4 ms·

The Dribbblisation of Design (2014)

25 points by giansegato 6y ago

dang 6y ago
If curious, past threads: The Dribbblisation of Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10626942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10626942 - Nov 2015 (51 comments) The Dribbblisation of Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898 - Sept 2013 (101 comments)
nbzso 6y ago
Design is dead. Cheap, colourful, childish trash, non usable, non accessible is the trend. After 20 years of practice as a designer I now sell my expertise only on implementation - UI engineer. For me this is the last place of craftsmanship. Everything else from UX to Visual design is in the hands of marketing and wannabe decorators.
- Neputys 6y ago
  Design is not a thing that can die. It will exist for as long as the human race does. And so will shallowness, tastelessness, ignorance, self importance, agendas and marketing turkey cocks. Don't mix them together my friend, cheer up.
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    Exactly. Design is dead? Have they ever architected anything in code? That's design, you created a structure that meets some goal. Design is not visual art.
    - nbzso 6y ago
      Stop with visual art nonsense. Read "20 years". If you have assumption that in this time I don't know the difference, I am sorry. It happens that some of us have managed and created real products, not some figma mockups. Your design structure will be affected by dark patterns soon or a later. I think that you don't have enough experience to comment on the situation at all. Marketing will have access to your design process eventually. Then we will speak again.
      - cercatrova 6y ago
        Not sure what you're implying, I've created and sold "real products" to the tune of millions of dollars in revenue. I think I have "enough experience to comment on the situation." Weird to have such an accusatory tone when speaking on HN.
        nbzso 6y ago
        Sorry for my reaction. It is direct result of your assumption about me and my professional expertise. Visual language is the smallest of the problems in design today. Thats why I have a term for todays designers - Decorators. When your role as a designer is limited to visual language - your results are just another "fancy dress" to be thrown away in the next product iteration.
  - nbzso 6y ago
    The most important thing in design is honesty. Between honesty and function we have a newborn child of the Greed - dark patterns. Look around - it's everywhere. Thats why Design is dead. It is not dead as an idea. Idea of design will never die. Engineers don't care about design en masse. Thats why we have products with lack of uniqueness and the argument is that this is good for the user - it reduces cognitive overload. This is argument made by engineers for engineers. Using low quality "decorators" in production creates another argument - there is no designers that can create long term quality. No. We exist. But when you spend your entire life to become the best in your craft you cannot sell expertise for peanuts. :) Some of us are long in this game, an we have real production knowledge. Some of us can code enough to know when engineers are "over their heads" and follow self-serving decision models.
    - Neputys 6y ago
      What I'm saying, out of sympathy, is that you should consider a higher perspective. Maybe it's lack of care, just as an example, and maybe it's prejudice with reasons far beyond your control or sheer ignorance and so on. Now your writing gives of the feeling of things being muddled up in your head, not understood to the end, "clouded by emotion!" ;) Gotta snap out of it or you'll spent years malding like many do.
      - nbzso 6y ago
        Thank you for your "sympathy". I don't need to "snap out" of any problem.:) I share facts. Dark Patterns and low quality design is everywhere. But don't think for a second that I will not take my money. Too long in the Game to hate the Players. But too long also to "shut up" without any resistance.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  It's not dead, it's just hiding. Design has retreated into a cave and is occasionally peeking out at what foolishness we have wrought for its amusement, laughing maniacally. One day, Design will return, and we will feel very foolish indeed, and then all will be righted again in the software world.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
It's a brilliant piece of work breaking down what is involved in good design. It would be a brilliant piece of work even if it weren't using a criticism of Dribbble as the hook. YC talks about founders "playing house." They rent an office. They hire some of their buddies. They get all the trappings of a business, but there's no actual business. There's no actual goal, other than "start a business," and no one has answered the only other question that really matters in business: How are we going to make money? (The first question is "What problem are we solving?" and the second is "How will we make money from solving it?") The whys and wherefores he says should be the norm for what you talk about amounts to sharing your secret sauce. No, you don't want to really be sharing that casually online to make chitchat in a space like Dribbble. Of course it's going to focus on the most superficial part of the process. The same thing happens in GIS when the people making the maps are not the people who need the maps. You end up with a "map shop" and you end up with people trying to prettify the maps because making the maps is all they do. A good map will tend to be described by people as beautiful but a beautiful map isn't necessarily a good map. A good map is beautiful in an engineer's aesthetic -- an elegant design that flows well because flowing well is part of what makes it work well. A map made beautiful for the sake of beauty because printing the map is the only role you have tends to fail at being a highly useful, well-designed map. In community development or place making work, it is well known that "beautiful" places tend to be more prosperous. So some people think you make a place prosperous by making it beautiful, though I have yet to personally see anything that genuinely pins down the exact relationship between "beauty" and prosperity and I am very skeptical that simply prettifying the place actually makes it more prosperous. I suspect this works more like good maps: Good places tend to look good to the human mind but looking good doesn't, per se, make for a good place. It's vastly easier to start an article by finding a hook like this and probably a good way to connect to an audience. It's much more challenging to write "Here is an excellent design process" and give it a title the world will find interesting and want to click into. This article is well worth the read even if you don't give a darn about Dribbble or the hook that inspired its creation. It's been written by someone who knows how to make things actually happen and recognizes superficial BS when they see it and can tell you what the correct and meaty process looks like. It's just hard to get started writing about the correct and meaty process without some jumping off point and it's hugely hard to write good titles for such. But this is a don't miss article if you have any interest in what good design is all about.
Neputys 6y ago
Just a part of all permeating superficiality in tech. The way the business is done got a breed of designers to match.
rchaud 6y ago
News Flash: Work on Dribbble is supposed to be inspiration-first, functionality second. The writer appears to assume that the site should have case studies framing the problem and the solution. How is that possible when these are largely made up designs, and the real work is covered by NDA? Most "shots" on Dribbble are one or two small screenshots showing scenarios familiar to viewers, like booking a vacation home, streaming music, etc. They're tweaking an existing use case, not reinventing the wheel. It doesn't need a case study.

