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A developer who is a designer. The ultimate goal. This is what most people/companies don't get when they want to build an iOS app. That the developer SHOULD be

by seivan 14y ago

A developer who is a designer. The ultimate goal. This is what most people/companies don't get when they want to build an iOS app. That the developer SHOULD be the designer. Especially on iOS. Yet startups still waste a ton of money of some UX monkeys, some designers and a developer. Just get one or two guys (depending on project size) who can code AND design. It's always going to be more efficient and better.

joelanman 14y ago
Sorry but why the derogatory UX term? Yes it'd be great if everyone could do everything, but that's not realistic on most projects.
- seivan 14y ago
  Most startups don't stop and think about it. They end up looking for all parties not thinking about the cost benefit. It's cheaper _and_ better with a developer who can design.
dan_manges 14y ago
It's much harder to find somebody who is really good at design and development than it is to find somebody good at just one of the two. As soon as you have enough fulltime design and fulltime development work, you can have people who specialize in each rather than people who split their time between the two.
- seivan 14y ago
  It costs more not to. And specialise is such a bullshit thing to say. A developer has a better approach to design than a designer that doesn't know the ecosystem as good as the guy coding.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    As a full-time mobile developer, I have to call bullshit on your claims. The vast majority of mobile devs I've met are only semi-competent on design, if not entirely incompetent. Sure, the perfect mobile person is someone who has a deep understanding of the code and incredible design skills and taste - but what you're talking about is a unicorn. I'd be surprised if there were more than a few dozen of these people in existence. Here in the real world your choices are: - Mediocre-to-shitty engineer with solid design skills. He/she will shit all over your codebase and mask a boatload of technical debt by how beautiful the app is (until your crash reports roll in, or it's time to add features). - Good-to-great engineer with mediocre-to-shitty design skills. He/she will create a solid, stable, extensible codebase but the app will range somewhere between "buttons goes in right places" and "buttons WTF". On the other hand, there is an increasing demographic of designers who do understand the ecosystem. I'm lucky enough to work with some of them, who understand the nuances of touch target sizes, gesture-based control, etc. They're a little harder to find than your typical web designer, but they're a hell of a lot more common than your unicorn engineer-designer-fused-archon-deity. A good engineer pairing with a good mobile designer is a combination far easier to achieve than hunting a near-mythical figure.
    - gdubs 14y ago
      Those are massive generalizations. Yes, plenty of engineers have terrible taste. Plenty of designers have no deep knowledge of data-structures. It's status quo to compartmentalize talent. This attitude is so entrenched in my experience, that it's best to pretend that you don't know anything about design if you're working in an engineering department. But, a different level of insight in design can occur when the designer intimately understands the technological constraints.
    - seivan 14y ago
      Hahaha, those are the choices you give me? I am not going to debate this any further, you've made up your mind. "near-mythical" huh? Good to know.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    You don't need to know how to write Objective-C to understand conceptually how a mobile app goes together--and good interactive designers do. Maybe you have not worked with any yet?
gdubs 14y ago
I think the negative responses are coming from the fact that you say the developer SHOULD be the designer. As people have pointed out below, this is a rare combination, and hard to achieve at business scale. But, I gotta say that I agree in general that this is a good direction to move in. You see it in aerospace, industrial design, automotive design, architecture -- fields where aesthetics are intertwined with the technological constraints of the medium. When pg talks about what a developer working on their own can achieve, it's logical to extend that to what a developer who is also a designer can achieve on their own...

by seivan 14y ago

joelanman 14y ago

Sorry but why the derogatory UX term? Yes it'd be great if everyone could do everything, but that's not realistic on most projects.

seivan 14y ago
Most startups don't stop and think about it. They end up looking for all parties not thinking about the cost benefit. It's cheaper _and_ better with a developer who can design.

dan_manges 14y ago

It's much harder to find somebody who is really good at design and development than it is to find somebody good at just one of the two. As soon as you have enough fulltime design and fulltime development work, you can have people who specialize in each rather than people who split their time between the two.

seivan 14y ago
It costs more not to. And specialise is such a bullshit thing to say. A developer has a better approach to design than a designer that doesn't know the ecosystem as good as the guy coding.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  As a full-time mobile developer, I have to call bullshit on your claims. The vast majority of mobile devs I've met are only semi-competent on design, if not entirely incompetent. Sure, the perfect mobile person is someone who has a deep understanding of the code and incredible design skills and taste - but what you're talking about is a unicorn. I'd be surprised if there were more than a few dozen of these people in existence. Here in the real world your choices are: - Mediocre-to-shitty engineer with solid design skills. He/she will shit all over your codebase and mask a boatload of technical debt by how beautiful the app is (until your crash reports roll in, or it's time to add features). - Good-to-great engineer with mediocre-to-shitty design skills. He/she will create a solid, stable, extensible codebase but the app will range somewhere between "buttons goes in right places" and "buttons WTF". On the other hand, there is an increasing demographic of designers who do understand the ecosystem. I'm lucky enough to work with some of them, who understand the nuances of touch target sizes, gesture-based control, etc. They're a little harder to find than your typical web designer, but they're a hell of a lot more common than your unicorn engineer-designer-fused-archon-deity. A good engineer pairing with a good mobile designer is a combination far easier to achieve than hunting a near-mythical figure.
  - gdubs 14y ago
    Those are massive generalizations. Yes, plenty of engineers have terrible taste. Plenty of designers have no deep knowledge of data-structures. It's status quo to compartmentalize talent. This attitude is so entrenched in my experience, that it's best to pretend that you don't know anything about design if you're working in an engineering department. But, a different level of insight in design can occur when the designer intimately understands the technological constraints.
  - seivan 14y ago
    Hahaha, those are the choices you give me? I am not going to debate this any further, you've made up your mind. "near-mythical" huh? Good to know.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  You don't need to know how to write Objective-C to understand conceptually how a mobile app goes together--and good interactive designers do. Maybe you have not worked with any yet?

gdubs 14y ago

I think the negative responses are coming from the fact that you say the developer SHOULD be the designer. As people have pointed out below, this is a rare combination, and hard to achieve at business scale. But, I gotta say that I agree in general that this is a good direction to move in. You see it in aerospace, industrial design, automotive design, architecture -- fields where aesthetics are intertwined with the technological constraints of the medium. When pg talks about what a developer working on their own can achieve, it's logical to extend that to what a developer who is also a designer can achieve on their own...