3 ms·

Why are designers unquestionable dictators and tyrants these days? You get vast seas of "NO!!" and the projects are like "well sorry, mr art school over here m

Why are designers unquestionable dictators and tyrants these days? You get vast seas of "NO!!" and the projects are like "well sorry, mr art school over here moved some jpegs around. This is what we're doing!" I mean what on earth, stop this insane nonsense already. Listen to the users.

rlpb 6y ago
> Listen to the users. To be fair, this tells you what the vocal users think, and this is sometimes very different from what the majority of users think. For something with a shrinking market share, you also have to consider what potential users think, not just existing users.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  That's the "don't listen to real people. Imagine people instead" defense. It allows people to justify whatever they want without any confirmation or feedback on reality. They can always imagine some future user that permits them to ignore every single existing one. It's a closed loop justification to do whatever they want without listening to anyone while pretending they're making it better for everyone.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    This is supposed to be what A/B testing with KPIs is for. There are plenty of times when stated preference contradicts actual behavior (e.g. more search results per page resulting in less successful searches on Google) due to other countervailing factors (additional latency causing abandonment before the page finishes loading)
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      That's not what this is. The quantitative model has its own problems. It's why youtube, for instance, looks like it's designed for toddlers using tablets.
  - passivate 6y ago
    You have a very fair point, but I have a different read on the situation. I would characterize the situation a bit more charitably - "Mozilla is implementing a larger UI change, for X, Y, Z reasons, and will benefit the users in A, B, C ways. Unfortunately, one casualty of that is feature e will be discontinued".
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      What's their actual goal? At one time it was an open source alternative to IE 6, then they were the ones with the best debug tools, that was 10 years ago, now what? The modern evolutionary descendent of Netscape Communications needs a crisper purpose then just amorphous open source vibes. Blink and Webkit are in that game as well and they have the most profitable tech companies in the world behind them. Even Microsoft's current browser works in Linux. The world has changed. At least Eichs post Mozilla project Brave has some patreon-style crowdfunding with crypto in exchange for revenue sharing ad dollars, it's a reason for existing. Say what you will about it but it's got a reason for being around.
      - passivate 6y ago
        I can only infer what their goal is, to me, their goal is to help steer the web towards more privacy, less dark UIs, and help reduce general web 'badness', while trying to matching other browsers for ease of use and features.
        kristopolous 6y ago
        Really, that's Eich's Brave. I don't like the guy's politics that much either, but the project's solid.
        kaba0 6y ago
        That project is a chrome with pre-installed extensions and they do some shady things with even that small amount of custom code. It is barely comparable to a non-chrome based browser that actually values user’s freedom.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    > That's the "don't listen to real people. Imagine people instead" defense. It's not a defense. I'm invalidating the argument that the vocal users are always right. I'm not claiming that this automatically means that what the project owners think instead is correct. Figuring out how best to make everyone happy is more complicated than this. Claiming it is simple ("just listen to the vocal users!") is a fallacy.
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      It really depends. If you're running a passion project where you depend on the dedication and commitment of others to move the project forward, heeding to the vocal users is integral to a successful strategy. Outside of that case it's also really hard to say. I think the best advice I can give are "vocal users who aren't crazy" with all of those words doing magical handwaving and lifting. For instance, certain features have a lot of vocal normal, reasonable users but seem to be ignored. On youtube, disabling the "recommended for you" videos. On facebook, whenever you have a capital letter, an annoying name selector popup happens. There's essentially armies of complaints for an option to disable it, make it only @ etc ... all ignored. Another example is Firefox's ctrl+q issue (finally addressed) or the GTK-3 file selector. There's plenty of things where there's a substantial number of vocal non-crazy users requesting reasonable things And there's a very popular philosophy that strongly advocates for completely ignoring them. I mean open source is partially about addressing the tyranny of decision in closed source. Not through combative forks and team splitting but through open community dialog. Some of these larger projects seem to lift their projects away from that, probably to avoid the aforementioned wackos who overreach their welcome. There's really better amelioration than justifying the restriction of the many by the trespass of the few.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  Removing options is just silly. Not having the budget to support it is one thing but removing choice because you think you know better leaves you susceptible to becoming the next Ubuntu/Snap debacle.
- wvenable 6y ago
  They're chasing potential users by trying to be exactly what potential users already have. This gives potential users no reason to switch and existing users a good excuse to jump ship. I've already completely stopped using Firefox on Android because it literally stopped being useful for me.
gsk22 6y ago
If you read the Bugzilla ticket, there is no indication this change is driven by a designer on a crusade. No need to be condescending to an entire profession.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Is it designers’ or is it the designers’ manager? Designers know who pay them and can try and shape a conversation but ultimately they have to do something the paying client wants.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  It's an industry generality. Aesthetics over usability, imagined users over real ones, minimalism over functionality, naive users over power users, wizards over tools. It's not everybody but it's way too many.
iaml 6y ago
I've been exploring ff ui architecture lately and what I've found is the css inside is kind of inconsistent and messy. I believe this change could be beneficial if that means they'll have a chance at refactoring it. Also, now that I think about it they could be also saving some resources on testing all the variations.
RobertKerans 6y ago
Why are developers unquestionable dictators and tyrants these days? You get vast seas of "NO!!" and the projects are like "well sorry, mr engineering school over here used a UI framework at some point and liked that and also blah blah blah technical limitations blah, and wooh, abstractions that let you apply and reuse components in a programmatic manner or whatever blah blah blah. This is what we're doing!" I mean what on earth, stop this insane nonsense already. Listen to the users.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Equally stupid. I call it abstractolish when someone is tasked with say writing some code to order pizza on the internet and they approach it acting like they're Bertrand Russell writing JavaScript. Everyone can get caught up in their own bullshit. Be stupid and make obvious things. It's an art, sure. Door handles, toilets, faucets, showers, hammers, physical world assets provide great analogies for what works and doesn't. Much love for the design of everyday things but I think Norman missed the boat by not making the connections more explicit between the Fred Brooks pure thought stuff and you know, the tea kettle on the cover of his book. Maybe it's just my projection
  - RobertKerans 6y ago
    It's not normally "being caught up in their own bullshit" though. Design + development + user research + user testing of software is expensive (in time, in thought, in arranging coordination, in cash). In this case, the thing in question is a product whose funding has been drastically -- why are you making the assumption a. this is a change driven by designers and b. isn't completely practical from a software design PoV (with the trade-off being that a few users don't like the change -- I don't for example, but it's no biggie)
SilverRed 6y ago
Take a look at almost every successful product and find the hacker news post where it was originally announced. Dropbox is useless because ftp exists, the iphone is useless because its too big and will get fingerprints, airpods are stupid because they look ugly and will fall in the drain, everyone will just use a strap to tie them to their phone. If product managers listened to hacker news users our computers would be a faster version of Windows XP machines since that is the UI that most HN users prefer.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  That's just plain false. Here's dropbox's launch on hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=301605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=301605 iphone launch was june 2007, here's a post made shortly after, all positive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31873 Airpods was more questions (quality, battery life etc), not gernally dismissive though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12446094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12446094 HN also hated the flops before they were flops. Google glass: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5249841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5249841 GoPro's karma drone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12532948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12532948 Amazon's Fire phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911934 FirefoxOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5969691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5969691 so no, totally false.
  - SilverRed 6y ago
    The dropbox thread seems to be not the initial announcement but the public release which is after people have already tried it and not the initial reaction to the idea alone. The iphone is the same, people commenting while they have the product already. People tend to hate on an idea when they first hear it but come to like it after they have it in their hands (if its actually good) I'm also partly taking in to consideration the reddit drama over the iphone and airpods which is a low bar I guess but the initial reactions, especially to the airpods was very poor.
    - 6y ago

