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"I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins…" Now you're comparing system administration to design - this doesn't really w

"I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins…" Now you're comparing system administration to design - this doesn't really work. Technical skills like this don't translate well, and I never claimed they do. The post is about UI and interaction design and those principles are the same across all platforms. Design patterns for a specific device, operating system, or medium (e.g. the browser) are not something you need to be a specialist to learn, analyze, or pick up - you need to understand the fundamentals of design. Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers designing on the web. They had to learn and come up with new design patterns, but since they were good, it was well within their skill set.

danilocampos 15y ago
> Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers designing on the web. Had they? My view of the iOS pioneers was that they mostly cut their teeth designing and developing for the Mac.
tobtoh 15y ago
Technical skills like this don't translate well ..." Heheh I knew I should never have used an analogy, there is always something that won't quite hold true to the point you are trying to make :) The main point I'm trying to make is I believe in any field, the details are always important and things like patterns are shortcuts to speed up a process, but they aren't a fix-all for whatever problem you are trying to solve. If you compare the best iphone apps today to the best iphone apps from the start, I think most people would argue that today's apps are far slicker and easier to use. Why is that? it's because people have built on previous experience of what worked and what didn't. Experience matters, understanding the differences matters, specialist knowledge matters and it's why advertising for a specific type of designer matters. I will agree with you that a good designer can, with enough time, achieve the same results as a 'specialist' designer - but that's the whole reason people advertise for a specific skillset, they don't want to wait.

danilocampos 15y ago

> Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers designing on the web. Had they? My view of the iOS pioneers was that they mostly cut their teeth designing and developing for the Mac.

tobtoh 15y ago

Technical skills like this don't translate well ..." Heheh I knew I should never have used an analogy, there is always something that won't quite hold true to the point you are trying to make :) The main point I'm trying to make is I believe in any field, the details are always important and things like patterns are shortcuts to speed up a process, but they aren't a fix-all for whatever problem you are trying to solve. If you compare the best iphone apps today to the best iphone apps from the start, I think most people would argue that today's apps are far slicker and easier to use. Why is that? it's because people have built on previous experience of what worked and what didn't. Experience matters, understanding the differences matters, specialist knowledge matters and it's why advertising for a specific type of designer matters. I will agree with you that a good designer can, with enough time, achieve the same results as a 'specialist' designer - but that's the whole reason people advertise for a specific skillset, they don't want to wait.