25 points by giansegato 6y ago

dang 6y ago

If curious, past threads: The Dribbblisation of Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10626942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10626942 - Nov 2015 (51 comments) The Dribbblisation of Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6406898 - Sept 2013 (101 comments)

nbzso 6y ago

Design is dead. Cheap, colourful, childish trash, non usable, non accessible is the trend. After 20 years of practice as a designer I now sell my expertise only on implementation - UI engineer. For me this is the last place of craftsmanship. Everything else from UX to Visual design is in the hands of marketing and wannabe decorators.

Neputys 6y ago
Design is not a thing that can die. It will exist for as long as the human race does. And so will shallowness, tastelessness, ignorance, self importance, agendas and marketing turkey cocks. Don't mix them together my friend, cheer up.
- cercatrova 6y ago
  Exactly. Design is dead? Have they ever architected anything in code? That's design, you created a structure that meets some goal. Design is not visual art.
  - nbzso 6y ago
    Stop with visual art nonsense. Read "20 years". If you have assumption that in this time I don't know the difference, I am sorry. It happens that some of us have managed and created real products, not some figma mockups. Your design structure will be affected by dark patterns soon or a later. I think that you don't have enough experience to comment on the situation at all. Marketing will have access to your design process eventually. Then we will speak again.
    - cercatrova 6y ago
      Not sure what you're implying, I've created and sold "real products" to the tune of millions of dollars in revenue. I think I have "enough experience to comment on the situation." Weird to have such an accusatory tone when speaking on HN.
      - nbzso 6y ago
        Sorry for my reaction. It is direct result of your assumption about me and my professional expertise. Visual language is the smallest of the problems in design today. Thats why I have a term for todays designers - Decorators. When your role as a designer is limited to visual language - your results are just another "fancy dress" to be thrown away in the next product iteration.
- nbzso 6y ago
  The most important thing in design is honesty. Between honesty and function we have a newborn child of the Greed - dark patterns. Look around - it's everywhere. Thats why Design is dead. It is not dead as an idea. Idea of design will never die. Engineers don't care about design en masse. Thats why we have products with lack of uniqueness and the argument is that this is good for the user - it reduces cognitive overload. This is argument made by engineers for engineers. Using low quality "decorators" in production creates another argument - there is no designers that can create long term quality. No. We exist. But when you spend your entire life to become the best in your craft you cannot sell expertise for peanuts. :) Some of us are long in this game, an we have real production knowledge. Some of us can code enough to know when engineers are "over their heads" and follow self-serving decision models.
  - Neputys 6y ago
    What I'm saying, out of sympathy, is that you should consider a higher perspective. Maybe it's lack of care, just as an example, and maybe it's prejudice with reasons far beyond your control or sheer ignorance and so on. Now your writing gives of the feeling of things being muddled up in your head, not understood to the end, "clouded by emotion!" ;) Gotta snap out of it or you'll spent years malding like many do.
    - nbzso 6y ago
      Thank you for your "sympathy". I don't need to "snap out" of any problem.:) I share facts. Dark Patterns and low quality design is everywhere. But don't think for a second that I will not take my money. Too long in the Game to hate the Players. But too long also to "shut up" without any resistance.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
It's not dead, it's just hiding. Design has retreated into a cave and is occasionally peeking out at what foolishness we have wrought for its amusement, laughing maniacally. One day, Design will return, and we will feel very foolish indeed, and then all will be righted again in the software world.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