rlpb 6y ago

> Listen to the users. To be fair, this tells you what the vocal users think, and this is sometimes very different from what the majority of users think. For something with a shrinking market share, you also have to consider what potential users think, not just existing users.

kristopolous 6y ago
That's the "don't listen to real people. Imagine people instead" defense. It allows people to justify whatever they want without any confirmation or feedback on reality. They can always imagine some future user that permits them to ignore every single existing one. It's a closed loop justification to do whatever they want without listening to anyone while pretending they're making it better for everyone.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  This is supposed to be what A/B testing with KPIs is for. There are plenty of times when stated preference contradicts actual behavior (e.g. more search results per page resulting in less successful searches on Google) due to other countervailing factors (additional latency causing abandonment before the page finishes loading)
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    That's not what this is. The quantitative model has its own problems. It's why youtube, for instance, looks like it's designed for toddlers using tablets.
- passivate 6y ago
  You have a very fair point, but I have a different read on the situation. I would characterize the situation a bit more charitably - "Mozilla is implementing a larger UI change, for X, Y, Z reasons, and will benefit the users in A, B, C ways. Unfortunately, one casualty of that is feature e will be discontinued".
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    What's their actual goal? At one time it was an open source alternative to IE 6, then they were the ones with the best debug tools, that was 10 years ago, now what? The modern evolutionary descendent of Netscape Communications needs a crisper purpose then just amorphous open source vibes. Blink and Webkit are in that game as well and they have the most profitable tech companies in the world behind them. Even Microsoft's current browser works in Linux. The world has changed. At least Eichs post Mozilla project Brave has some patreon-style crowdfunding with crypto in exchange for revenue sharing ad dollars, it's a reason for existing. Say what you will about it but it's got a reason for being around.
    - passivate 6y ago
      I can only infer what their goal is, to me, their goal is to help steer the web towards more privacy, less dark UIs, and help reduce general web 'badness', while trying to matching other browsers for ease of use and features.
      - kristopolous 6y ago
        Really, that's Eich's Brave. I don't like the guy's politics that much either, but the project's solid.
        kaba0 6y ago
        That project is a chrome with pre-installed extensions and they do some shady things with even that small amount of custom code. It is barely comparable to a non-chrome based browser that actually values user’s freedom.
- rlpb 6y ago
  > That's the "don't listen to real people. Imagine people instead" defense. It's not a defense. I'm invalidating the argument that the vocal users are always right. I'm not claiming that this automatically means that what the project owners think instead is correct. Figuring out how best to make everyone happy is more complicated than this. Claiming it is simple ("just listen to the vocal users!") is a fallacy.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    It really depends. If you're running a passion project where you depend on the dedication and commitment of others to move the project forward, heeding to the vocal users is integral to a successful strategy. Outside of that case it's also really hard to say. I think the best advice I can give are "vocal users who aren't crazy" with all of those words doing magical handwaving and lifting. For instance, certain features have a lot of vocal normal, reasonable users but seem to be ignored. On youtube, disabling the "recommended for you" videos. On facebook, whenever you have a capital letter, an annoying name selector popup happens. There's essentially armies of complaints for an option to disable it, make it only @ etc ... all ignored. Another example is Firefox's ctrl+q issue (finally addressed) or the GTK-3 file selector. There's plenty of things where there's a substantial number of vocal non-crazy users requesting reasonable things And there's a very popular philosophy that strongly advocates for completely ignoring them. I mean open source is partially about addressing the tyranny of decision in closed source. Not through combative forks and team splitting but through open community dialog. Some of these larger projects seem to lift their projects away from that, probably to avoid the aforementioned wackos who overreach their welcome. There's really better amelioration than justifying the restriction of the many by the trespass of the few.
jimbob45 6y ago
Removing options is just silly. Not having the budget to support it is one thing but removing choice because you think you know better leaves you susceptible to becoming the next Ubuntu/Snap debacle.
wvenable 6y ago
They're chasing potential users by trying to be exactly what potential users already have. This gives potential users no reason to switch and existing users a good excuse to jump ship. I've already completely stopped using Firefox on Android because it literally stopped being useful for me.

