3 ms·

The problem with designers is I have to google words like "gestalt" and perform some sort of sacred incantation to "learn" it, all while forcing my eyes to roll

The problem with designers is I have to google words like "gestalt" and perform some sort of sacred incantation to "learn" it, all while forcing my eyes to roll back forward. Who can afford to think like this though? FAANGS? Every designer I've worked with loosely knows some design theory that is impossible to question beyond a quick "hmm maybe a few more pixels on the padding?" and is largely a pixel pusher due to pressure. If I started to talk about visual grouping and the golden rule my boss would have blown a gasket. I can't name a single well-designed app off the top of my head. I can name a million good-looking ones though. The problem with design is people have to eat. The UI reaches an ideal point but is never frozen, it lasts a limited amount of time before they start shaping the hedge down to a stump. Linear comes to mind. Spotify too. How are you going to reach a good design for a music player when there's 7000 people that need to put in 40 hours a week? A little lighter on the "gestalt" and a bit heavier on the "will this design murder the weekends of my dev team and scramble the brains of my users" please.

balamatom 1y ago
That's a problem with your bosses, not with your designers.
guappa 1y ago
Yeah most designers are bad at their job. Doesn't mean design can't be done properly.
- MarcelOlsz 1y ago
  Maybe before I die I will catch a glimpse of this mythical creature.
  - stavros 1y ago
    Citymapper is very well-designed, for example. Just does what you want, when you want it, and gets out of your way otherwise.
  - leakycap 1y ago
    If you haven't met a good designer and have been working in any industry more than a few years, maybe you don't know what you're looking for. Design is everywhere in your life & career & and you'd be lost without it. Perhaps you need to learn what design is, so you can start to notice it around you. Then, you'll be able to put that knowledge to work yourself and might become the mythical creature you desire to see in the world. Look up the Joshua Tree principle - I recommend Robyn Williams book series "for Non-Designers" get one that interests you and open your world up!
    - danaris 1y ago
      I mean, for a start, literally every human-made object is designed. It may be designed poorly, or designed purely for function, but every one is designed. The pen you use to write notes with, the sticky notes you write on, the traffic cones blocking off the open manhole on the way to work, the manhole cover lying nearby...all of those are designed. Design isn't just "making things look nice". It's every thought that goes into the structure, function, and aesthetic of an object, whether physical or digital.
Gravityloss 1y ago
There's a difference between design and styling. I'm a visual person rather than a verbal thinker, but more like a graphs / topolological kind of visual person, not about alignment, size or colors of things so much at all. I wish I could specify the content and topology and the computer would do the styling. I don't want to select fonts, font sizes, align boxes etc. Currently I think the best a computer can do is bullet points. Anything beyond that and you have to become a manual stylizer, which is what I specifically want to avoid. When using tables, you already you have to start manually adjusting column widths or they become very often very wasteful and hard to read.
keyle 1y ago
I feel the world "gestalt" has been thrown around in your circles a little too heavy handed. Who can afford to think like this? Anyone curious about the human brain. If you're concerned about the time to design something well, I would take just as long designing a terrible solution to a problem! Explaining with words why your design is the way it is isn't a waste of anyone's time, it's having a degree of confidence moving forward. It's having a healthy conversation about the said product. If anything, knowing what you're doing and being able to justify decisions, leads to a quicker decision making and therefore more time for implementation. A good design is thoughtful precisely to prevent re-work in the future. That's the point: understand, analyse, solve & apply. Don't get me started on large companies and their design teams... Going from one design system to another, redesigning every 6 months, and never quite finishing... I've seen those and I'm too old for that. I'd never imply that good design should be a road block or causing a late Friday evening of work; it takes just as long to implement a terrible design than a good one! I am merely encouraging everyone to stay curious, and look into building some skills in a field that is timeless, unlike most software engineering fields, and henceforth worthy of your time.
- sfn42 1y ago
  I read your comments and I think you come across as intelligent, thoughtful, knowledgeable and as someone who cares about doing a good job. Most people aren't those things, certainly not all at once. Most people seem to me like they mostly care about collecting a paycheck. That was their motivation for their studies and it's their motivation for their employment. You see people talking about writing obscure code so others can't replace them, you see this guy above talking about redesigning an app to justify their work week. I think these people who don't care are the same ones who make up all these excuses - we didn't do a good job because we didn't have time. We didnt do a good job because the client asked for a bad job. We didnt do a good job because if we do a bad job we have more job security. Any time I see these types of excuses I judge the person making them to be someone I don't want to work with. I don't make these excuses. I always strive to write good and maintainable code. I take the time I need to do things right and if someone pushes me to take shortcuts I push back if I can or I find a compromise like fixing it later(and then actually do so). If a client asks me to build something I know will be bad I tell them and suggest a better approach. In short, I take responsibility for my own work and I do not allow others to compromise the quality of my work. I do not respect people who blame others for their own shortcomings. Quality is less about constraints and more about having the ability and caring about it. Doing bad work generally isn't faster, if anything it's usually slower at least after a while. It's just that the people who do bad work needs an excuse to explain why their work is bad.
carlosjobim 1y ago
> I can't name a single well-designed app off the top of my head. When it's well designed you don't notice it. Surely you've encountered badly designed apps and interfaces in your life. Now think of the apps that don't make those same mistakes. The purpose of digital technology is so that people who are not developers should be able to use them and be productive with them. Just like cars are designed so that people who are not mechanics or engineers can also drive them.
glenngillen 1y ago
I worked somewhere that (IMO) placed a lot of emphasis on good design. Even among engineering folk we'd talk regularly about Dieter Rams' 10 principles of good design. Two of those principles being "it is unobtrusive" and "it is as little design as possible". > I can't name a single well-designed app off the top of my head Which wouldn't be a surprise to anybody who actually cares about good design. Precisely because a really well designed product should just help you do whatever is it needed to help you do, and be all most invisible in doing it. It just worked however you expected it to so well you barely even give it a passing thought. It was unobtrusive. It was as little design as possible. I was not trying to wow you by the fact it's one of the million good-looking apps you've seen.

balamatom 1y ago

That's a problem with your bosses, not with your designers.

guappa 1y ago

Yeah most designers are bad at their job. Doesn't mean design can't be done properly.

