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As someone who went through a job hunt without a "Dribbblized" portfolio a couple years ago: Go with the Dribbble approach. At least if you're looking for anyth

by rriepe 13y ago

As someone who went through a job hunt without a "Dribbblized" portfolio a couple years ago: Go with the Dribbble approach. At least if you're looking for anything resembling a design job. That final layer of polish and execution is what gets you hired. If you don't have that, you get eliminated immediately. Nobody will ask about your process or your wireframes if your resume gets tossed in the trash bin. You'll never have a conversation about the organizational mission and how it relates to the product if you never get called back for an interview. If you go in with Paul's first three steps (like I did) and you're lucky enough to talk to someone who doesn't eliminate based on that all-important fourth step of visual design, you'll find yourself in disagreement. There's 8,000 ways to build a product, and chances are your method simply won't line up with theirs. Meanwhile, there's also 8,000 ways to make something look good, but all of those ways end up beautiful. It's hard to argue about solid visual design, even if it doesn't fit your particular style or tastes. You can get away with subpar visual design skills at your own startup, like I did, but don't ever expect to get hired without developing those skills. They're more important than the other three combined.

micheljansen 13y ago
Well, I guess that depends on what sort of job you are applying for. If you want to focus on how it works, apply for UX/IxD positions and bring a portfolio that demonstrates you can think in those terms. If you're more interested in working on the visual aspects of design, e.g. how it looks, you need to demonstrate polish. I got hired just fine without a single pixel-perfect design in my portfolio. Personally, I wouldn't want to work for someone who only cares about what it looks like anyway.
Aloisius 13y ago
As someone who has hired designers over the years for various startups, I agree. The author seems to conflate UX with visual design or graphic design. They are not the same thing and often aren't done by the same person. I've had fantastic UX designers who, frankly, can't get perfectly laid out pixel perfect work done or do eye candy. I've had UI/graphic designers who were awful at figuring out flow. I've had people who are great at both. But one thing is certain, I want my products to be intuitive AND sexy because there is a certain subset of the market that will try your product just because it looks professionally designed and is on trend. There is a high overlap of those people with taste makers and I need those people using my product.
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  The author isn't conflating. That is what the words mean, and "UX" is the made up wank word. It's the "Web 2.0." of the design world. I'm pretty sure "UX" was created as a term in response to the market getting flooded with stylists (interested amateurs) calling themselves "designers". I'm interested to see what you believe to be the distinction between "visual design" and "graphic design". Traditionally, Graphic design is about how it works, with how it looks (what you call "eye candy") being secondary to (but still a part of) function. This is the sort of thing you can learn if you read books instead of just reading blog posts. And clearly, the definition of "graphic design" has been watered down to the point of irrelevance, and replaced with "UX". sure, fine call yourself whatever you want. But what makes you think UX won't get similarly watered down? The problem isn't the word itself, it's that the culture as a whole doesn't value design, including "designers". (in your language, the culture doesn't value "UX") Of course language is designed* by its users, and for the moment, it seems that we have indeed fully rotated our hierarchy words a notch down over the past 20 years. But please let us not be ignorant of history, and tradition, and what "graphic design" actually is (Or at least.. .used to be) and that the whole totem pole of design and designers is sliding on a downward trajectory. (I blame adobe for making it look easy. you could always look more convincingly like a skilled professional while operating a huge desk sized typesetting machine and laying out magazines by hand with paper, exacto blades, and photographic color separations) But sure, maybe inventing new wank words will prop up our careers for 5 more years. It's good marketing. it's good design, to invent words, to sell ourselves. Inventing a new word for "design" is a very designery thing to do. You can make design seem interesting and exciting again by giving it a new flashy buzzword. That will only take you so far though, until the novelty wears off, and suddenly you find everyone believes "UX" means "interested amateur who can make eye candy in photoshop" again. * see what I did there? "Design" being used to denote the decisions involved in how something works and is experienced, with no reference to how anything looks. Imagine that.
  - eflowers 13y ago
    I can't tell if you're saying that visual/graphic designers are saying they are doing "UX", or if "UX" people are really just hand-waving visual designers? I got lost around "wank word" and UX being the "Web 2.0 of the design world." Most UX people I know are focused on user research, usability, information architecture, and interaction design. I'd say maybe, 1 in 5 are visual designers, and maybe 1 in 3 have any passable graphic design skill at all. Maybe you're saying that people will be just called "user researcher", "information architect", etc etc and not use the word UX. But I think "wank word" is a tad inaccurate.
dreamfactory 13y ago
Bit depressing that even people in the design world don't understand the basic difference between design and styling -and think it's just some aesthetic thing rather than how we make planes that don't fall out of the sky and road signs that stop people getting themselves lost. OTOH it would seem to indicate a big opportunity (I guess Steve Jobs exploited this).
joe_the_user 13y ago
Sure but it seems both you and he can both be right in a sense. A designer needs Dribblized portfolio and Dribblization is making things shallow and hard to use. The present ultra-competitive world optimizes some things but neglects others.
Diamons 13y ago
I also agree. It's like a developer obsessing about good code and best practices. Sure the developer cares but the client does not care whatsoever. Similarly the designer cares about sticking to product design and making the problem easier. However the manager wants something that looks pretty, something that looks expensive and nice to use. EDIT: I would also like to add I agree with this sentiment. We want pretty apps. I think the time for functional apps was when the iOS and Android markets first came out and touching things on your screen to do something was foreign. Now just like iOS7, it's time to take the steering wheels off. This is akin to the web during the '90s and early 2000 era.

