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Most software is not designed by intelligent and thoughtful people anymore. It is designed by hastily promoted middle manager PM/Product type people who, as has

Most software is not designed by intelligent and thoughtful people anymore. It is designed by hastily promoted middle manager PM/Product type people who, as has been mentioned elsewhere, simply were not around when thoughtful human interface design was borderline mandatory for efficiency’s sake. There is incompetence and there is also malevolence in the encouragement of dark patterns by the revenue side of the business.

api 6mo ago
Software is now media, not tooling. Media tends to come with a lot of baked in perverse incentives.
- adityaathalye 6mo ago
  Feels like somebody has read their Marshall McLuhan :) I recently started reading Understanding Media, and every chapter delivers at least one mind-melting moment; something he draws attention to and/or frames in some way.
polkapie 6mo ago
[flagged]
- exe34 6mo ago
  Would it be better to bring this up in the retro? We're getting sidetracked here. We could set up a meeting with the stakeholders.
bfbf 6mo ago
It’s amazing how many blank stares I get when I, as mobile engineer, tell stakeholders that we shouldn’t just implement some random interface idea they thought up in the shower and we instead need design input! “But why can’t you just do it?” Because I recognise the importance of consistent UX and an IA that can actually be followed. Just like developers, (proper) designers solve problems, an we need to stop asking them for faster bikes.
- jstanley 6mo ago
  There's a time and a place for it. If you already know exactly what the program needs to do, then sure, design a user interface. If you are still exploring the design space then it's better to try things out as quickly as possible even if the ui is rough.
  - Enginerrrd 6mo ago
    The latter is an interesting mindset to advocate for. In almost every other engineering discipline, this would be frowned upon. I suspect wisdom could be gained by not discounting better forethought to be honest. However, I really wonder how formula 1 teams manage their engineering concepts and driver UI/UX. They do some crazy experimental things, and they have high budgets, but they're often pulling off high-risk ideas on the very edge of feasibility. Every subtle iteration requires driver testing and feedback. I really wonder what processes they use to tie it all together. I suspect that they think about this quite diligently and dare I say even somewhat rigidly. I think it quite likely that the culture that led to the intense and detailed way they look at process for pit-stops and stuff carries over to the rest of their design processes, versioning, and iteration/testing.
    - gmueckl 6mo ago
      Racing like in Formula 1 is extremely different from normal product design: each Formula 1 car has a user base of exactly 1: the driver that is going to use it. Not even the cars from the same team are identical for that reason. The driver can basically dictate the UX design because there is never any friction with other users. Also, turnaround times from idea to final product can be insane at that level. These teams often have to accomplish in days what normally takes months. But they can pull it off by having every step of the design and manufacturing process in house.
  - ivan_gammel 6mo ago
    There exist other ways to do the research. „Try things out“ is often not just a signal of „we don‘t know what to do“, but also a signal of „we have no idea how to properly measure the outcomes of things we try“.
mohamedkoubaa 6mo ago
Cybernetic natural selection should take care of this over time, but the rate of random mutations in software systems is much higher than in biological systems. Would be interested in modeling the equilibrium dynamics of this
- mrob 6mo ago
  That would happen in a free market, but software is intentionally not a free market thanks to copyright/patent laws. In software, lock-in effects dominate. People will continue using bad software because it's necessary to interoperate with bad software other people are using. There's a coordination problem where everybody would be better off if they collectively switched to better software, but any individual is worse off if they're the first to switch.
mbesto 6mo ago
This is reductionist and myopic. I've personally been through building forms online and it's hell to try to find consensus on perhaps the most common forms used online. Let's take a credit card form: - Do I let the user copy and paste values in? - Do I let them use IE6? - Do I need to test for the user using an esotoric browser (Brave) with an esoteric password manager (KeePassXC)? - Do I make it accessible for someone's OpenClaw bot to use it? - Do I make it inaccessible to a nefarious actor who uses OpenClaw to use it? I could go on... Balancing accessibility and usability is hard.[0] [0] Steve Yegge's platform rant - https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611
- ninalanyon 6mo ago
  The thing that winds me up about credit card input is that it won't let me enter it as it is written on my card, in groups of four digits. The same applies to fields that expect telephone numbers. They should all accept arbitrary amounts of white-space. If you don't allow me to paste a card number in I might well not buy from you.
- userbinator 6mo ago
  All you need to do is use standard HTML form elements. None of those questions are even relevant, just excuses to increase complexity and make things harder for everyone.
  - mbesto 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - kalleboo 6mo ago
      Looks like as perfect compatibility as you can get https://caniuse.com/wf-input https://caniuse.com/wf-input
  - epistasis 6mo ago
    Today I accidentally transposed the first two digits on my CC number. The form programmer had done some super stupid validation that didn't allow me to edit it directly. Every change moves the cursor to the end of the input. More than 16 characters could not be typed. Any person who codes that PoS should have their software license revoked and never be allowed in the industry again. Far better to use a plain text input than all the effort used to make users lives hell.
ErigmolCt 6mo ago
Yep, there's some bad incentives and some rushed work, but calling it mostly incompetence or malice kind of ignores how much the underlying system has changed
cosmic_cheese 6mo ago
Also, in the 2010s a lot of old guard UX designers got circulated out in favor of designers who either had backgrounds in other mediums (e.g. print) or were generalists with little understanding of user interfaces or technical capabilities. This didn't help matters.
- ahartmetz 6mo ago
  UX is often done by graphic designers IME. They aren't the worst people to do it (generally better than developers), but not the best neither.
- TeriyakiBomb 6mo ago
  I'm in this comment and I don't like it For real though, when UX became an actual official discipline wasn't too long before a lot of the arse fell out of graphic design and a load of them moved over. A lot of people from newer generations of UX/UI people are possibly worse, often just rolling out conventions wholesale with little thought. Hiding behind design systems and clutching Figma files like they're pearls. Contrary to what the author says, actual idioms are more common than ever before. They've just cherry picked older examples. He's talking about an era of software where one of the Windows media player skins was a giant green head (No shade, I loved that guy) the real issue is in the superficial changes and the aforementioned lack of consideration when rolling them out
viccis 6mo ago
>It is designed by hastily promoted middle manager PM/Product type people As someone in the middle of arguing about API design and service boundaries in a complex system with a product manager right now, who has redesigned our full system's architecture and release roadmap himself, I wish it weren't true.
Eji1700 6mo ago
> Most software is not designed by intelligent and thoughtful people anymore. Eh nostalgia/survivorship bias. Not saying that you're wrong about the shift to shoving it out door for a PM, but "nerd who is adamant THEIR layout is the only one" wasn't exactly the heyday of software design either. I'm still of the opinion most people should get more comfortable with layers and smaller keyboards, but I've also met the linux nerds who swear the world NEEDS insert.

