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Many "UX persons" are engineers or computer scientists, and having a good working relationship with them and seeing them as equals goes a long way to allowing y

by Kranar 5y ago

Many "UX persons" are engineers or computer scientists, and having a good working relationship with them and seeing them as equals goes a long way to allowing you to provide your own insight and give suggestions and feedback.

hpoe 5y ago
I envy you if that is your experience. Almost all UX persons I have worked with have a degree in "Design" and are artsy type that tell me. "You can't make this blue it just doesn't vibe with the green we have." Many of who use the argument "Apple/Google does it this way" I'm not saying your now right it's just been my experience that they aren't engineers or Computer Scientists.
- exdsq 5y ago
  I've seen what happens when computer scientists go off on their own and design a user-centric product. Trust me, its good to have an 'artsy type'. I worked on a project with some pretty 'famous' CS guys (obviously relative to the field) and their form of documentation were essentially quizzes for the users to work through. Practically an end of term exam. It was crazy.
carlmr 5y ago
The problem is not necessarily their incompetence, but that they're given the exclusive right to dictate every detail of the UX. The problem is that they often don't know the constraints of the system you're working with, something that only comes with actually working on the implementation. E.g. I was working on a display. The graphics were designed by a UX Team. However the display only had 256 colors, had to be readable outside, had a 320x240 resolution. They had designed everything as vector graphics with highest color settings on really good Eizo monitors. The customer thought the designs look cool, and I wasn't given any freedom in improving them. I tried discussing the constraints with them, but because they were "on top" they wouldn't listen. In the end the customer saw the prototype and said it looked terrible. But I had all the communication with the UX Team and them that I wasn't allowed to make it work for this display. In the end it cost everyone an extra month and a lot of frustration to arrive at basically what I suggested when I first checked the hardware. The problem isn't to learn about UX, it's that you have a "UX person" that may not know about UX and dictates the terms.
- spicybright 5y ago
  That sounds discouraging. But you can apply the same story about any manager-like figure, no? If one's priority is design freedom or whatever, a good working relationship with your higher ups is the best chance to enable that. Working well with managers is also a good strat for becoming one yourself, and having more influence over things you care about.
  - carlmr 5y ago
    >you can apply the same story about any manager-like figure, no? True, the problem is more when companies become more and more top-heavy over time. These intermediate layers are created. With every layer it becomes less likely that the people that can actually decide won't ever hear valuable feedback until it's too late. >Working well with managers is also a good strat for becoming one yourself, and having more influence over things you care about. In the end I showed them what had to be done to make it look decent on this kind of display. Because all layers of management were in the room, they managed to decide to do these changes. It's just a very inefficient way to get to this point.
- gherkinnn 5y ago
  That very painful example sounds like a bad setup where clear technical constraints weren’t taken in to account. People not listening come in all forms. UX, dev, MBA.
- atatatat 5y ago
  > necessarily their incompetence, but that they're given the exclusive right to dictate every detail of the UX. Unless you have valid reason to think the user would prefer your way, this sounds like the correct chain of command for a strong product.
  - varjag 5y ago
    …aand we're back to waterfall
    - 5y ago
MattGaiser 5y ago
Most of the ones I have ever encountered are former graphic design people.
- ratww 5y ago
  For me it is 100% former graphic design people. In fact I've seen several engineers trying to migrate to UX but the gatekeeping and prejudice made them give up.
eplanit 5y ago
I've worked with many, and none have ever had a bona fide engineering or comp. sci. background, except for a few who didn't cut it in the ranks of developers, and so redirected themselves or were shunted off to UI (now "UX" to make it sound cool) -- they've all been visual artist types. I find it best to get high-level (graphics, the css, color schemes) design ideas from them, and then leave it to the engineers for implementation, who might tweak/adjust/remove some items in order to balance with performance, usability, and sanity. If, instead, UX is given "authori-tie" then it becomes ridiculous, fast.
chii 5y ago
the problem happens when they aren't your equal, but the workplace is too politically correct for you to bluntly point it out. All you can do is suggest improvements, if at all.
- Pokepokalypse 5y ago
  When I'm working with a colleague who has a specialty, I don't generally concern myself with whether they're "my equal" but rather, whether they bring something constructive to the table, in their specialty. I find "graphic designers" to be enormously helpful in solving problems related to user interaction and judgment with regard to use of color, typeface, and effective use of limited screen real-estate. There are good ones and bad ones. The key is to assess where they are, and learn how to communicate with them with regards to any technical impacts. The last thing I'd want to do in collaborating with a team-mate is summarily judge them as "my inferior". But that's (unfortunately) just me.
  - chii 5y ago
    > summarily judge them as "my inferior" most organizations that tend to have office politics and are very politically-correct in their behaviour tends to end up with people in roles calling shots, despite those shots not being great. graphics designers is just one example of this that i've seen, where a poor UI or bad UX is mocked up, but because you're an engineer, you do not get to have much input or your input is regarded as irrelevant (because your role is to code, not do UX design). That's what i mean by the "inferior" comment - that the UX/UI designer isn't as good at their craft as you are in implementing code.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
I have worked at over a dozen companies of various scales and never once met a "UX Person" that was an engineer or a computer scientist, let alone have any formal education or experience with human-computer interaction. They were glorified web designers at best, and them dreaming up ridiculous features with no technical know-how, ultimately leading to "compromises" (aka. massive amounts of technical debt) was the #1 contributor to lack of morale and engineer churn at every single one.
bjornsing 5y ago
Eh? When one person dictates every aspect of the end result to another person there’s definitely some inequality there, but doesn’t it run in the opposite direction to the one you imply?
ratww 5y ago
The thing is that the "seeing as equals" has to cut both ways. UX people, UI designers and PO/PMs who see developers purely as interface xerox machines don't really deserve much respect.
hsn915 5y ago
This comment is condescending and disrespectful. 1) I've never met a UX person who is a programmer. Most of them are from graphic design background, sometimes for vouchers or magazines and they don't necessarily understand that the computer screen is not the same kind of medium as a piece of paper. 2) Having a professional relationship entails pushing back and questioning. Being a "yes man" to the UX people is not a good working relationship. The implication of your comment is in order to push back and provide feedback I must first acknowledge my subservience to their whims and only once they approve of my work I may humbly submit some suggestions for their kind consideration.