MarcelOlsz 1y ago
Maybe before I die I will catch a glimpse of this mythical creature.
- stavros 1y ago
  Citymapper is very well-designed, for example. Just does what you want, when you want it, and gets out of your way otherwise.
- leakycap 1y ago
  If you haven't met a good designer and have been working in any industry more than a few years, maybe you don't know what you're looking for. Design is everywhere in your life & career & and you'd be lost without it. Perhaps you need to learn what design is, so you can start to notice it around you. Then, you'll be able to put that knowledge to work yourself and might become the mythical creature you desire to see in the world. Look up the Joshua Tree principle - I recommend Robyn Williams book series "for Non-Designers" get one that interests you and open your world up!
  - danaris 1y ago
    I mean, for a start, literally every human-made object is designed. It may be designed poorly, or designed purely for function, but every one is designed. The pen you use to write notes with, the sticky notes you write on, the traffic cones blocking off the open manhole on the way to work, the manhole cover lying nearby...all of those are designed. Design isn't just "making things look nice". It's every thought that goes into the structure, function, and aesthetic of an object, whether physical or digital.

Gravityloss 1y ago

There's a difference between design and styling. I'm a visual person rather than a verbal thinker, but more like a graphs / topolological kind of visual person, not about alignment, size or colors of things so much at all. I wish I could specify the content and topology and the computer would do the styling. I don't want to select fonts, font sizes, align boxes etc. Currently I think the best a computer can do is bullet points. Anything beyond that and you have to become a manual stylizer, which is what I specifically want to avoid. When using tables, you already you have to start manually adjusting column widths or they become very often very wasteful and hard to read.

keyle 1y ago

I feel the world "gestalt" has been thrown around in your circles a little too heavy handed. Who can afford to think like this? Anyone curious about the human brain. If you're concerned about the time to design something well, I would take just as long designing a terrible solution to a problem! Explaining with words why your design is the way it is isn't a waste of anyone's time, it's having a degree of confidence moving forward. It's having a healthy conversation about the said product. If anything, knowing what you're doing and being able to justify decisions, leads to a quicker decision making and therefore more time for implementation. A good design is thoughtful precisely to prevent re-work in the future. That's the point: understand, analyse, solve & apply. Don't get me started on large companies and their design teams... Going from one design system to another, redesigning every 6 months, and never quite finishing... I've seen those and I'm too old for that. I'd never imply that good design should be a road block or causing a late Friday evening of work; it takes just as long to implement a terrible design than a good one! I am merely encouraging everyone to stay curious, and look into building some skills in a field that is timeless, unlike most software engineering fields, and henceforth worthy of your time.

sfn42 1y ago
I read your comments and I think you come across as intelligent, thoughtful, knowledgeable and as someone who cares about doing a good job. Most people aren't those things, certainly not all at once. Most people seem to me like they mostly care about collecting a paycheck. That was their motivation for their studies and it's their motivation for their employment. You see people talking about writing obscure code so others can't replace them, you see this guy above talking about redesigning an app to justify their work week. I think these people who don't care are the same ones who make up all these excuses - we didn't do a good job because we didn't have time. We didnt do a good job because the client asked for a bad job. We didnt do a good job because if we do a bad job we have more job security. Any time I see these types of excuses I judge the person making them to be someone I don't want to work with. I don't make these excuses. I always strive to write good and maintainable code. I take the time I need to do things right and if someone pushes me to take shortcuts I push back if I can or I find a compromise like fixing it later(and then actually do so). If a client asks me to build something I know will be bad I tell them and suggest a better approach. In short, I take responsibility for my own work and I do not allow others to compromise the quality of my work. I do not respect people who blame others for their own shortcomings. Quality is less about constraints and more about having the ability and caring about it. Doing bad work generally isn't faster, if anything it's usually slower at least after a while. It's just that the people who do bad work needs an excuse to explain why their work is bad.

carlosjobim 1y ago

> I can't name a single well-designed app off the top of my head. When it's well designed you don't notice it. Surely you've encountered badly designed apps and interfaces in your life. Now think of the apps that don't make those same mistakes. The purpose of digital technology is so that people who are not developers should be able to use them and be productive with them. Just like cars are designed so that people who are not mechanics or engineers can also drive them.

glenngillen 1y ago

I worked somewhere that (IMO) placed a lot of emphasis on good design. Even among engineering folk we'd talk regularly about Dieter Rams' 10 principles of good design. Two of those principles being "it is unobtrusive" and "it is as little design as possible". > I can't name a single well-designed app off the top of my head Which wouldn't be a surprise to anybody who actually cares about good design. Precisely because a really well designed product should just help you do whatever is it needed to help you do, and be all most invisible in doing it. It just worked however you expected it to so well you barely even give it a passing thought. It was unobtrusive. It was as little design as possible. I was not trying to wow you by the fact it's one of the million good-looking apps you've seen.