick up, although a distinct lack of

> But what if I ask whether a person without any tech skills can become a design guru? Usability isn't something you just pick up, although a distinct lack of arrogance and reading some good books will get you a long way. The rest is experience, lots of. Has to be said that not having tech skills might be an advantage - from memory, the xerox parc guys when designing the Star user interface said that it was easier to take psychologists and turn them into programmers than the reverse ("the design of the star user inteface" - very highly recommended) Programmers (like me) tend to be crap at it. At least I'm aware of that; many aren't. You will NOT get good UI design from a junior. They don't have the experience and they rarely have the attitude (they usually think they know it all and they invest their ego into their precious creation. TBH that's a difficult trap to avoid for the best of us). CVcompiler doesn't distinguish between UX and UI, probably because they don't know what the difference is. Yes I'm being snide but as they're the top skills that should have triggered something for the author. Elsewhere on the site they say "This data is based on the error stats ofCV Compiler, a tech resume analyzer which has already processed about 15k resumes". W00t! I recently worked on a system that had parsed well over 400,000. But actually the rest of that part is pretty good (https://cvcompiler.com/blog/what-happens-with-your-tech-resume-after-you-apply-for-a-job/ https://cvcompiler.com/blog/what-happens-with-your-tech-resu...). Trouble with CVs is very much as outlined there; there's no reliable way to filter a good guy from a bullshitter. The only thing I noticed was really good people have noticeably quiet, understated CVs. Always was amused by CVs that claimed they were "great team players with a huge passion for ((whatever))" - dja really think anyone's going to be suckered by that? And if they are do you want to work for them? Recruiters just tune it out. My CV just lists the facts and I make sure I can back up every single one of them. Sadly it matters little how good you are. Drop into the average company and bad management will fuck you over. I really, really valued the few good managers I have had.

tempguy9999 8y ago
And another of my pet hates: stop asking for 'full stack developers'. I've got a fuckload of experience from decades of work and the best I can do is be a moderately knowledgeable jack-of-all trades for back-end development, with a real depth in certain areas of MSSQL. A normal human just can't be everything unless it's so shallow as to be downright counterproductive.
tlrobinson 8y ago
> reading some good books Suggestions for books?
- tempguy9999 8y ago
  See if you can find online the Star UI paper - 'designing the star user interface', April 1982 in Byte magazine. If you can't I have a PDF. It was perhaps the most influential thing I've ever read on UIs. This may be it https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf but my browser's playing up so can't download. I'll give at least one more recommendation tomorrow, it's late here.
- tclancy 8y ago
  Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
  - rangerpolitic 8y ago
    The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
- tempguy9999 8y ago
  The suggested link to the Star UI paper I gave seems to be correct. Highly recommended. The other is "Tog On Interface". He's the guy (or one of them) behind the original Mac UI and you can see how he built it up. You really need to have used the original mac to relate the book to it, but you can get by without (I recently used a mac and was amazed/horrified to see it'd now hide a window's scrollbars unless you'd hovered the mouse over them. That's precisely Cool taking over from Useful). Both are old but timeless because human psychology doesn't change. Both are about computer UIs. IIRC Norman's The Design of Everyday Things isn't, so less useful in that area, but it's good and pushes you to the right mindset. From my experience (and I'm not a UI designer, and this list should be longer, and I'm talking more about the naive user; not hardcore techies, but much still applies): x. The user matters. However much they might piss you off, you're designing for them, not for yourself. Accept this. This is critical point #1. x. Any UI change that seems sensible and obvious to you is likely not to be to them (see point below). You have to be prepared to iterate repeatedly. It's expensive. Critical point #2 x. The user has an infinite capacity to misunderstand/misinterpret anything (example from Tog book: he puts a tester in front of a monochrome monitor and asks them if they see colour. They say yes. Q: Why? A: because it was a monochrome, but green phosphor CRT. They actually weren't being thick) x. UIs are not about tickboxes/buttons/menus/whatever, that's like talking about the syntax of programming languages. What matters is the user's workflow, which is more like the semantics of a language, metaphorically. Don't get hung up on visuals. x. They won't RTFM (sigh). They just won't. Also, UI documentation that just lists stuff is near useless; the user wants to do their job, not be awed about features. Show them how your changes help them do their job. x. The user acts stupid, but isn't. They just want to do their job (ok, some are but mostly not). x. As users get familiar with your interface they become less useful as testers, at least in the area being tested. Nothing profound in this list, but it's almost impossible not to make these mistakes.

tempguy9999 8y ago

And another of my pet hates: stop asking for 'full stack developers'. I've got a fuckload of experience from decades of work and the best I can do is be a moderately knowledgeable jack-of-all trades for back-end development, with a real depth in certain areas of MSSQL. A normal human just can't be everything unless it's so shallow as to be downright counterproductive.

tlrobinson 8y ago

> reading some good books Suggestions for books?

tempguy9999 8y ago
See if you can find online the Star UI paper - 'designing the star user interface', April 1982 in Byte magazine. If you can't I have a PDF. It was perhaps the most influential thing I've ever read on UIs. This may be it https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf https://tech-insider.org/star/research/acrobat/8204.pdf but my browser's playing up so can't download. I'll give at least one more recommendation tomorrow, it's late here.
tclancy 8y ago
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
- rangerpolitic 8y ago
  The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
tempguy9999 8y ago
The suggested link to the Star UI paper I gave seems to be correct. Highly recommended. The other is "Tog On Interface". He's the guy (or one of them) behind the original Mac UI and you can see how he built it up. You really need to have used the original mac to relate the book to it, but you can get by without (I recently used a mac and was amazed/horrified to see it'd now hide a window's scrollbars unless you'd hovered the mouse over them. That's precisely Cool taking over from Useful). Both are old but timeless because human psychology doesn't change. Both are about computer UIs. IIRC Norman's The Design of Everyday Things isn't, so less useful in that area, but it's good and pushes you to the right mindset. From my experience (and I'm not a UI designer, and this list should be longer, and I'm talking more about the naive user; not hardcore techies, but much still applies): x. The user matters. However much they might piss you off, you're designing for them, not for yourself. Accept this. This is critical point #1. x. Any UI change that seems sensible and obvious to you is likely not to be to them (see point below). You have to be prepared to iterate repeatedly. It's expensive. Critical point #2 x. The user has an infinite capacity to misunderstand/misinterpret anything (example from Tog book: he puts a tester in front of a monochrome monitor and asks them if they see colour. They say yes. Q: Why? A: because it was a monochrome, but green phosphor CRT. They actually weren't being thick) x. UIs are not about tickboxes/buttons/menus/whatever, that's like talking about the syntax of programming languages. What matters is the user's workflow, which is more like the semantics of a language, metaphorically. Don't get hung up on visuals. x. They won't RTFM (sigh). They just won't. Also, UI documentation that just lists stuff is near useless; the user wants to do their job, not be awed about features. Show them how your changes help them do their job. x. The user acts stupid, but isn't. They just want to do their job (ok, some are but mostly not). x. As users get familiar with your interface they become less useful as testers, at least in the area being tested. Nothing profound in this list, but it's almost impossible not to make these mistakes.