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We need to get out of this rut of UX/UI design. UX/UI designers’ existence itself is based on generalized condemnation of a group of people: “Engineers are bad

We need to get out of this rut of UX/UI design. UX/UI designers’ existence itself is based on generalized condemnation of a group of people: “Engineers are bad at designing and aesthetics.” Every time that’s brought up, I roll my eyes. The truth is there are some outstanding UX/UI designers and there are some really bad engineers who design terrible unfriendly shit. The reverse is more common from what I’ve seen.

smt88 6y ago
So you take issue with condemnation of an entire group and then do it yourself immediately afterward? Saying engineers are bad at design is fine. Most people are bad at things they don't practice, and we know most engineers don't practice design. Saying UX/UI designers (two separate groups with totally different backgrounds) are bad at design is maligning an entire field and suggesting a team hierarchy where engineers make all decisions.
- ylyn 6y ago
  That's not what the parent said at all.
  - smt88 6y ago
    What is "not what the parent said"? And why is your interpretation different? The parent said it is more common for engineers to be good at UI design than for UX/UI designers to be good at it. The last two sentences say it plainly.
- iso8859-1 6y ago
  You're using a very particular definition of "design". Let's take the typical interface of unix tools (default to outputting to stdout, default to inputting over stdin). Brian Kernighan talked about his they retrofitted all tools to use this model once they invented pipes. Is it not UX, is it not design? Why does design have to be graphical, and why does "UX/UI designers" get to say what it is? How can a tool even exist without an interface? And if a tool is used, surely it has a user ;) > most engineers don't practice design Citation needed.
  - smt88 6y ago
    > You're using a very particular definition of "design" No, I'm using a common definition of it. I'm using the same one that the person I responded to was using, which is the type of design for which people hire UX/UI designers. People don't hire UX/UI designers to design CLIs. Maybe they should, but they don't. Is it UX and UI? Sure. But we're talking about an industry term at this point, not 100% of everything that is designable. > Why does design have to be graphical, and why does "UX/UI designers" get to say what it is? I honestly don't know who or what you're arguing against right now. This seems totally tangential to the comment I replied to. Companies hire engineers to write code and designers to create GUIs. Those are the domains we're talking about. I don't disagree with you philosophically at all. > > most engineers don't practice design My meaning was unclear here. I meant that most engineers don't study and repeatedly practice design, meaning that they don't have feedback loops with their designs. The goal is releasing their code, not building their skill at design. Designers, on the other hand, will create many iterations of something with feedback along the way, sometimes in an academic setting. Even setting that aside, most engineers work at large corporations where design is a bureaucratic process that engineers aren't expected to change. They just write the code. > Citation needed. No, it's not. First of all, I've in the software industry for 20 years, so I'm going to lean on first-hand experience here. Second, the burden of proof is on the person making the more uncommon claim. The inverse of "most software engineers don't practice design" is "most software engineers do practice design," and the latter would be more surprising to the typical person. Unless, as mentioned above, you expand the meaning of "design" far beyond what the original thread was about, which was web UI design.

smt88 6y ago

So you take issue with condemnation of an entire group and then do it yourself immediately afterward? Saying engineers are bad at design is fine. Most people are bad at things they don't practice, and we know most engineers don't practice design. Saying UX/UI designers (two separate groups with totally different backgrounds) are bad at design is maligning an entire field and suggesting a team hierarchy where engineers make all decisions.

ylyn 6y ago
That's not what the parent said at all.
- smt88 6y ago
  What is "not what the parent said"? And why is your interpretation different? The parent said it is more common for engineers to be good at UI design than for UX/UI designers to be good at it. The last two sentences say it plainly.
iso8859-1 6y ago
You're using a very particular definition of "design". Let's take the typical interface of unix tools (default to outputting to stdout, default to inputting over stdin). Brian Kernighan talked about his they retrofitted all tools to use this model once they invented pipes. Is it not UX, is it not design? Why does design have to be graphical, and why does "UX/UI designers" get to say what it is? How can a tool even exist without an interface? And if a tool is used, surely it has a user ;) > most engineers don't practice design Citation needed.
- smt88 6y ago
  > You're using a very particular definition of "design" No, I'm using a common definition of it. I'm using the same one that the person I responded to was using, which is the type of design for which people hire UX/UI designers. People don't hire UX/UI designers to design CLIs. Maybe they should, but they don't. Is it UX and UI? Sure. But we're talking about an industry term at this point, not 100% of everything that is designable. > Why does design have to be graphical, and why does "UX/UI designers" get to say what it is? I honestly don't know who or what you're arguing against right now. This seems totally tangential to the comment I replied to. Companies hire engineers to write code and designers to create GUIs. Those are the domains we're talking about. I don't disagree with you philosophically at all. > > most engineers don't practice design My meaning was unclear here. I meant that most engineers don't study and repeatedly practice design, meaning that they don't have feedback loops with their designs. The goal is releasing their code, not building their skill at design. Designers, on the other hand, will create many iterations of something with feedback along the way, sometimes in an academic setting. Even setting that aside, most engineers work at large corporations where design is a bureaucratic process that engineers aren't expected to change. They just write the code. > Citation needed. No, it's not. First of all, I've in the software industry for 20 years, so I'm going to lean on first-hand experience here. Second, the burden of proof is on the person making the more uncommon claim. The inverse of "most software engineers don't practice design" is "most software engineers do practice design," and the latter would be more surprising to the typical person. Unless, as mentioned above, you expand the meaning of "design" far beyond what the original thread was about, which was web UI design.