by Kranar 5y ago

hpoe 5y ago

I envy you if that is your experience. Almost all UX persons I have worked with have a degree in "Design" and are artsy type that tell me. "You can't make this blue it just doesn't vibe with the green we have." Many of who use the argument "Apple/Google does it this way" I'm not saying your now right it's just been my experience that they aren't engineers or Computer Scientists.

exdsq 5y ago
I've seen what happens when computer scientists go off on their own and design a user-centric product. Trust me, its good to have an 'artsy type'. I worked on a project with some pretty 'famous' CS guys (obviously relative to the field) and their form of documentation were essentially quizzes for the users to work through. Practically an end of term exam. It was crazy.

carlmr 5y ago

The problem is not necessarily their incompetence, but that they're given the exclusive right to dictate every detail of the UX. The problem is that they often don't know the constraints of the system you're working with, something that only comes with actually working on the implementation. E.g. I was working on a display. The graphics were designed by a UX Team. However the display only had 256 colors, had to be readable outside, had a 320x240 resolution. They had designed everything as vector graphics with highest color settings on really good Eizo monitors. The customer thought the designs look cool, and I wasn't given any freedom in improving them. I tried discussing the constraints with them, but because they were "on top" they wouldn't listen. In the end the customer saw the prototype and said it looked terrible. But I had all the communication with the UX Team and them that I wasn't allowed to make it work for this display. In the end it cost everyone an extra month and a lot of frustration to arrive at basically what I suggested when I first checked the hardware. The problem isn't to learn about UX, it's that you have a "UX person" that may not know about UX and dictates the terms.

