5 ms·

Will the Next Zuckerberg Be a Designer, not a Hacker?

28 points by turoczy 16y ago

rch 16y ago
Seems like there is an anecdote somewhere about how, in the early days of Google, an anonymous user would occasionally send the developers a message that simply stated the number of elements (words/links/whatever) on the main page, whenever that number went up. The developers took the implicit message to heart and endeavored to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. Do you need to be a designer to realize that simplicity is a virtue?
qq66 16y ago
Zuckberg IS a designer. Facebook gained massive initial traction not because it was technologically superior to other options (although it eventually ended up being so), but because it was very well thought out from a product perspective.
- tvon 16y ago
  That's why I switched (and why I coaxed my friends over from MySpace).
- justinbaker 16y ago
  He is also a hacker. A designer lacks the skills that hackers and only hackers possess. so fuck no.
  - RyanGWU82 16y ago
    By that logic, doesn't a hacker lack the skills that designers and only designers possess? The whole dichotomy is silly. A tech business needs to figure out what to build, to build it, and to sell it. (Not strictly in that order.) Every one of those steps requires cross-functional thinking.
  - bdclimber14 16y ago
    Are you saying that the two are mutually exclusive? "I suck at design" is an excuse, and the technological equivalent to "I'm just bad at math."
- neworbit 16y ago
  The UX of Facebook beats the pants off Myspace, but still... doesn't strike me as a triumph of design. Though to be fair this may just be because things break more readily at a half billion users.
  - joe24pack 16y ago
    remember, it's not the most competent that wins, but rather the least incompetent.
  - qq66 16y ago
    By design I don't mean rounded corners and typography -- I mean things like limiting the networks to universities to begin with, having the Facebook graph mirror real-life social networks, the timing and characteristics of News Feed, Platform, Connect, etc.
    - neworbit 16y ago
      Oh, ok. The article seems to be talking about designers as the user-centric UX guys, or at least that's how I took it. I believe that this is critical to mainstream adoption, but agree that your point is excellent as well.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      That's not typically referred to as a designer. Those types of things typically fall into the realm of a "program manager".
  - mitko 16y ago
    IMHO, the early Facebook was much better designed for one purpose (flirting and hooking up with members of the opposite sex), the current version is decently designed for multiple purposes (online identity, social games, etc...)
- rch 16y ago
  MySpace failed by assuming that legions of random users would make intelligent design decisions, and giving them control over major style elements. The result being that users would receive a visual kick in the teeth every time they followed a link to a different user's page. So, while FB certainly profited from that failure, but I wouldn't say that FB actively competed with a consciously superior design.
- igorgue 16y ago
  Did you mean "product designer" not "UX kind of designer"?
  - qq66 16y ago
    I guess I have a different view of UX designers than some... I think of UX designer as basically the "designer of the experience that users will have..." effectively the entire product manager minus any monetization efforts. I use "UI designer" to mean graphics etc.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
javery 16y ago
The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker regardless of if he is a designer.
dasil003 16y ago
False dichotomy. What's happening now is that the barriers to both fields are being lowered, and the youth coming up today has the opportunity to become adept at both from an early age. Granted, both fields require different thought processes and it's rare if not impossible to be truly great in both, but that's not what a startup needs. A startup needs a decent idea, fast execution, and hustle at all levels. Two things that factor very little into developing traction are stunning design and impeccable engineering. You want something that works and looks decent, but it's more important to move quickly and achieve product-market fit.
ashgoblue 16y ago
I think designers will play a bigger role in founding teams in the future as products need to be designed for various platforms such as touch tablets, browser based web apps, mobile devices, etc. Each will require a unique set of interactions and design elements.
mkramlich 16y ago
Funny thing is that, especially early, Facebook didn't require particularly good programming skills. But it did have a much better and more professional, less sleazy (MySpace) or nerdy (LiveJournal) -looking UI than it's competitors/progenitors did. And then grew in a very intelligent and calculated away (Harvard first, then other Ivy League, then other colleges, etc.; and refusing to commercialize the experience too early). All of that really had nothing to do with the quality of the code or the main coder behind it (Zuck). Quality of the designer (arguably, especially early on: Zuck) and strategic direction (Zuck again?), but not of the hacking.
moondowner 16y ago
This one is a hacker?
tuhin 16y ago
The next big guy (let's not make the poor guy/girl follow someone else's legacy) can be anybody who is great in either of Design, Programming or Business and practically capable (if not 10X) in the other two. If you are just a great hacker, you CANNOT be the next thing. If you are just a designer, you CANNOT be the next big thing. And likewise. Assumption: You do not have a team/cofounder that/who compliments your skills totally and share the same vision.
igorgue 16y ago
I think that the mindset of Zuckerberg or the next Zuckerberg will be the one of a hacker. Making him/her in fact a hacker. What I'm trying to say is: Designers are hackers not in the software engineering point of view but in the problem solvers one. In my opinion he was successful early on not because of his exceptional programming skills (although nobody said Facebook is the easiest thing to develop), but because his "Product Designer" skills.
yamilg 16y ago
What makes you think good designers are not hackers and that Mark Zuckerberg is not also a designer?
nicetryguy 16y ago
Lest we forget, the reason Facebook took off in the first place is Privacy. The design changed every six months or so. Ideas are a dime a dozen. To start a company such as Facebook, you must have an intimate knowledge with how your product works. A 'Hacker' implies that someone knows the internals of their program, a 'Designer' implies they know how to make it look and feel nice. The Hacker mentality works great for leading a company, knowing the ins and outs and possible future situations. The Designer mentality does not, making it look and feel nice. The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker.

