3 ms·

Actually, I'd say that a proper designer actually designs how your site should work. Developers implement, hack, do backend stuff, etc. "Making a site pretty"

by nathos 16y ago

Actually, I'd say that a proper designer actually designs how your site should work. Developers implement, hack, do backend stuff, etc. "Making a site pretty" is what too many coders think they need a designer for at the end of their projects ("skin my app!"), when perhaps they should be working with real designers from the get-go.

gte910h 16y ago
I think you're describing a user interface engineer with a design background. There is definitely a place for "Person who makes pretty". There is a place for "Person who makes it work well from a human computer interaction persepctive". No reason for it to be the same person.
- nathos 16y ago
  Agreed. In reality, many developers have plenty of design experience & skill as well. I like to separate design from pure art, subscribing to the Steve Jobs "design is how it works" mentality. To me, design is as much an engineering discipline as an aesthetic one.
  - gte910h 16y ago
    While that is a good definition for the word design, the people who make software pretty usually have an art background where at best they specialize in layout (as a subset of spacing, etc), not user interaction design or industrial design degree. That degree is a thing all to it's own, and what much of the Apple aesthetic comes from. An industrial design degree is actually closer to architecture than art in many programs. There is actual training required to be good at real design for most people. I'm saying most "designers" actually have art training. They might do the job you talk about, and want to do, but they're not the ones trained in it, and not necessarily any more apt at it than the programmer or janitor. Some are quite talented at it. Some aren't. But that doesn't mean their wonderful art isn't incredibly awesome, even though they don't know program flow very well at all. All this isn't saying there can't be tremendous variation in what a person can learn on their own, mind you, but many people do considerably better in something they have a formal background in.
    - kiubo 16y ago
      Keep in mind /UI/UX/Interaction design is a new thing. I'm a UX designer but when I was in school nothing of the sort was offered. Designing for the internet was just then becoming a concept. Most of my studies were focused on print! I would say that this is true for a lot of interaction designers with more than 5 years under their belt.
      - nathos 16y ago
        User Interface design is a new thing? Since when?! UX may be the trendy new term to slap on your CV, but the concepts certainly aren't new. PS: am I the only one who hates the term "User Experience Designer"? User Interfaces can be designed. User Experience can be observed & measured. Personally, I don't think you can truly design a User Experience.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - gte910h 16y ago
        Again, I'm just trying to argue against nomenclature that's confusing issues here: I feel you're improperly advertising yourself when you call yourself a designer these days if you really do know the science of interaction design and can use its tools. A great majority of people who are designers do more beautification than usability. You need a different noun if you're truly doing real usability stuff, including the studies, heatmaps etc, that make up the UI Usability world's process. >/UI/UX/Interaction design is a new thing I'm going to disagree with you about this. It was a specialization in many schools by the end of the 90s in computer science departments (Called Human Computer Interaction). I have two very dear friends with degrees in it who are 29 and 32. Here is one such program: http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/programs/multidisciplinary/hci.php http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/programs/multidisciplinary/... Actual industrial design degrees (which are pretty applicable to software) have been around for decades. There is a big difference between "People who make things pretty" and "People who make things interact well with people" and the training is different. Now if a person trained in one of those worked on self training the other, it still seems like calling themselves something acknowledging the dual nature of what they do: Something like UX Engineer and Graphic Designer would be more exact than the term "UX Designer" which in practice usually seems to mean "Artist who makes things pretty then loudly, without good reasons, without a willingness to understand costs or decades of human/computer interaction, requires a large amount of authority acceded to him without further explanation and requires we do a lot of things just so without talking about tradeoffs because he doesn't seem to really have a mental model to talk about what he does so can't really compromise well and retailor his solutions to the issue". Those using the title often feels like people trained to do good art (even good commercial art) refusing to do a job and explain themselves when how they want their art animated doesn't actually make for good user interactions or would cost 3 arms and 3 legs more than the client has. A lot of this is a function of how people without true backgrounds and training in design get into the field: the computing field is super tolerant of people not trained in this stuff but who get stuff done. Happens with programming too. But programming is a little less tolerant of handwavy BS than art is (at a point, its a "did it work" thing which is somewhat demonstrable for programming). Where "Did it work" for design isn't really as testable without a user study. (I'm not saying non-trained by a college to do this thing shouldn't be in the field, just that they're less filtered). Now, all of this isn't to mean: Designers shouldn't know the flow of what they're doing the art for. But until a designer show me a track record of UI improvement and comes equipped with the tools to show you made something better, lay off the misguided airs of certainty. Those tools exist. I feel if you can't use them, and can't prove yourself you got to let your client know this is most art than science and they should also really listen to other voices in the process.
j_baker 16y ago
If they don't know the difference between a designer and a developer, it's much better to start small. Chances are, the other person was only asking to be polite and doesn't really want to know about all the nuances in designers' (or developers') jobs. If they do want to know, I'm happy to go into more detail.
noibl 16y ago
Even just in the context of visual design there is more to it than a continuum of aesthetic quality. A good designer needs to interpret culture and situate the product in relation to an environment in a meaningful way. Others will just follow trends and make things that may be pretty but are also empty and disposable. To say that this is a distinction between art and design I think denigrates both.

