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Programmers are not an alien species that needs special instructions catered to their profession. They're regular people, who learn the same way anyone does: by

Programmers are not an alien species that needs special instructions catered to their profession. They're regular people, who learn the same way anyone does: by doing. This website wastes time talking about how programmers are analytical people, and can't hope to understand design without special teaching methods. Let's end this myth. Programmers are not inherently more logical and analytical than other people (Lots of jobs require logic, even design jobs). Programmers are normal people who learned a skill.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Design is also a very experiential field: you don't learn how to do good design, you eventually get good at it by doing it a lot. It helps to know some basics before getting started, but most of what design school does is force you to do a lot.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  That sounds exactly like programming.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Or any profession really - you have to put in the time. Which is why expecting a good designer to be a good dev or vice versa is kind of outlandish.
- modarts 12y ago
  How is that different from progressing as a software developer? I learned 90% of what I know today from hands on experimentarikn
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    I didn't say it was different. I used "also" to mean the same; sorry if my wording was ambiguous.
curun1r 12y ago
From the blog post, I think the point isn't that developers need to learn differently. Their contention is that developers need to unlearn some of the things that make us good at what we do. For example, as developers, we're trained to think about the data model first which leads to scalable architectures, well-structured code and UIs that are little more than CRUD interfaces. The blog post lists a few other developer tendencies that sabotage our designs.
V-2 12y ago
As a programmer myself, I believe there is some truth to it though. Programmers tend to be superusers and therefore design for other superusers. By the way, old but gold: "User Interface Design For Programmers" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html
- normloman 12y ago
  But doctors tend to be doctors and tend to design for other doctors. This problem is not unique to programmers.
  - V-2 12y ago
    Yes it's not unique in principle, but programmers find themselves having to do UI design (or at least contribute to it) way more often than lawyers, nuclear physicists or beekeepers ;) That's why this issue keeps returning. There's also the (absolutely false) notion that designing interfaces somehow is a subset of a programming skillset, so if one is a proficient coder, they're by definition capable of delivering sensible UI solutions, pretty much like an academic could teach in their field in high school since they already know more than enough
superzamp 12y ago
This. I don't understand why people desperately need to categorize other people. Just yesterday i saw some guys being confused by someone on TV who was an electrician and enjoyed sewing.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Design is also a very experiential field: you don't learn how to do good design, you eventually get good at it by doing it a lot. It helps to know some basics before getting started, but most of what design school does is force you to do a lot.

jiggy2011 12y ago
That sounds exactly like programming.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Or any profession really - you have to put in the time. Which is why expecting a good designer to be a good dev or vice versa is kind of outlandish.
modarts 12y ago
How is that different from progressing as a software developer? I learned 90% of what I know today from hands on experimentarikn
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  I didn't say it was different. I used "also" to mean the same; sorry if my wording was ambiguous.

curun1r 12y ago

From the blog post, I think the point isn't that developers need to learn differently. Their contention is that developers need to unlearn some of the things that make us good at what we do. For example, as developers, we're trained to think about the data model first which leads to scalable architectures, well-structured code and UIs that are little more than CRUD interfaces. The blog post lists a few other developer tendencies that sabotage our designs.

V-2 12y ago

As a programmer myself, I believe there is some truth to it though. Programmers tend to be superusers and therefore design for other superusers. By the way, old but gold: "User Interface Design For Programmers" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html

normloman 12y ago
But doctors tend to be doctors and tend to design for other doctors. This problem is not unique to programmers.
- V-2 12y ago
  Yes it's not unique in principle, but programmers find themselves having to do UI design (or at least contribute to it) way more often than lawyers, nuclear physicists or beekeepers ;) That's why this issue keeps returning. There's also the (absolutely false) notion that designing interfaces somehow is a subset of a programming skillset, so if one is a proficient coder, they're by definition capable of delivering sensible UI solutions, pretty much like an academic could teach in their field in high school since they already know more than enough

superzamp 12y ago

This. I don't understand why people desperately need to categorize other people. Just yesterday i saw some guys being confused by someone on TV who was an electrician and enjoyed sewing.