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This blog confounds popularity and quality. If we were to judge news websites using the same metrics as he's using (users in the marketplace) Yahoo! News, Huff

This blog confounds popularity and quality. If we were to judge news websites using the same metrics as he's using (users in the marketplace) Yahoo! News, HuffingtonPost, and CNN are the epitome of news reporting, which we should all aspire to and emulate. The lesson from this article is that good design will not make you popular on its own (if that is what you want), in fact it is mostly orthogonal to popularity, just as quality content will not make you popular (on its own), and is not really related to popularity, in fact in some cases quality content will make it very, very hard to be popular (e.g. news). Of course these things are valuable in their own right, and you might want to carve out a niche as a quality provider of content for people who know all about x, at which point you might even become popular in spite of your quality content and quality design. Facebook is a terrible website in almost every way - the content is bad, the design is worse (though improving) and yet it is very popular. Does that mean we should step back and respect its design (awful), and content (worse) and attempt to emulate them? Does that mean we should not strive for quality content or quality design? Of course design should be about producing solutions which work for your customers, rather than producing things which appeal to other designers, and UI is not the only thing involved - in that sense some of his criticisms are well aimed. Paper is interesting because it may be beautifully designed, but it has been designed for the wrong sort of content - it would work far better as the app for say medium than an app for FB content. But I think its unfair to judge it entirely by monetary success or numbers of downloads - if that is your sole criteria for success, then you may as well give up on good design, good content, because the majority of people don't want quality, they want quantity, they want pictures (doesn't matter how bad), they want regular stimulation, and sensational stories (true or false, doesn't really matter). Number of downloads/views is not a good metric for quality or success (unless you mean purely monetary success). By this metric the best things in the world are FB, Angry Birds, and Yahoo News. For many people, success is not measurable purely in downloads or money raised, success is making a good product, not a popular product.

adammichaelc 13y ago
"If we were to judge news websites using the same metrics as he's using (users in the marketplace) Yahoo! News, HuffingtonPost, and CNN are the epitome of news reporting, which we should all aspire to and emulate." This is a straw man. The author never argues for popularity; he argues that design should be using its seat at the table to produce better outcomes for users and for businesses. Other than users deciding to use a product, what other metric is there for whether you have built something people want. re Facebook Paper: "But I think its unfair to judge it entirely by monetary success or numbers of downloads - if that is your sole criteria for success, then you may as well give up on good design, good content, because the majority of people don't want quality" If we were talking about an app being launched by an indie dev in his garage, maybe you'd be right - maybe. We're talking about an app launched by Facebook.... they have essentially unlimited resources. They have some of the stickiest content on the planet, coupled with an unlimited marketing budget, a big launch, etc. and yet Paper was a flop. They didn't design something for their users, they didn't solve a problem; instead, they did a neato experiment that didn't create a valuable outcome.
- grey-area 13y ago
  The author never argues for popularity; he argues that design should be using its seat at the table to produce better outcomes for users and for businesses. The author and your comment do implicitly use popularity as the measure of success, which I think is dangerous: That’s probably because no one is downloading it Other than users deciding to use a product, what other metric is there for whether you have built something people want. Better outcomes for users and businesses depend very much on your definition of better, which might range from making more money out of users to helping users get what they want even it if doesn't make money. There's a huge range of potential outcomes which different people might judge to be good, let's not pretend that there is one objective outcome which equals better/success/good or that it is strictly linked with making something people think they want right now. You can also make something they will want in one year, or something they will want when everyone else wants it too, or something only a few want but which you feel everyone might want if only they are exposed to it in the right way. You can certainly argue that Paper fails to appeal to its intended audience, or deal with the content they have, rather than the content they'd like to have, but part of delivering a successful product is shaping what your users want by delivering something you consider valuable, not entirely pandering to their existing expectations or taste. e.g. iphones vs existing phones, ipod versus CD players etc. so I imagine that was the motivation for it. The trap that FB finds itself in is that they have grown massive by pandering to the lowest common denominator, and now cannot escape that. Sticky content they may have, but how much of it is worth the pixels? The article and your comment here are sliding from 'better outcomes' to 'number of downloads/users/views/likes' as a definition of better - there are other definitions of better/success/good and some of them even make money (see Apple's attitude to design under Jobs). Things which are popular in a given era are rarely considered good or valuable in the long-term - popularity is an ephemeral and misleading measure of quality if you look at writing, design, art or any other creative field.
  - mattmanser 13y ago
    Success is measured by the original aim. This is exactly what the article is talking about, designers making something while forgetting the original aim, focusing on the wrong thing. If I make something with the intention to sell it and try to sell it with a huge marketing budget and it doesn't sell, it's a failure. These things have seemingly got no penetration. They didn't even hit a niche. How is that anything other than complete failure? You seem to be redefining the meaning of success to be how pretty it is which is precisely the problem the author is tackling: In order to avoid losing its place atop organizations, design must deliver results...A “great” design which produces bad outcomes —low engagement, little utility, few downloads, indifference on the part of the target market— should be regarded as a failure.