api 6mo ago

Software is now media, not tooling. Media tends to come with a lot of baked in perverse incentives.

adityaathalye 6mo ago
Feels like somebody has read their Marshall McLuhan :) I recently started reading Understanding Media, and every chapter delivers at least one mind-melting moment; something he draws attention to and/or frames in some way.

polkapie 6mo ago

[flagged]

exe34 6mo ago
Would it be better to bring this up in the retro? We're getting sidetracked here. We could set up a meeting with the stakeholders.

bfbf 6mo ago

It’s amazing how many blank stares I get when I, as mobile engineer, tell stakeholders that we shouldn’t just implement some random interface idea they thought up in the shower and we instead need design input! “But why can’t you just do it?” Because I recognise the importance of consistent UX and an IA that can actually be followed. Just like developers, (proper) designers solve problems, an we need to stop asking them for faster bikes.

jstanley 6mo ago
There's a time and a place for it. If you already know exactly what the program needs to do, then sure, design a user interface. If you are still exploring the design space then it's better to try things out as quickly as possible even if the ui is rough.
- Enginerrrd 6mo ago
  The latter is an interesting mindset to advocate for. In almost every other engineering discipline, this would be frowned upon. I suspect wisdom could be gained by not discounting better forethought to be honest. However, I really wonder how formula 1 teams manage their engineering concepts and driver UI/UX. They do some crazy experimental things, and they have high budgets, but they're often pulling off high-risk ideas on the very edge of feasibility. Every subtle iteration requires driver testing and feedback. I really wonder what processes they use to tie it all together. I suspect that they think about this quite diligently and dare I say even somewhat rigidly. I think it quite likely that the culture that led to the intense and detailed way they look at process for pit-stops and stuff carries over to the rest of their design processes, versioning, and iteration/testing.
  - gmueckl 6mo ago
    Racing like in Formula 1 is extremely different from normal product design: each Formula 1 car has a user base of exactly 1: the driver that is going to use it. Not even the cars from the same team are identical for that reason. The driver can basically dictate the UX design because there is never any friction with other users. Also, turnaround times from idea to final product can be insane at that level. These teams often have to accomplish in days what normally takes months. But they can pull it off by having every step of the design and manufacturing process in house.
- ivan_gammel 6mo ago
  There exist other ways to do the research. „Try things out“ is often not just a signal of „we don‘t know what to do“, but also a signal of „we have no idea how to properly measure the outcomes of things we try“.