gsk22 6y ago

If you read the Bugzilla ticket, there is no indication this change is driven by a designer on a crusade. No need to be condescending to an entire profession.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Is it designers’ or is it the designers’ manager? Designers know who pay them and can try and shape a conversation but ultimately they have to do something the paying client wants.

kristopolous 6y ago
It's an industry generality. Aesthetics over usability, imagined users over real ones, minimalism over functionality, naive users over power users, wizards over tools. It's not everybody but it's way too many.

iaml 6y ago

I've been exploring ff ui architecture lately and what I've found is the css inside is kind of inconsistent and messy. I believe this change could be beneficial if that means they'll have a chance at refactoring it. Also, now that I think about it they could be also saving some resources on testing all the variations.

RobertKerans 6y ago

Why are developers unquestionable dictators and tyrants these days? You get vast seas of "NO!!" and the projects are like "well sorry, mr engineering school over here used a UI framework at some point and liked that and also blah blah blah technical limitations blah, and wooh, abstractions that let you apply and reuse components in a programmatic manner or whatever blah blah blah. This is what we're doing!" I mean what on earth, stop this insane nonsense already. Listen to the users.

kristopolous 6y ago
Equally stupid. I call it abstractolish when someone is tasked with say writing some code to order pizza on the internet and they approach it acting like they're Bertrand Russell writing JavaScript. Everyone can get caught up in their own bullshit. Be stupid and make obvious things. It's an art, sure. Door handles, toilets, faucets, showers, hammers, physical world assets provide great analogies for what works and doesn't. Much love for the design of everyday things but I think Norman missed the boat by not making the connections more explicit between the Fred Brooks pure thought stuff and you know, the tea kettle on the cover of his book. Maybe it's just my projection
- RobertKerans 6y ago
  It's not normally "being caught up in their own bullshit" though. Design + development + user research + user testing of software is expensive (in time, in thought, in arranging coordination, in cash). In this case, the thing in question is a product whose funding has been drastically -- why are you making the assumption a. this is a change driven by designers and b. isn't completely practical from a software design PoV (with the trade-off being that a few users don't like the change -- I don't for example, but it's no biggie)

SilverRed 6y ago

Take a look at almost every successful product and find the hacker news post where it was originally announced. Dropbox is useless because ftp exists, the iphone is useless because its too big and will get fingerprints, airpods are stupid because they look ugly and will fall in the drain, everyone will just use a strap to tie them to their phone. If product managers listened to hacker news users our computers would be a faster version of Windows XP machines since that is the UI that most HN users prefer.

kristopolous 6y ago
That's just plain false. Here's dropbox's launch on hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=301605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=301605 iphone launch was june 2007, here's a post made shortly after, all positive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31873 Airpods was more questions (quality, battery life etc), not gernally dismissive though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12446094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12446094 HN also hated the flops before they were flops. Google glass: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5249841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5249841 GoPro's karma drone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12532948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12532948 Amazon's Fire phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7911934 FirefoxOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5969691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5969691 so no, totally false.
- SilverRed 6y ago
  The dropbox thread seems to be not the initial announcement but the public release which is after people have already tried it and not the initial reaction to the idea alone. The iphone is the same, people commenting while they have the product already. People tend to hate on an idea when they first hear it but come to like it after they have it in their hands (if its actually good) I'm also partly taking in to consideration the reddit drama over the iphone and airpods which is a low bar I guess but the initial reactions, especially to the airpods was very poor.
  - 6y ago