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Designers like to come up with one piece of design, not working on different little design changes wanted by an entire community of open source developers. Des

Designers like to come up with one piece of design, not working on different little design changes wanted by an entire community of open source developers. Designers like to design one product and expect developers to follow suit, not the other way around. This doesn't happen in the open source world.

lovskogen 15y ago
It's a great challenge to better the user experience on a small problem. Alot of designers would love doing small 'papercuts'. I don't think your statment that designers just love redesigns or complete products holds true.
- gte910h 15y ago
  I think many designers do not know how to be really collaborative. They don't know how to bend their design to development realities and do cost-insensitive things all the time. I do professional iOS development all the time, and have had the pleasure of working with some really good design teams while working, who are there the entire process, but I've also had the occasion when a design is handed down by "god" and they won't do a damn thing to adjust to what's actually possible or doable. The communication style of designers also irks the hell out of developers. There is argument by emotion, argument by reputation and argument by logical reasoning. Most devs do the latter as a default thing. Many (I'd probably not say most) designers shoot at repuational argument overly quickly, relying on inchoate notions of things they can't really verbalize well. The fact one side is saying "Trust me, look at all the stuff I've done" and the other is saying "But this is that way and that is this way" leads to a horrid clash of communication style. This is only exacerbated via email, which is how much OSS gets done, as email is exceedingly logic based.
  - lovskogen 15y ago
    You can't be a good designer without knowing your format. And working with those would seem like hell, I guess.
    - gte910h 15y ago
      That's the issue though, you can't really learn the format without doing work in it. There needs to be a "Oh, pushback, let me listen then change things" that many people lack when they're not experts in the area. That said, there are people who listen exceedingly well when they're not experts and are a pleasure to work with.

lovskogen 15y ago

It's a great challenge to better the user experience on a small problem. Alot of designers would love doing small 'papercuts'. I don't think your statment that designers just love redesigns or complete products holds true.

gte910h 15y ago
I think many designers do not know how to be really collaborative. They don't know how to bend their design to development realities and do cost-insensitive things all the time. I do professional iOS development all the time, and have had the pleasure of working with some really good design teams while working, who are there the entire process, but I've also had the occasion when a design is handed down by "god" and they won't do a damn thing to adjust to what's actually possible or doable. The communication style of designers also irks the hell out of developers. There is argument by emotion, argument by reputation and argument by logical reasoning. Most devs do the latter as a default thing. Many (I'd probably not say most) designers shoot at repuational argument overly quickly, relying on inchoate notions of things they can't really verbalize well. The fact one side is saying "Trust me, look at all the stuff I've done" and the other is saying "But this is that way and that is this way" leads to a horrid clash of communication style. This is only exacerbated via email, which is how much OSS gets done, as email is exceedingly logic based.
- lovskogen 15y ago
  You can't be a good designer without knowing your format. And working with those would seem like hell, I guess.
  - gte910h 15y ago
    That's the issue though, you can't really learn the format without doing work in it. There needs to be a "Oh, pushback, let me listen then change things" that many people lack when they're not experts in the area. That said, there are people who listen exceedingly well when they're not experts and are a pleasure to work with.