spicybright 5y ago
That sounds discouraging. But you can apply the same story about any manager-like figure, no? If one's priority is design freedom or whatever, a good working relationship with your higher ups is the best chance to enable that. Working well with managers is also a good strat for becoming one yourself, and having more influence over things you care about.
- carlmr 5y ago
  >you can apply the same story about any manager-like figure, no? True, the problem is more when companies become more and more top-heavy over time. These intermediate layers are created. With every layer it becomes less likely that the people that can actually decide won't ever hear valuable feedback until it's too late. >Working well with managers is also a good strat for becoming one yourself, and having more influence over things you care about. In the end I showed them what had to be done to make it look decent on this kind of display. Because all layers of management were in the room, they managed to decide to do these changes. It's just a very inefficient way to get to this point.
gherkinnn 5y ago
That very painful example sounds like a bad setup where clear technical constraints weren’t taken in to account. People not listening come in all forms. UX, dev, MBA.
atatatat 5y ago
> necessarily their incompetence, but that they're given the exclusive right to dictate every detail of the UX. Unless you have valid reason to think the user would prefer your way, this sounds like the correct chain of command for a strong product.
- varjag 5y ago
  …aand we're back to waterfall
  - 5y ago

MattGaiser 5y ago

Most of the ones I have ever encountered are former graphic design people.

ratww 5y ago
For me it is 100% former graphic design people. In fact I've seen several engineers trying to migrate to UX but the gatekeeping and prejudice made them give up.

eplanit 5y ago

I've worked with many, and none have ever had a bona fide engineering or comp. sci. background, except for a few who didn't cut it in the ranks of developers, and so redirected themselves or were shunted off to UI (now "UX" to make it sound cool) -- they've all been visual artist types. I find it best to get high-level (graphics, the css, color schemes) design ideas from them, and then leave it to the engineers for implementation, who might tweak/adjust/remove some items in order to balance with performance, usability, and sanity. If, instead, UX is given "authori-tie" then it becomes ridiculous, fast.

chii 5y ago

the problem happens when they aren't your equal, but the workplace is too politically correct for you to bluntly point it out. All you can do is suggest improvements, if at all.

Pokepokalypse 5y ago
When I'm working with a colleague who has a specialty, I don't generally concern myself with whether they're "my equal" but rather, whether they bring something constructive to the table, in their specialty. I find "graphic designers" to be enormously helpful in solving problems related to user interaction and judgment with regard to use of color, typeface, and effective use of limited screen real-estate. There are good ones and bad ones. The key is to assess where they are, and learn how to communicate with them with regards to any technical impacts. The last thing I'd want to do in collaborating with a team-mate is summarily judge them as "my inferior". But that's (unfortunately) just me.
- chii 5y ago
  > summarily judge them as "my inferior" most organizations that tend to have office politics and are very politically-correct in their behaviour tends to end up with people in roles calling shots, despite those shots not being great. graphics designers is just one example of this that i've seen, where a poor UI or bad UX is mocked up, but because you're an engineer, you do not get to have much input or your input is regarded as irrelevant (because your role is to code, not do UX design). That's what i mean by the "inferior" comment - that the UX/UI designer isn't as good at their craft as you are in implementing code.

rubyist5eva 5y ago

I have worked at over a dozen companies of various scales and never once met a "UX Person" that was an engineer or a computer scientist, let alone have any formal education or experience with human-computer interaction. They were glorified web designers at best, and them dreaming up ridiculous features with no technical know-how, ultimately leading to "compromises" (aka. massive amounts of technical debt) was the #1 contributor to lack of morale and engineer churn at every single one.

bjornsing 5y ago

Eh? When one person dictates every aspect of the end result to another person there’s definitely some inequality there, but doesn’t it run in the opposite direction to the one you imply?

ratww 5y ago

The thing is that the "seeing as equals" has to cut both ways. UX people, UI designers and PO/PMs who see developers purely as interface xerox machines don't really deserve much respect.

hsn915 5y ago

This comment is condescending and disrespectful. 1) I've never met a UX person who is a programmer. Most of them are from graphic design background, sometimes for vouchers or magazines and they don't necessarily understand that the computer screen is not the same kind of medium as a piece of paper. 2) Having a professional relationship entails pushing back and questioning. Being a "yes man" to the UX people is not a good working relationship. The implication of your comment is in order to push back and provide feedback I must first acknowledge my subservience to their whims and only once they approve of my work I may humbly submit some suggestions for their kind consideration.