mohamedkoubaa 6mo ago

Cybernetic natural selection should take care of this over time, but the rate of random mutations in software systems is much higher than in biological systems. Would be interested in modeling the equilibrium dynamics of this

mrob 6mo ago
That would happen in a free market, but software is intentionally not a free market thanks to copyright/patent laws. In software, lock-in effects dominate. People will continue using bad software because it's necessary to interoperate with bad software other people are using. There's a coordination problem where everybody would be better off if they collectively switched to better software, but any individual is worse off if they're the first to switch.

mbesto 6mo ago

This is reductionist and myopic. I've personally been through building forms online and it's hell to try to find consensus on perhaps the most common forms used online. Let's take a credit card form: - Do I let the user copy and paste values in? - Do I let them use IE6? - Do I need to test for the user using an esotoric browser (Brave) with an esoteric password manager (KeePassXC)? - Do I make it accessible for someone's OpenClaw bot to use it? - Do I make it inaccessible to a nefarious actor who uses OpenClaw to use it? I could go on... Balancing accessibility and usability is hard.[0] [0] Steve Yegge's platform rant - https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611

ninalanyon 6mo ago
The thing that winds me up about credit card input is that it won't let me enter it as it is written on my card, in groups of four digits. The same applies to fields that expect telephone numbers. They should all accept arbitrary amounts of white-space. If you don't allow me to paste a card number in I might well not buy from you.
userbinator 6mo ago
All you need to do is use standard HTML form elements. None of those questions are even relevant, just excuses to increase complexity and make things harder for everyone.
- mbesto 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - kalleboo 6mo ago
    Looks like as perfect compatibility as you can get https://caniuse.com/wf-input https://caniuse.com/wf-input
- epistasis 6mo ago
  Today I accidentally transposed the first two digits on my CC number. The form programmer had done some super stupid validation that didn't allow me to edit it directly. Every change moves the cursor to the end of the input. More than 16 characters could not be typed. Any person who codes that PoS should have their software license revoked and never be allowed in the industry again. Far better to use a plain text input than all the effort used to make users lives hell.

ErigmolCt 6mo ago

Yep, there's some bad incentives and some rushed work, but calling it mostly incompetence or malice kind of ignores how much the underlying system has changed

cosmic_cheese 6mo ago

Also, in the 2010s a lot of old guard UX designers got circulated out in favor of designers who either had backgrounds in other mediums (e.g. print) or were generalists with little understanding of user interfaces or technical capabilities. This didn't help matters.

ahartmetz 6mo ago
UX is often done by graphic designers IME. They aren't the worst people to do it (generally better than developers), but not the best neither.
TeriyakiBomb 6mo ago
I'm in this comment and I don't like it For real though, when UX became an actual official discipline wasn't too long before a lot of the arse fell out of graphic design and a load of them moved over. A lot of people from newer generations of UX/UI people are possibly worse, often just rolling out conventions wholesale with little thought. Hiding behind design systems and clutching Figma files like they're pearls. Contrary to what the author says, actual idioms are more common than ever before. They've just cherry picked older examples. He's talking about an era of software where one of the Windows media player skins was a giant green head (No shade, I loved that guy) the real issue is in the superficial changes and the aforementioned lack of consideration when rolling them out

viccis 6mo ago

>It is designed by hastily promoted middle manager PM/Product type people As someone in the middle of arguing about API design and service boundaries in a complex system with a product manager right now, who has redesigned our full system's architecture and release roadmap himself, I wish it weren't true.

Eji1700 6mo ago

> Most software is not designed by intelligent and thoughtful people anymore. Eh nostalgia/survivorship bias. Not saying that you're wrong about the shift to shoving it out door for a PM, but "nerd who is adamant THEIR layout is the only one" wasn't exactly the heyday of software design either. I'm still of the opinion most people should get more comfortable with layers and smaller keyboards, but I've also met the linux nerds who swear the world NEEDS insert.