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Yeah, being handwavy about IA is absolutely a common sin of weak designs. I love getting a design that's technically sound, not just pretty. Another problem I'

Yeah, being handwavy about IA is absolutely a common sin of weak designs. I love getting a design that's technically sound, not just pretty. Another problem I've seen at work with the "design first" approach vs planning for technical feedback on an initial design: our frontend engineers would take the design and implement it exactly as is, papering over differences between the data entry and the underlying data model as needed — then users get confused about what exactly each option or interaction does. It's close enough to be serviceable (and not get fixed) but different enough to be annoying.

seanwilson 4y ago
> Another problem I've seen at work with the "design first" approach vs planning for technical feedback on an initial design: our frontend engineers would take the design and implement it exactly as is, papering over differences between the data entry and the underlying data model as needed — then users get confused about what exactly each option or interaction does. It's close enough to be serviceable (and not get fixed) but different enough to be annoying. This is where you should design wireframes first (e.g. rough greyscale sketches), turn them into clickable prototypes (Figma and InVision let you link up wireframes this way), and get feedback on these from user testing and the developers before creating high-definition designs or doing any coding.
adrianmsmith 4y ago
A classic example of this imho is the "create filter" dialog in Gmail. Used to look like this https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/3Bjwe3vYdJTAr9L6oViNoe/01871127d4fe7882f88929b6dd9709de/Create_Gmail_filter?w=1400 https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/3Bjwe3vYdJTAr9L6oV... i.e. had a bunch of options for what should happen when an email matched the rule, and also a "also apply this rule to existing email" checkbox. Now it looks like this https://bleakton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Create-rules-to-filter-emails.png https://bleakton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Create-rules... . Some designer obviously thought, there are lots of checkboxes for what should happen when an email matches the rule and the "also apply this rule for existing email" is also a checkbox so just put them all in one row, despite it having a completely different meaning.
- asddubs 4y ago
  maybe the thing to do would have been to just have two different buttons instead

seanwilson 4y ago

> Another problem I've seen at work with the "design first" approach vs planning for technical feedback on an initial design: our frontend engineers would take the design and implement it exactly as is, papering over differences between the data entry and the underlying data model as needed — then users get confused about what exactly each option or interaction does. It's close enough to be serviceable (and not get fixed) but different enough to be annoying. This is where you should design wireframes first (e.g. rough greyscale sketches), turn them into clickable prototypes (Figma and InVision let you link up wireframes this way), and get feedback on these from user testing and the developers before creating high-definition designs or doing any coding.

adrianmsmith 4y ago

A classic example of this imho is the "create filter" dialog in Gmail. Used to look like this https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/3Bjwe3vYdJTAr9L6oViNoe/01871127d4fe7882f88929b6dd9709de/Create_Gmail_filter?w=1400 https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/3Bjwe3vYdJTAr9L6oV... i.e. had a bunch of options for what should happen when an email matched the rule, and also a "also apply this rule to existing email" checkbox. Now it looks like this https://bleakton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Create-rules-to-filter-emails.png https://bleakton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Create-rules... . Some designer obviously thought, there are lots of checkboxes for what should happen when an email matches the rule and the "also apply this rule for existing email" is also a checkbox so just put them all in one row, despite it having a completely different meaning.

asddubs 4y ago
maybe the thing to do would have been to just have two different buttons instead