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UX in tech is bad for a great number of reasons. 1. Good UX is hard and even harder to get right from the start. When teams* are faced with tight deadlines to

UX in tech is bad for a great number of reasons. 1. Good UX is hard and even harder to get right from the start. When teams* are faced with tight deadlines to deliver functionality, they invest too little time in figuring out how to best solve a problem. Even less time and effort is expended to follow up on something that was delivered in order to see if it works (it doesn’t) and how it can be improved. 2. Developers* have their mind set on optimization. This applies to ticking off requirements on a backlog item (I refrain from using the term "User Story" on purpose; the context of features isn’t properly communicated either). With UI development, there is a myriad of details to cover that require attention from everyone and developers* won’t complain if there is no detailed spec for input constraints, form validation, error handling, responsive behavior, keyboard interaction, a11y. Works as designed, why bother. 3. UI Development (for tech, the interface to the user makes/breaks the UX) is seen as "lesser" or "a complicated mess to avoid" by senior developers*. My subjective feeling is, that the seniority in UI dev is/stays behind the mean. There are more juniors around. 4. To a degree, the product quality in tech isn't great, it's not only bad UX. Bad UX is merely more visible, despite it not making the news as much as the backend engineering blunders of not sanitizing input or exposing databases to the interwebs. 5. https://userinyerface.com https://userinyerface.com * Not all of them. There are exceptions - appreciate them and treat them nicely, they are hard to replace :)*

germinalphrase 5y ago
“ My subjective feeling is, that the seniority in UI dev is/stays behind the mean” With regard to quality/competency or organizational influence?
- colinjoy 5y ago
  Good question. Long answer: What I meant to say is that there seems to be more of a tendency for full stack or front end engineers to bleed into backend / system than the other way around. If we were to assume that seniority (here, strictly referring to days spent with bum on chair) is correlated with organizational influence, it would follow that there are less devs with focus on UI who end up in leadership roles. But as I said, I don’t claim to have an objective truth here.
achow 5y ago
"UI Development" is not gate keeper of great UX. If you want great UX invest in professional UX designers. If you want great house to live in, hire an architect, not civil engineers. [Edit] After hiring UX designers, listen to them, fund them (enough dev bandwidth to realize the design proposals), do not triage away "nice to fix" UI bugs. That is, change the engg' mindset.
- colinjoy 5y ago
  If I had to choose between a great architect and a mediocre builder or a master builder and a mediocre architect, I would choose the former to build my house. I say that as an (UX) architect :) Plans are worth little if you don't have the right people to translate them into reality with the right quality - and in my experience that involves more than painting by numbers. Imo great UI developers are essential for building great UI experiences.
  - achow 5y ago
    Yes. But they are already there and established, so why then this 'Ask HN'?

germinalphrase 5y ago

“ My subjective feeling is, that the seniority in UI dev is/stays behind the mean” With regard to quality/competency or organizational influence?

colinjoy 5y ago
Good question. Long answer: What I meant to say is that there seems to be more of a tendency for full stack or front end engineers to bleed into backend / system than the other way around. If we were to assume that seniority (here, strictly referring to days spent with bum on chair) is correlated with organizational influence, it would follow that there are less devs with focus on UI who end up in leadership roles. But as I said, I don’t claim to have an objective truth here.

achow 5y ago

"UI Development" is not gate keeper of great UX. If you want great UX invest in professional UX designers. If you want great house to live in, hire an architect, not civil engineers. [Edit] After hiring UX designers, listen to them, fund them (enough dev bandwidth to realize the design proposals), do not triage away "nice to fix" UI bugs. That is, change the engg' mindset.

colinjoy 5y ago
If I had to choose between a great architect and a mediocre builder or a master builder and a mediocre architect, I would choose the former to build my house. I say that as an (UX) architect :) Plans are worth little if you don't have the right people to translate them into reality with the right quality - and in my experience that involves more than painting by numbers. Imo great UI developers are essential for building great UI experiences.
- achow 5y ago
  Yes. But they are already there and established, so why then this 'Ask HN'?