It's a brilliant piece of work breaking down what is involved in good design. It would be a brilliant piece of work even if it weren't using a criticism of Dribbble as the hook. YC talks about founders "playing house." They rent an office. They hire some of their buddies. They get all the trappings of a business, but there's no actual business. There's no actual goal, other than "start a business," and no one has answered the only other question that really matters in business: How are we going to make money? (The first question is "What problem are we solving?" and the second is "How will we make money from solving it?") The whys and wherefores he says should be the norm for what you talk about amounts to sharing your secret sauce. No, you don't want to really be sharing that casually online to make chitchat in a space like Dribbble. Of course it's going to focus on the most superficial part of the process. The same thing happens in GIS when the people making the maps are not the people who need the maps. You end up with a "map shop" and you end up with people trying to prettify the maps because making the maps is all they do. A good map will tend to be described by people as beautiful but a beautiful map isn't necessarily a good map. A good map is beautiful in an engineer's aesthetic -- an elegant design that flows well because flowing well is part of what makes it work well. A map made beautiful for the sake of beauty because printing the map is the only role you have tends to fail at being a highly useful, well-designed map. In community development or place making work, it is well known that "beautiful" places tend to be more prosperous. So some people think you make a place prosperous by making it beautiful, though I have yet to personally see anything that genuinely pins down the exact relationship between "beauty" and prosperity and I am very skeptical that simply prettifying the place actually makes it more prosperous. I suspect this works more like good maps: Good places tend to look good to the human mind but looking good doesn't, per se, make for a good place. It's vastly easier to start an article by finding a hook like this and probably a good way to connect to an audience. It's much more challenging to write "Here is an excellent design process" and give it a title the world will find interesting and want to click into. This article is well worth the read even if you don't give a darn about Dribbble or the hook that inspired its creation. It's been written by someone who knows how to make things actually happen and recognizes superficial BS when they see it and can tell you what the correct and meaty process looks like. It's just hard to get started writing about the correct and meaty process without some jumping off point and it's hugely hard to write good titles for such. But this is a don't miss article if you have any interest in what good design is all about.

Neputys 6y ago

Just a part of all permeating superficiality in tech. The way the business is done got a breed of designers to match.

rchaud 6y ago

News Flash: Work on Dribbble is supposed to be inspiration-first, functionality second. The writer appears to assume that the site should have case studies framing the problem and the solution. How is that possible when these are largely made up designs, and the real work is covered by NDA? Most "shots" on Dribbble are one or two small screenshots showing scenarios familiar to viewers, like booking a vacation home, streaming music, etc. They're tweaking an existing use case, not reinventing the wheel. It doesn't need a case study.