adammichaelc 13y ago

"If we were to judge news websites using the same metrics as he's using (users in the marketplace) Yahoo! News, HuffingtonPost, and CNN are the epitome of news reporting, which we should all aspire to and emulate." This is a straw man. The author never argues for popularity; he argues that design should be using its seat at the table to produce better outcomes for users and for businesses. Other than users deciding to use a product, what other metric is there for whether you have built something people want. re Facebook Paper: "But I think its unfair to judge it entirely by monetary success or numbers of downloads - if that is your sole criteria for success, then you may as well give up on good design, good content, because the majority of people don't want quality" If we were talking about an app being launched by an indie dev in his garage, maybe you'd be right - maybe. We're talking about an app launched by Facebook.... they have essentially unlimited resources. They have some of the stickiest content on the planet, coupled with an unlimited marketing budget, a big launch, etc. and yet Paper was a flop. They didn't design something for their users, they didn't solve a problem; instead, they did a neato experiment that didn't create a valuable outcome.

grey-area 13y ago
The author never argues for popularity; he argues that design should be using its seat at the table to produce better outcomes for users and for businesses. The author and your comment do implicitly use popularity as the measure of success, which I think is dangerous: That’s probably because no one is downloading it Other than users deciding to use a product, what other metric is there for whether you have built something people want. Better outcomes for users and businesses depend very much on your definition of better, which might range from making more money out of users to helping users get what they want even it if doesn't make money. There's a huge range of potential outcomes which different people might judge to be good, let's not pretend that there is one objective outcome which equals better/success/good or that it is strictly linked with making something people think they want right now. You can also make something they will want in one year, or something they will want when everyone else wants it too, or something only a few want but which you feel everyone might want if only they are exposed to it in the right way. You can certainly argue that Paper fails to appeal to its intended audience, or deal with the content they have, rather than the content they'd like to have, but part of delivering a successful product is shaping what your users want by delivering something you consider valuable, not entirely pandering to their existing expectations or taste. e.g. iphones vs existing phones, ipod versus CD players etc. so I imagine that was the motivation for it. The trap that FB finds itself in is that they have grown massive by pandering to the lowest common denominator, and now cannot escape that. Sticky content they may have, but how much of it is worth the pixels? The article and your comment here are sliding from 'better outcomes' to 'number of downloads/users/views/likes' as a definition of better - there are other definitions of better/success/good and some of them even make money (see Apple's attitude to design under Jobs). Things which are popular in a given era are rarely considered good or valuable in the long-term - popularity is an ephemeral and misleading measure of quality if you look at writing, design, art or any other creative field.
- mattmanser 13y ago
  Success is measured by the original aim. This is exactly what the article is talking about, designers making something while forgetting the original aim, focusing on the wrong thing. If I make something with the intention to sell it and try to sell it with a huge marketing budget and it doesn't sell, it's a failure. These things have seemingly got no penetration. They didn't even hit a niche. How is that anything other than complete failure? You seem to be redefining the meaning of success to be how pretty it is which is precisely the problem the author is tackling: In order to avoid losing its place atop organizations, design must deliver results...A “great” design which produces bad outcomes —low engagement, little utility, few downloads, indifference on the part of the target market— should be regarded as a failure.