by rriepe 13y ago

micheljansen 13y ago

Well, I guess that depends on what sort of job you are applying for. If you want to focus on how it works, apply for UX/IxD positions and bring a portfolio that demonstrates you can think in those terms. If you're more interested in working on the visual aspects of design, e.g. how it looks, you need to demonstrate polish. I got hired just fine without a single pixel-perfect design in my portfolio. Personally, I wouldn't want to work for someone who only cares about what it looks like anyway.

Aloisius 13y ago

As someone who has hired designers over the years for various startups, I agree. The author seems to conflate UX with visual design or graphic design. They are not the same thing and often aren't done by the same person. I've had fantastic UX designers who, frankly, can't get perfectly laid out pixel perfect work done or do eye candy. I've had UI/graphic designers who were awful at figuring out flow. I've had people who are great at both. But one thing is certain, I want my products to be intuitive AND sexy because there is a certain subset of the market that will try your product just because it looks professionally designed and is on trend. There is a high overlap of those people with taste makers and I need those people using my product.

TheZenPsycho 13y ago
The author isn't conflating. That is what the words mean, and "UX" is the made up wank word. It's the "Web 2.0." of the design world. I'm pretty sure "UX" was created as a term in response to the market getting flooded with stylists (interested amateurs) calling themselves "designers". I'm interested to see what you believe to be the distinction between "visual design" and "graphic design". Traditionally, Graphic design is about how it works, with how it looks (what you call "eye candy") being secondary to (but still a part of) function. This is the sort of thing you can learn if you read books instead of just reading blog posts. And clearly, the definition of "graphic design" has been watered down to the point of irrelevance, and replaced with "UX". sure, fine call yourself whatever you want. But what makes you think UX won't get similarly watered down? The problem isn't the word itself, it's that the culture as a whole doesn't value design, including "designers". (in your language, the culture doesn't value "UX") Of course language is designed* by its users, and for the moment, it seems that we have indeed fully rotated our hierarchy words a notch down over the past 20 years. But please let us not be ignorant of history, and tradition, and what "graphic design" actually is (Or at least.. .used to be) and that the whole totem pole of design and designers is sliding on a downward trajectory. (I blame adobe for making it look easy. you could always look more convincingly like a skilled professional while operating a huge desk sized typesetting machine and laying out magazines by hand with paper, exacto blades, and photographic color separations) But sure, maybe inventing new wank words will prop up our careers for 5 more years. It's good marketing. it's good design, to invent words, to sell ourselves. Inventing a new word for "design" is a very designery thing to do. You can make design seem interesting and exciting again by giving it a new flashy buzzword. That will only take you so far though, until the novelty wears off, and suddenly you find everyone believes "UX" means "interested amateur who can make eye candy in photoshop" again. * see what I did there? "Design" being used to denote the decisions involved in how something works and is experienced, with no reference to how anything looks. Imagine that.
- eflowers 13y ago
  I can't tell if you're saying that visual/graphic designers are saying they are doing "UX", or if "UX" people are really just hand-waving visual designers? I got lost around "wank word" and UX being the "Web 2.0 of the design world." Most UX people I know are focused on user research, usability, information architecture, and interaction design. I'd say maybe, 1 in 5 are visual designers, and maybe 1 in 3 have any passable graphic design skill at all. Maybe you're saying that people will be just called "user researcher", "information architect", etc etc and not use the word UX. But I think "wank word" is a tad inaccurate.

dreamfactory 13y ago

Bit depressing that even people in the design world don't understand the basic difference between design and styling -and think it's just some aesthetic thing rather than how we make planes that don't fall out of the sky and road signs that stop people getting themselves lost. OTOH it would seem to indicate a big opportunity (I guess Steve Jobs exploited this).

joe_the_user 13y ago

Sure but it seems both you and he can both be right in a sense. A designer needs Dribblized portfolio and Dribblization is making things shallow and hard to use. The present ultra-competitive world optimizes some things but neglects others.

Diamons 13y ago

I also agree. It's like a developer obsessing about good code and best practices. Sure the developer cares but the client does not care whatsoever. Similarly the designer cares about sticking to product design and making the problem easier. However the manager wants something that looks pretty, something that looks expensive and nice to use. EDIT: I would also like to add I agree with this sentiment. We want pretty apps. I think the time for functional apps was when the iOS and Android markets first came out and touching things on your screen to do something was foreign. Now just like iOS7, it's time to take the steering wheels off. This is akin to the web during the '90s and early 2000 era.