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Companies are definitely not saving money here. They're actually spending a shit-ton of money on designer-hours and developer-hours in order to have everything

by whstl 1y ago

Companies are definitely not saving money here. They're actually spending a shit-ton of money on designer-hours and developer-hours in order to have everything custom, but still with a subpar experience. It's similar to accessibility: a huge chunk of free off-the-shelf options are more accessible compared to the non-accessible chimeric design system of most modern web apps and sites.

qzw 1y ago
> They're actually spending a shit-ton of money on designer-hours and developer-hours in order to have everything custom, but still with a subpar experience. Are they though? My impression is that most companies are just using frameworks or sdks that promise some degree of cross platform uniformity, and that’s why they don’t use the native toolkits. The savings come from not having to develop UI for multiple OS targets.
- whstl 1y ago
  Pretty sure there's places doing it, but I haven't really worked anywhere that used a Vanilla framework, except for the first few months, or have used an app that just uses something off the shelf. I'm in the YC startup space, though, but have seen this also in enterprise.
amonith 1y ago
Here's the funny thing though (as a developer which worked for various companies that didn't have designers): It looks custom designed because... it's not designed at all :D At this point I'm not even sure if what you said is an insult or a compliment. Almost all projects I worked in looked more or less like the following: - a BA meets with the client and creates unstyled wireframes with all of the requested features. (BA doesn't really think about UX here, more or less applies some generic patterns). - the development team grabs the wireframes, uses a generic preexisting "design system" which is the cheapest for the chosen technology (can be whatever: Bootstrap, Tailwind, Material Design) and max. adjusts colors a bit to match the client's brand That's it. There is no design.
- whstl 1y ago
  Doesn't match my experience as a developer. I haven't worked in a place that doesn't use Figma, since Figma was released. And haven't worked in a place that didn't get a dedicated designer before the company was 6 months old. However: I must have worked with 30 different designers in 10 years and TWO of them actually knew how to properly use components and Figma. The rest just copy pasted shit around.
- KronisLV 1y ago
  I second this, it’s like people live in completely different worlds when it comes to getting stuff out the door. Of course, that’s still better than a 1 pizza team of full stack devs attempting to create their custom UI component library from scratch, now that’s a total mess.
  - whstl 1y ago
    Grandparent here. Alright, I totally believe you and everyone else, and would probably also be much happier in a less wasteful environment that you mention. In which industry/company size are you? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.
    - KronisLV 1y ago
      Unfortunately the environments without dedicated designers are also likely to be understaffed or under tight deadlines. Think along the lines of companies with either <200 employees that can't spare the resources (and also might be lacking in DevOps or other regards, often times falling behind the curve when it comes to all sorts of development practices), or the likes that work in consulting instead of building the product that they sell/dogfood themselves. There you'll get all sorts of people but more fluid team structures - full stack devs that just throw something together for the front end and it's considered good enough. Of course, it's also possible for companies without the actual means to delude themselves into thinking that they must do everything Google or other big orgs do - that's how you get bad bespoke components and frameworks without the mettle to make them good, as well as stuff like architectures based on microservices without a good reason to do so and so on.

by whstl 1y ago

qzw 1y ago

> They're actually spending a shit-ton of money on designer-hours and developer-hours in order to have everything custom, but still with a subpar experience. Are they though? My impression is that most companies are just using frameworks or sdks that promise some degree of cross platform uniformity, and that’s why they don’t use the native toolkits. The savings come from not having to develop UI for multiple OS targets.

whstl 1y ago
Pretty sure there's places doing it, but I haven't really worked anywhere that used a Vanilla framework, except for the first few months, or have used an app that just uses something off the shelf. I'm in the YC startup space, though, but have seen this also in enterprise.

amonith 1y ago

Here's the funny thing though (as a developer which worked for various companies that didn't have designers): It looks custom designed because... it's not designed at all :D At this point I'm not even sure if what you said is an insult or a compliment. Almost all projects I worked in looked more or less like the following: - a BA meets with the client and creates unstyled wireframes with all of the requested features. (BA doesn't really think about UX here, more or less applies some generic patterns). - the development team grabs the wireframes, uses a generic preexisting "design system" which is the cheapest for the chosen technology (can be whatever: Bootstrap, Tailwind, Material Design) and max. adjusts colors a bit to match the client's brand That's it. There is no design.

whstl 1y ago
Doesn't match my experience as a developer. I haven't worked in a place that doesn't use Figma, since Figma was released. And haven't worked in a place that didn't get a dedicated designer before the company was 6 months old. However: I must have worked with 30 different designers in 10 years and TWO of them actually knew how to properly use components and Figma. The rest just copy pasted shit around.
KronisLV 1y ago
I second this, it’s like people live in completely different worlds when it comes to getting stuff out the door. Of course, that’s still better than a 1 pizza team of full stack devs attempting to create their custom UI component library from scratch, now that’s a total mess.
- whstl 1y ago
  Grandparent here. Alright, I totally believe you and everyone else, and would probably also be much happier in a less wasteful environment that you mention. In which industry/company size are you? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.
  - KronisLV 1y ago
    Unfortunately the environments without dedicated designers are also likely to be understaffed or under tight deadlines. Think along the lines of companies with either <200 employees that can't spare the resources (and also might be lacking in DevOps or other regards, often times falling behind the curve when it comes to all sorts of development practices), or the likes that work in consulting instead of building the product that they sell/dogfood themselves. There you'll get all sorts of people but more fluid team structures - full stack devs that just throw something together for the front end and it's considered good enough. Of course, it's also possible for companies without the actual means to delude themselves into thinking that they must do everything Google or other big orgs do - that's how you get bad bespoke components and frameworks without the mettle to make them good, as well as stuff like architectures based on microservices without a good reason to do so and so on.