by nathos 16y ago

gte910h 16y ago

I think you're describing a user interface engineer with a design background. There is definitely a place for "Person who makes pretty". There is a place for "Person who makes it work well from a human computer interaction persepctive". No reason for it to be the same person.

nathos 16y ago
Agreed. In reality, many developers have plenty of design experience & skill as well. I like to separate design from pure art, subscribing to the Steve Jobs "design is how it works" mentality. To me, design is as much an engineering discipline as an aesthetic one.
- gte910h 16y ago
  While that is a good definition for the word design, the people who make software pretty usually have an art background where at best they specialize in layout (as a subset of spacing, etc), not user interaction design or industrial design degree. That degree is a thing all to it's own, and what much of the Apple aesthetic comes from. An industrial design degree is actually closer to architecture than art in many programs. There is actual training required to be good at real design for most people. I'm saying most "designers" actually have art training. They might do the job you talk about, and want to do, but they're not the ones trained in it, and not necessarily any more apt at it than the programmer or janitor. Some are quite talented at it. Some aren't. But that doesn't mean their wonderful art isn't incredibly awesome, even though they don't know program flow very well at all. All this isn't saying there can't be tremendous variation in what a person can learn on their own, mind you, but many people do considerably better in something they have a formal background in.
  - kiubo 16y ago
    Keep in mind /UI/UX/Interaction design is a new thing. I'm a UX designer but when I was in school nothing of the sort was offered. Designing for the internet was just then becoming a concept. Most of my studies were focused on print! I would say that this is true for a lot of interaction designers with more than 5 years under their belt.
    - nathos 16y ago
      User Interface design is a new thing? Since when?! UX may be the trendy new term to slap on your CV, but the concepts certainly aren't new. PS: am I the only one who hates the term "User Experience Designer"? User Interfaces can be designed. User Experience can be observed & measured. Personally, I don't think you can truly design a User Experience.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - gte910h 16y ago
      Again, I'm just trying to argue against nomenclature that's confusing issues here: I feel you're improperly advertising yourself when you call yourself a designer these days if you really do know the science of interaction design and can use its tools. A great majority of people who are designers do more beautification than usability. You need a different noun if you're truly doing real usability stuff, including the studies, heatmaps etc, that make up the UI Usability world's process. >/UI/UX/Interaction design is a new thing I'm going to disagree with you about this. It was a specialization in many schools by the end of the 90s in computer science departments (Called Human Computer Interaction). I have two very dear friends with degrees in it who are 29 and 32. Here is one such program: http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/programs/multidisciplinary/hci.php http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/programs/multidisciplinary/... Actual industrial design degrees (which are pretty applicable to software) have been around for decades. There is a big difference between "People who make things pretty" and "People who make things interact well with people" and the training is different. Now if a person trained in one of those worked on self training the other, it still seems like calling themselves something acknowledging the dual nature of what they do: Something like UX Engineer and Graphic Designer would be more exact than the term "UX Designer" which in practice usually seems to mean "Artist who makes things pretty then loudly, without good reasons, without a willingness to understand costs or decades of human/computer interaction, requires a large amount of authority acceded to him without further explanation and requires we do a lot of things just so without talking about tradeoffs because he doesn't seem to really have a mental model to talk about what he does so can't really compromise well and retailor his solutions to the issue". Those using the title often feels like people trained to do good art (even good commercial art) refusing to do a job and explain themselves when how they want their art animated doesn't actually make for good user interactions or would cost 3 arms and 3 legs more than the client has. A lot of this is a function of how people without true backgrounds and training in design get into the field: the computing field is super tolerant of people not trained in this stuff but who get stuff done. Happens with programming too. But programming is a little less tolerant of handwavy BS than art is (at a point, its a "did it work" thing which is somewhat demonstrable for programming). Where "Did it work" for design isn't really as testable without a user study. (I'm not saying non-trained by a college to do this thing shouldn't be in the field, just that they're less filtered). Now, all of this isn't to mean: Designers shouldn't know the flow of what they're doing the art for. But until a designer show me a track record of UI improvement and comes equipped with the tools to show you made something better, lay off the misguided airs of certainty. Those tools exist. I feel if you can't use them, and can't prove yourself you got to let your client know this is most art than science and they should also really listen to other voices in the process.

j_baker 16y ago

If they don't know the difference between a designer and a developer, it's much better to start small. Chances are, the other person was only asking to be polite and doesn't really want to know about all the nuances in designers' (or developers') jobs. If they do want to know, I'm happy to go into more detail.

noibl 16y ago

Even just in the context of visual design there is more to it than a continuum of aesthetic quality. A good designer needs to interpret culture and situate the product in relation to an environment in a meaningful way. Others will just follow trends and make things that may be pretty but are also empty and disposable. To say that this is a distinction between art and design I think denigrates both.