4 ms·

We Do Not Need You To Design Anymore

18 points by inmygarage 15y ago

SeoxyS 15y ago
So let me get this straight... just because good design is not the deciding factor to success, it makes it OK to settle for mediocrity? Are you in this to make a quick buck, or to make a truly great product?
mikeocool 15y ago
I think the author misses the point of what a really good web designer does. Most of the websites you visit probably don't exhibit award winning visual design, but I bet a lot of thought still went into the design of the user experience. Certainly Google's no winning any awards for the visual design of their homepage, but they released it in a time when every other search engine had a 'Portal' on their homepage. On yahoo, lycos, excite, etc. search was one of like 200 modules on the page. It actually probably took some unique thinking and design for google to say "Let's make search the only the on the page." You can certainly buy a theme for $500, but that theme isn't going to be designed for the optimal user experience for interacting with whatever it is that makes your site unique.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Respectfully, every designer in the world says this, and if you believe it without question you are setting yourself up to pay whatever they say your problem is worth, despite the fact that you are the best judge of how big an issue design is or how out of whack your UX is.
  - morisy 15y ago
    Now this is a good point. We (http://muckrock.com http://muckrock.com) launched our web app with a $30 stock theme and it was, in my opinion, the right decision at the right time. We still happily use it, and when we shopped around for designers, they were asking hundreds at the low end for work we found subpar. On the other hand, a media site a friend runs recently invested heavily in design after years of frugality because advertisers demanded it, and the investment's paid off in dividends. Ultimately, outside experts shouldn't dictate your company, whether they are designers, strategists, or even lawyers. You should, and in many cases forging ahead with a budget design, plain-english ToS or other off-the-path choice is the best one for your business.
- crenshaw 15y ago
  The problem with the Google story is that Google really didn't have a designer at the time. Even Marissa didn't have a design background, despite some using her name due to her fashion sense. And I bet you that Yahoo, Lycos, AV, MSN, and AOL all had designers on staff yet none of them said, "Kill the portal -- just a search box". I'm sure there are great designers, but a lot of designers seem to just be really good at churning out polished versions of whatever is hot now.
mikeryan 15y ago
If you think that design is just about making a layout pretty you're missing a large chunk of what designers do. Go ask Happy Cog what went into the redesign of Zappos and how much of it was just making the site "pretty" compared to the amount of time making it easy to find products and convert customers. BTW linking to the websites of what are primarily mobile apps is pretty weak sauce.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Zappos needs Happy Cog. Most YC companies do not.
tomelders 15y ago
"you and I may understand [the importance of design], it doesn’t mean others do. Especially when they can point out success everywhere around them that goes against what we believe in." That's a great point. I think the article ignores a lot and may even be a textbook example of confirmation bias, and I don't think the author understands what good designers do, or more worryingly, why an off the shelf theme couldn't have worked for say, Facebook or Google Maps. But that one point above is worth taking away, and something designers should think long and hard about. My own personal opinion is that you can't polish a turd. But when you polish a diamond, it's makes quartz look like shit. Full disclosure: I'm a designer.
- tptacek 15y ago
  As an entrepreneur, I do not necessarily see it as a win when you imply that part of your life's goal is to convince otherwise contented users that I need to spend more money on typography.
  - tomelders 15y ago
    no one is saying that, at least, I'm not saying that. If you're happy with what you have then good for you. If you want to look at ways to increase a sites performance, then you'd do well (amongst other things) to have a designer lend you a hand. But the choice is always yours. Since you brought it up though; If you understand typography, you understand why it's important. You could take every other design embellishment out of any design and Typography would still be able to do most, if not all of the heavy lifting. But I'll stress the point lest I be accused of forcing this opinion down your throat: No one is forcing you to adopt a designers viewpoint, and I'm not saying you're wrong if you don't.
morisy 15y ago
I think the underlying, unstated point - that the industry is disrupted - holds, but misses out on a bigger, more interesting point: There is a huge need and opportunity to help craft the total experience, and those skills are costly and go way beyond what you can get at the budget freelance sites. I can guarantee you that neither Foursquare nor Zappos used a $500 stock or contest design, and I'd bet even money that MyTown, so deeply derided, spent more on design and art than either of those (not including salaried employees). There's been undercutting forces in design for years. A decade ago a penny-pinching retailer picked a punk high school kid to do his website (disclosure: I was the kid) to save a few bucks and got a servicable if uneven product. Today he'd do 99designs and get the same. Real designers learn how to create, communicate and sell their value in tangible ways.
Hyena 15y ago
This sort of thing is weird to me. I don't have a problem with these services, but the whole "this changes everything" meme has got to stop. We've been through this every decade since, I imagine, the printing press. We still have designers, people still pay them, etc. People who don't appreciate or need designers insist that this makes them obsolete; they're almost certainly wrong. I suspect that no one who says this sort of thing would actually hire a designer unless absolutely forced to. 99designs, et al simply replace the hapless employee whose incidental knowledge of graphic software would have otherwise put him in the uncomfortable position of building the website. It likely also saves some GD an annoying round of emails that go nowhere. Both are thankful. Neither are hurt.
systems 15y ago
Ok, I think we probably need new words. Picking the perfect font, colors, making the perfect graphics is an important and in my opinion completely different task, than making finding products easy by for example reducing the number of clicks required and such Let use Vim as an example, the design of the interaction between the author and text is completely separate from the colorscheme Interaction design, is not the same as Look and feel design is not the same as graphic design I notice that most of the time, we speak of all design categories collectively, which really hurt the debate A good interaction designer is not necessarily the same person as a graphic designer