28 points by turoczy 16y ago

rch 16y ago

Seems like there is an anecdote somewhere about how, in the early days of Google, an anonymous user would occasionally send the developers a message that simply stated the number of elements (words/links/whatever) on the main page, whenever that number went up. The developers took the implicit message to heart and endeavored to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. Do you need to be a designer to realize that simplicity is a virtue?

qq66 16y ago

Zuckberg IS a designer. Facebook gained massive initial traction not because it was technologically superior to other options (although it eventually ended up being so), but because it was very well thought out from a product perspective.

tvon 16y ago
That's why I switched (and why I coaxed my friends over from MySpace).
justinbaker 16y ago
He is also a hacker. A designer lacks the skills that hackers and only hackers possess. so fuck no.
- RyanGWU82 16y ago
  By that logic, doesn't a hacker lack the skills that designers and only designers possess? The whole dichotomy is silly. A tech business needs to figure out what to build, to build it, and to sell it. (Not strictly in that order.) Every one of those steps requires cross-functional thinking.
- bdclimber14 16y ago
  Are you saying that the two are mutually exclusive? "I suck at design" is an excuse, and the technological equivalent to "I'm just bad at math."
neworbit 16y ago
The UX of Facebook beats the pants off Myspace, but still... doesn't strike me as a triumph of design. Though to be fair this may just be because things break more readily at a half billion users.
- joe24pack 16y ago
  remember, it's not the most competent that wins, but rather the least incompetent.
- qq66 16y ago
  By design I don't mean rounded corners and typography -- I mean things like limiting the networks to universities to begin with, having the Facebook graph mirror real-life social networks, the timing and characteristics of News Feed, Platform, Connect, etc.
  - neworbit 16y ago
    Oh, ok. The article seems to be talking about designers as the user-centric UX guys, or at least that's how I took it. I believe that this is critical to mainstream adoption, but agree that your point is excellent as well.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    That's not typically referred to as a designer. Those types of things typically fall into the realm of a "program manager".
- mitko 16y ago
  IMHO, the early Facebook was much better designed for one purpose (flirting and hooking up with members of the opposite sex), the current version is decently designed for multiple purposes (online identity, social games, etc...)
rch 16y ago
MySpace failed by assuming that legions of random users would make intelligent design decisions, and giving them control over major style elements. The result being that users would receive a visual kick in the teeth every time they followed a link to a different user's page. So, while FB certainly profited from that failure, but I wouldn't say that FB actively competed with a consciously superior design.
igorgue 16y ago
Did you mean "product designer" not "UX kind of designer"?
- qq66 16y ago
  I guess I have a different view of UX designers than some... I think of UX designer as basically the "designer of the experience that users will have..." effectively the entire product manager minus any monetization efforts. I use "UI designer" to mean graphics etc.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

javery 16y ago

The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker regardless of if he is a designer.

dasil003 16y ago

False dichotomy. What's happening now is that the barriers to both fields are being lowered, and the youth coming up today has the opportunity to become adept at both from an early age. Granted, both fields require different thought processes and it's rare if not impossible to be truly great in both, but that's not what a startup needs. A startup needs a decent idea, fast execution, and hustle at all levels. Two things that factor very little into developing traction are stunning design and impeccable engineering. You want something that works and looks decent, but it's more important to move quickly and achieve product-market fit.

ashgoblue 16y ago

I think designers will play a bigger role in founding teams in the future as products need to be designed for various platforms such as touch tablets, browser based web apps, mobile devices, etc. Each will require a unique set of interactions and design elements.

mkramlich 16y ago

Funny thing is that, especially early, Facebook didn't require particularly good programming skills. But it did have a much better and more professional, less sleazy (MySpace) or nerdy (LiveJournal) -looking UI than it's competitors/progenitors did. And then grew in a very intelligent and calculated away (Harvard first, then other Ivy League, then other colleges, etc.; and refusing to commercialize the experience too early). All of that really had nothing to do with the quality of the code or the main coder behind it (Zuck). Quality of the designer (arguably, especially early on: Zuck) and strategic direction (Zuck again?), but not of the hacking.

moondowner 16y ago

This one is a hacker?

tuhin 16y ago

The next big guy (let's not make the poor guy/girl follow someone else's legacy) can be anybody who is great in either of Design, Programming or Business and practically capable (if not 10X) in the other two. If you are just a great hacker, you CANNOT be the next thing. If you are just a designer, you CANNOT be the next big thing. And likewise. Assumption: You do not have a team/cofounder that/who compliments your skills totally and share the same vision.

igorgue 16y ago

I think that the mindset of Zuckerberg or the next Zuckerberg will be the one of a hacker. Making him/her in fact a hacker. What I'm trying to say is: Designers are hackers not in the software engineering point of view but in the problem solvers one. In my opinion he was successful early on not because of his exceptional programming skills (although nobody said Facebook is the easiest thing to develop), but because his "Product Designer" skills.

yamilg 16y ago

What makes you think good designers are not hackers and that Mark Zuckerberg is not also a designer?

nicetryguy 16y ago

Lest we forget, the reason Facebook took off in the first place is Privacy. The design changed every six months or so. Ideas are a dime a dozen. To start a company such as Facebook, you must have an intimate knowledge with how your product works. A 'Hacker' implies that someone knows the internals of their program, a 'Designer' implies they know how to make it look and feel nice. The Hacker mentality works great for leading a company, knowing the ins and outs and possible future situations. The Designer mentality does not, making it look and feel nice. The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker.