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> The lack of customization feels like a slap. Like Spotify designers telling me “you don’t know what you want, we know better,” but the problem is they don’t,

> The lack of customization feels like a slap. Like Spotify designers telling me “you don’t know what you want, we know better,” but the problem is they don’t, and they haven’t for a long time. Warning: extremely broad stereotyping to follow. This is macro level stuff, not micro level stuff. Real individual humans are far more complex and nuanced than what I'm about to say and don't fit neatly into these categories. This pretty much sums up all of my feelings on modern software. A good designer can be a real asset and make for a much better product. The problem is, only maybe 20% of designers are actually good designers, and the humility required to make you a good designer often makes you less pushy. The opposite 20% of designers who think they know better than everyone else happen to be the loudest and pushiest, so they often get their way. Everybody tries to copy Apple because Apple has had great success with telling their users how they should use the software, but this is a mistake unless you are only targeting Apple's user base. Please stop looking at your app's UI as a work of art. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a beautiful looking app and I know the joy that comes from creating something beautiful. But remember, it must have form and function. Look at it first as a functional machine, and then beautify and polish it. A great designer can work wonders with what they have! If your boots are beautiful but your toes are getting frost-bitten, they aren't good boots! In closing, I love designers and I'm glad we have them now. They are important and can be great assets. We just need a mindshift, much like we did in engineering.

jszymborski 3y ago
> If your boots are beautiful but your toes are getting frost-bitten, they aren't good boots! Reminds me of a saying that a Scottish woman taught me: "All fur coat and no knickers" Although, as a Canadian, I can relate to your idiom a bit more.
Adrig 3y ago
Sadly it's not only designers but sometimes the whole product org who is biased… I lost on a potential design contract earlier this year because the company wanted a paid case study. 3 hours to improve their onboarding and customer activation. I showed an outline of the direction I thought was best, highlighted the core concepts to watch for, and opened to further tests we could do to achieve the target KPI. They told me my concepts were not “bold enough” and I wasn't defending it as hard as they'd like. It seems that to them, a designer should be confident enough to impose his vision after 3h of work on one of the most important flows of a B2B app. No hard feeling against them, I was probably not a good fit. But it's not the first time people expect me to come in and “do the design thing” like it's dark magic.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  There's an inherent issue with being both a paying patron and lay judge. If I want greatness, I probably shouldn't hire an expert and then say "Eh, I don't like it"... but you constantly see that dynamic in management and creative consulting. Argue on the merits and goals, sure! But why substitute a VP's taste for an expert they're paying?! If someone needs an ego fluff, there are cheaper ways.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Yes thank you, great point. I've definitely seen the organizational leadership push designers to be more imposing, and that's a big problem. I think that a lot of VPs struggle to justify the cost (salary) of designers because it can be difficult to identify the contributions/value when you aren't intimately involved in the process. Because of this they want to see someone who they think will really take the reins and make the investment worth it. This is IMHO a big mistake, but it's the best explanation I can think of to explain what I've seen in the past. I think there's also sometimes an idea that engineers and designers are inherently in conflict and engineers will ruin things if not kept in check and dominated by a strongly opinionated designer. I think this largely stems from Apple and the Jobs/Ive era, but regardless, in most software I've been a part of this is a mistake. That sort of domination/conflict-based "teamwork" does not lead to the results they think it does.
tekla 3y ago
Knock off a 0 from that number
cm11 3y ago
I agree, 20% sounds about right. But designers are rarely high in the food chain—they receive requirements, they receive feedback, they receive timelines. A lot of the bad "design" comes before the interface gets worked on. These aren't really two way conversations. Much of the arguments engineers lose to non-technical leaders have the same dynamics. Except that the engineering function, if not an individual engineer, generally has more sway. Tech companies aren't organized well to make good products. Functional managers, like a design manager, are pretty toothless—their role is a middle man between the designer and frankly nothing. And a product manager (in many ways, the designer's real boss) has their own priorities.
- pas 3y ago
  that simply means someone else a non-professional designer is acting as one. with the results being as they are, and that's how unsurprisingly we end up with bad design. but usually the company - for a while - ends up with a lot of revenue.
kranke155 3y ago
Interactive design should be interactive. I've always believe this. It's in the name. The very concept of interactive design should be that its user should be allowed to change it, and that's true of essentially any serious software application that's stood the test of time. They are malleable. The current, Apple-inspired "we know better" is just a cultural aberration that emerged from the post-iPhone landscape. Everyone's thought was "the iPhone only has one button". Well yeah but it had a huge touchscreen that could do about anything. It was malleable. Software must be malleable, particularly in bigger screens.
esafak 3y ago
Spotify's UI is unusually rigid. You can't resize or move anything.

jszymborski 3y ago

> If your boots are beautiful but your toes are getting frost-bitten, they aren't good boots! Reminds me of a saying that a Scottish woman taught me: "All fur coat and no knickers" Although, as a Canadian, I can relate to your idiom a bit more.

Adrig 3y ago

Sadly it's not only designers but sometimes the whole product org who is biased… I lost on a potential design contract earlier this year because the company wanted a paid case study. 3 hours to improve their onboarding and customer activation. I showed an outline of the direction I thought was best, highlighted the core concepts to watch for, and opened to further tests we could do to achieve the target KPI. They told me my concepts were not “bold enough” and I wasn't defending it as hard as they'd like. It seems that to them, a designer should be confident enough to impose his vision after 3h of work on one of the most important flows of a B2B app. No hard feeling against them, I was probably not a good fit. But it's not the first time people expect me to come in and “do the design thing” like it's dark magic.

ethbr1 3y ago
There's an inherent issue with being both a paying patron and lay judge. If I want greatness, I probably shouldn't hire an expert and then say "Eh, I don't like it"... but you constantly see that dynamic in management and creative consulting. Argue on the merits and goals, sure! But why substitute a VP's taste for an expert they're paying?! If someone needs an ego fluff, there are cheaper ways.
freedomben 3y ago
Yes thank you, great point. I've definitely seen the organizational leadership push designers to be more imposing, and that's a big problem. I think that a lot of VPs struggle to justify the cost (salary) of designers because it can be difficult to identify the contributions/value when you aren't intimately involved in the process. Because of this they want to see someone who they think will really take the reins and make the investment worth it. This is IMHO a big mistake, but it's the best explanation I can think of to explain what I've seen in the past. I think there's also sometimes an idea that engineers and designers are inherently in conflict and engineers will ruin things if not kept in check and dominated by a strongly opinionated designer. I think this largely stems from Apple and the Jobs/Ive era, but regardless, in most software I've been a part of this is a mistake. That sort of domination/conflict-based "teamwork" does not lead to the results they think it does.

tekla 3y ago

Knock off a 0 from that number

cm11 3y ago

I agree, 20% sounds about right. But designers are rarely high in the food chain—they receive requirements, they receive feedback, they receive timelines. A lot of the bad "design" comes before the interface gets worked on. These aren't really two way conversations. Much of the arguments engineers lose to non-technical leaders have the same dynamics. Except that the engineering function, if not an individual engineer, generally has more sway. Tech companies aren't organized well to make good products. Functional managers, like a design manager, are pretty toothless—their role is a middle man between the designer and frankly nothing. And a product manager (in many ways, the designer's real boss) has their own priorities.

pas 3y ago
that simply means someone else a non-professional designer is acting as one. with the results being as they are, and that's how unsurprisingly we end up with bad design. but usually the company - for a while - ends up with a lot of revenue.

kranke155 3y ago

Interactive design should be interactive. I've always believe this. It's in the name. The very concept of interactive design should be that its user should be allowed to change it, and that's true of essentially any serious software application that's stood the test of time. They are malleable. The current, Apple-inspired "we know better" is just a cultural aberration that emerged from the post-iPhone landscape. Everyone's thought was "the iPhone only has one button". Well yeah but it had a huge touchscreen that could do about anything. It was malleable. Software must be malleable, particularly in bigger screens.

esafak 3y ago

Spotify's UI is unusually rigid. You can't resize or move anything.