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I think Google is getting a raw deal in this argument. This author and Doug Bowman talk about human designers being needed to make decisions about shades of bl

by dsil 18y ago

I think Google is getting a raw deal in this argument. This author and Doug Bowman talk about human designers being needed to make decisions about shades of blue and number of pixels for dividing lines. In most cases thats fine, but if you have the number of users google does you might as well let an algorithm figure it out, rather than have a team of designers argue back and forth about whose gut decision is correct. On the other hand, there is TONS of great human-driven design going on at google. No algorithm came up with emails organized as conversations, or draggable, fast maps, or clean stock-quote pages with huge interactive charts, etc etc. Fine, have an algorithm do some a/b testing to figure out how many pixels various lines on those pages should be, and which shade of colors to use. Of course designers arguing for their gut instincts on those decisions are going to be frustrated. They should have just let the data make the decisions its good at, and stick to doing the design that computers can't.

TomOfTTB 18y ago
I’m not an artist. But I’ve worked with my fair share of really great artists and the impression I’ve always been given is that great art comes from consistency of vision. In other words it matters a great deal to them what shade of blue they use or how thick a line is. This isn’t a mindset I, as a programmer, understand. But I’ve seen great art come of it and the people making that great art have told me it’s important. (I've also seen lousy art generated by committee which just backs up that claim) I think that is the root of this conversation. What Doug Bowman et. al are saying is there are different ways of doing things and Google doesn’t realize that. They think everything can be done from an engineering standpoint and that’s a philosophy that kills the drive of most creative people. So when you say "why not let an algorithm figure it out" you’re missing the creative person’s point. (You said there "is TONS of great human-driven design" inside Google but I don’t know where you get that information from. That’s not the way I’d always heard it)
- boucher 18y ago
  You have glanced the side of an interesting point: what comes out of data driven design is not art. Great design, the kind of work that people obsess over Apple for (at its best), cannot be made that way. Great design is art; it is expression; it is fundamentally opinionated. It's not the only way to design a user interface, to be certain. But Doug isn't interested in working in that environment, because he thinks of himself as an artist, not a statistician.

by dsil 18y ago

TomOfTTB 18y ago

I’m not an artist. But I’ve worked with my fair share of really great artists and the impression I’ve always been given is that great art comes from consistency of vision. In other words it matters a great deal to them what shade of blue they use or how thick a line is. This isn’t a mindset I, as a programmer, understand. But I’ve seen great art come of it and the people making that great art have told me it’s important. (I've also seen lousy art generated by committee which just backs up that claim) I think that is the root of this conversation. What Doug Bowman et. al are saying is there are different ways of doing things and Google doesn’t realize that. They think everything can be done from an engineering standpoint and that’s a philosophy that kills the drive of most creative people. So when you say "why not let an algorithm figure it out" you’re missing the creative person’s point. (You said there "is TONS of great human-driven design" inside Google but I don’t know where you get that information from. That’s not the way I’d always heard it)

boucher 18y ago
You have glanced the side of an interesting point: what comes out of data driven design is not art. Great design, the kind of work that people obsess over Apple for (at its best), cannot be made that way. Great design is art; it is expression; it is fundamentally opinionated. It's not the only way to design a user interface, to be certain. But Doug isn't interested in working in that environment, because he thinks of himself as an artist, not a statistician.