18 points by inmygarage 15y ago

So let me get this straight... just because good design is not the deciding factor to success, it makes it OK to settle for mediocrity? Are you in this to make a quick buck, or to make a truly great product?

mikeocool 15y ago

I think the author misses the point of what a really good web designer does. Most of the websites you visit probably don't exhibit award winning visual design, but I bet a lot of thought still went into the design of the user experience. Certainly Google's no winning any awards for the visual design of their homepage, but they released it in a time when every other search engine had a 'Portal' on their homepage. On yahoo, lycos, excite, etc. search was one of like 200 modules on the page. It actually probably took some unique thinking and design for google to say "Let's make search the only the on the page." You can certainly buy a theme for $500, but that theme isn't going to be designed for the optimal user experience for interacting with whatever it is that makes your site unique.

tptacek 15y ago
Respectfully, every designer in the world says this, and if you believe it without question you are setting yourself up to pay whatever they say your problem is worth, despite the fact that you are the best judge of how big an issue design is or how out of whack your UX is.
- morisy 15y ago
  Now this is a good point. We (http://muckrock.com http://muckrock.com) launched our web app with a $30 stock theme and it was, in my opinion, the right decision at the right time. We still happily use it, and when we shopped around for designers, they were asking hundreds at the low end for work we found subpar. On the other hand, a media site a friend runs recently invested heavily in design after years of frugality because advertisers demanded it, and the investment's paid off in dividends. Ultimately, outside experts shouldn't dictate your company, whether they are designers, strategists, or even lawyers. You should, and in many cases forging ahead with a budget design, plain-english ToS or other off-the-path choice is the best one for your business.
crenshaw 15y ago
The problem with the Google story is that Google really didn't have a designer at the time. Even Marissa didn't have a design background, despite some using her name due to her fashion sense. And I bet you that Yahoo, Lycos, AV, MSN, and AOL all had designers on staff yet none of them said, "Kill the portal -- just a search box". I'm sure there are great designers, but a lot of designers seem to just be really good at churning out polished versions of whatever is hot now.

mikeryan 15y ago

If you think that design is just about making a layout pretty you're missing a large chunk of what designers do. Go ask Happy Cog what went into the redesign of Zappos and how much of it was just making the site "pretty" compared to the amount of time making it easy to find products and convert customers. BTW linking to the websites of what are primarily mobile apps is pretty weak sauce.

tptacek 15y ago
Zappos needs Happy Cog. Most YC companies do not.

tomelders 15y ago

"you and I may understand [the importance of design], it doesn’t mean others do. Especially when they can point out success everywhere around them that goes against what we believe in." That's a great point. I think the article ignores a lot and may even be a textbook example of confirmation bias, and I don't think the author understands what good designers do, or more worryingly, why an off the shelf theme couldn't have worked for say, Facebook or Google Maps. But that one point above is worth taking away, and something designers should think long and hard about. My own personal opinion is that you can't polish a turd. But when you polish a diamond, it's makes quartz look like shit. Full disclosure: I'm a designer.

tptacek 15y ago
As an entrepreneur, I do not necessarily see it as a win when you imply that part of your life's goal is to convince otherwise contented users that I need to spend more money on typography.
- tomelders 15y ago
  no one is saying that, at least, I'm not saying that. If you're happy with what you have then good for you. If you want to look at ways to increase a sites performance, then you'd do well (amongst other things) to have a designer lend you a hand. But the choice is always yours. Since you brought it up though; If you understand typography, you understand why it's important. You could take every other design embellishment out of any design and Typography would still be able to do most, if not all of the heavy lifting. But I'll stress the point lest I be accused of forcing this opinion down your throat: No one is forcing you to adopt a designers viewpoint, and I'm not saying you're wrong if you don't.

morisy 15y ago

I think the underlying, unstated point - that the industry is disrupted - holds, but misses out on a bigger, more interesting point: There is a huge need and opportunity to help craft the total experience, and those skills are costly and go way beyond what you can get at the budget freelance sites. I can guarantee you that neither Foursquare nor Zappos used a $500 stock or contest design, and I'd bet even money that MyTown, so deeply derided, spent more on design and art than either of those (not including salaried employees). There's been undercutting forces in design for years. A decade ago a penny-pinching retailer picked a punk high school kid to do his website (disclosure: I was the kid) to save a few bucks and got a servicable if uneven product. Today he'd do 99designs and get the same. Real designers learn how to create, communicate and sell their value in tangible ways.

Hyena 15y ago

This sort of thing is weird to me. I don't have a problem with these services, but the whole "this changes everything" meme has got to stop. We've been through this every decade since, I imagine, the printing press. We still have designers, people still pay them, etc. People who don't appreciate or need designers insist that this makes them obsolete; they're almost certainly wrong. I suspect that no one who says this sort of thing would actually hire a designer unless absolutely forced to. 99designs, et al simply replace the hapless employee whose incidental knowledge of graphic software would have otherwise put him in the uncomfortable position of building the website. It likely also saves some GD an annoying round of emails that go nowhere. Both are thankful. Neither are hurt.

systems 15y ago

Ok, I think we probably need new words. Picking the perfect font, colors, making the perfect graphics is an important and in my opinion completely different task, than making finding products easy by for example reducing the number of clicks required and such Let use Vim as an example, the design of the interaction between the author and text is completely separate from the colorscheme Interaction design, is not the same as Look and feel design is not the same as graphic design I notice that most of the time, we speak of all design categories collectively, which really hurt the debate A good interaction designer is not necessarily the same person as a graphic designer