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I'm not putting it on the people, but I am putting it on the "field" or the "discipline." Perhaps in the same vein as "Economics," which purports to be a scie

by jrm4 5y ago

I'm not putting it on the people, but I am putting it on the "field" or the "discipline." Perhaps in the same vein as "Economics," which purports to be a science but in practice is something else. UX may even be worse, because at least Econ has had the time and space to be established and is at least arguably a "discipline." I'm quite literally unsure as to whether "UX" should even exist as its own thing at all. I'm not sure you can mix "engineering" and "advertising" and "fashion" and "psychology" to this extent and have something coherent at the end.

karmakaze 5y ago
In an older age, UX would have been industrial design which I can certainly appreciate. Historically there's more of a separation of industrial design and how a thing operates, the variation in the exterior of cars doesn't dictate the drivetrain or controls. With software there tends to be more overlap. How things are grouped, displayed/hidden is explicitly affecting the displays and controls. We do need good UX, usability, ergonomics, etc. It can't be left to engineers who will merely attach a display/control to every element of the data model with 1:1 mappings. I agree that UX doesn't seem to be its own thing but it's hard to separate, with Conway's law and all. The best we can do is be frank with who it serves and/or why. I don't think people really want to know this level of truth on a daily basis though.
- jrm4 5y ago
  "I don't think people really want to know.." But why not go ahead and actually find out? That's my point, and that's what makes this field potentially SO MUCH DIFFERENT. It's true, in the past you couldn't do this for toasters. You had to do a ton of homework and pick a design and hope people liked it. But this is software! Just bake in a little "hey, you might break this but here's how to fiddle around with it" and let people work-slash-play.
  - karmakaze 5y ago
    This sounds good in theory, but then we could end up with something like the various Linux desktops. It's hard to find a complete and coherent one that doesn't also have annoying bits too. Usually if such a thing exists it's from implementation of a single vision rather than a collection of hobby experiments.
    - jrm4 5y ago
      One, there's no good reason that you can't have both. None at all. Lots of times in Steve Job's history where he arbitrarily (or at least, not for reasons of his expertise in UI) shut down greater user configurability -- not for the sake of design, but for the sake of market control. But also, two, I think "various Linux desktops" would be far preferable to what we have now. Again, I appreciate Steve Jobs' accelerating things in many ways, but also, he made interfaces perhaps too simple, to the point of frequently being just dumb.

by jrm4 5y ago

karmakaze 5y ago

In an older age, UX would have been industrial design which I can certainly appreciate. Historically there's more of a separation of industrial design and how a thing operates, the variation in the exterior of cars doesn't dictate the drivetrain or controls. With software there tends to be more overlap. How things are grouped, displayed/hidden is explicitly affecting the displays and controls. We do need good UX, usability, ergonomics, etc. It can't be left to engineers who will merely attach a display/control to every element of the data model with 1:1 mappings. I agree that UX doesn't seem to be its own thing but it's hard to separate, with Conway's law and all. The best we can do is be frank with who it serves and/or why. I don't think people really want to know this level of truth on a daily basis though.

jrm4 5y ago
"I don't think people really want to know.." But why not go ahead and actually find out? That's my point, and that's what makes this field potentially SO MUCH DIFFERENT. It's true, in the past you couldn't do this for toasters. You had to do a ton of homework and pick a design and hope people liked it. But this is software! Just bake in a little "hey, you might break this but here's how to fiddle around with it" and let people work-slash-play.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  This sounds good in theory, but then we could end up with something like the various Linux desktops. It's hard to find a complete and coherent one that doesn't also have annoying bits too. Usually if such a thing exists it's from implementation of a single vision rather than a collection of hobby experiments.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    One, there's no good reason that you can't have both. None at all. Lots of times in Steve Job's history where he arbitrarily (or at least, not for reasons of his expertise in UI) shut down greater user configurability -- not for the sake of design, but for the sake of market control. But also, two, I think "various Linux desktops" would be far preferable to what we have now. Again, I appreciate Steve Jobs' accelerating things in many ways, but also, he made interfaces perhaps too simple, to the point of frequently being just dumb.