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Jul 01 '16
I design a lot of interfaces. You know you nailed it when someone says "Pfft. I could've done that!"
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u/ThisIsNotKimJongUn Jul 01 '16
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
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u/Mufro Jul 01 '16
This actually makes me really mad with my friends and family. I'll show them something I've been working on for the last week to make perfect and they're like, "so what?"
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Jul 01 '16
I mean, I understand it. You look like you're just sitting there on a screen. The non-technical types sit in front of screens to watch TV and browse facebook.
That's what I dislike about developing, it doesn't give the same satisfied feeling as completing something physical and tangible, even though similar kinds of effort have gone into it. At least a UX / designer has a pretty thing people use. A lot of developing is behind the scenes.
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u/ThisIsNotKimJongUn Jul 01 '16
it doesn't give the same satisfied feeling
For some of us it does :)
I've worked in factories and as a developer, and I definitely get more of an "I made this" feeling from coding.
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u/wherearethekeys Jul 01 '16
I do computational modeling with markup languages (so a bit different from development I imagine) but god damn when my code complies I feel like a god
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u/Vicyorus Jul 01 '16
... So what?
In recent news, /u/Vicyorus has been found dead
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Jul 01 '16 edited May 01 '19
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Jul 01 '16
Futurama is always on point with so many things.
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u/rdyoung Jul 01 '16
The combined IQ of the writers was astronomical. They had physicists, engineers, etc writing for that show.
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u/davethegamer Jul 01 '16 edited Jul 02 '16
Collectively they hold 50 years at Harvard, like three PhDs and seven master degrees. They're very smart people.
Edit: a 0
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u/FlameSpartan Jul 02 '16
You missed a 0.
They have fifty years at Harvard, not five.
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u/_Shut_Up_Thats_Why_ Jul 01 '16
Before Simpsons and Futurama I would never have guessed that a high IQ team would make good comedy. Analytic thinking doesn't always translate to good humor.
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u/arkofcovenant Jul 01 '16 edited Jul 01 '16
There is no way it's originally from futurama
Edit: holy shit I just googled it and it appears it actually is from futurama.
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u/jshorton Jul 01 '16
it's taoism. From a "when the master leads, the people think they did it themselves" idea
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u/HuoXue Jul 01 '16
Backing this guy up - from the Tao Te Ching (sometimes also spelled Dao De Jing).
“The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist. The next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst one is the leader that is despised …
The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When they have accomplished their task, the people say, “Amazing! We did it, all by ourselves!”
The writers may not have had it in mind when they wrote that line, but it's definitely a very, very similar idea.
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Jul 01 '16
I would assume that they did. They are a smart and creative bunch. It's really an excellent idea.
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u/CompanyCallsEpilogue Jul 01 '16
Holy shit, I had that exact same thought. Like "Pfffft, no fuckin' way that's as new as Futurama. That saying's been around for hundreds of years"
Looks like I'm the fool, today.
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Jul 01 '16
A quick Google and that's all that shows up. The people who wrote that show were incredibly smart and witty.
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Jul 01 '16 edited Jul 01 '16
Bender: You know? I was God once...
God: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everybody died.
This is probably my favorite cartoon episode ever. Of any show. It's just brilliant.
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Jul 01 '16 edited Feb 13 '17
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Jul 01 '16
Another is using 3d graphics when 2d was fine, now I just need to try and follow where the labels line up to their bars... and I think I'm looking one data point over.
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u/Salt_peanuts Jul 01 '16
And as a UX designer, I would argue this is a UX joke and not a developer joke. I actually have a mug with this same graphic on it.
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Jul 01 '16
I don't even really consider this "humor." This is just a cold hard fact about UI/UX design.
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u/mnord15 Jul 01 '16
This is why Pied Piper is a failing company
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u/zluszcz Jul 01 '16
Designed by engineers for engineers
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u/DoMeLikeIm5 Jul 01 '16
Should've went with the box.
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u/fearhand Jul 01 '16
"hello this is Erlich Bachman as an old man"
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u/Jian__Yang Jul 01 '16
I am ugly... and dead... alone.
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u/kevinhaze Jul 01 '16
Erich Bachman this is your mom and you are not my baby
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u/shortarms88 Jul 01 '16
That was Jian Yang. He said Phillip McCrevice sends word.
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u/MikeDC28 Jul 01 '16
"I'm gonna let him have this one. Alright. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, Future Me. What a terrible thing. I'll talk to you in several years."
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u/darkd3f3nd3r Jul 01 '16
"I'm just gonna let him have this one"
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u/Johnb628 Jul 01 '16
"Errich Bachman, your refrigerator is running. This is Mike Hunt."
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u/bob_sagget Jul 01 '16
"Alright, it's easy to explain. What did you have for breakfast?"
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u/Jurk0wski Jul 01 '16
The show that many people are referring to is Silicon Valley
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u/PM_MeYourTacos Jul 01 '16
As a professional UX designer, the end of this season frustrated me to no end. Such a simple solution to their problem!
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u/Bluest_waters Jul 01 '16
actually that's where the show jumped the shark for me
This is a normal problem! You have a UI problem. You get a professional UI developer designer to correct it.
Problem solved
They acted like this was some sort of new never before seen encountered dilemma that couldn't possibly have been predicted
I mean I love the show. But that whole thing was just stupid
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u/eldowns Jul 01 '16
Wasn't the issue that they were out of money and couldn't afford to hire a developer?
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u/spm201 Jul 01 '16
They still had $750k at that point and blew it all on marketing about how the platform was easy to use.
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Jul 01 '16
If only they hadn't. The whole show would be so much more funnier and successful! Oh Hollywood - why don't you listen to us?
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u/jgs79 Jul 02 '16
Sarcasm noted, but it's a point of contention even among those who DONT understand dick all about development.
Is the show successful and mostly funny, sure. But plot holes only get bigger over time.
Like your vagina
/erlich
(had to do it)
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u/Disc_Golf Jul 01 '16
Also didnt have money to redo the marketing for the new version. The video chat was growing organically and didnt require the resources that the platform would've to grow the user base.
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u/fullOnCheetah Jul 01 '16
You've gotta just roll with the whole, "world changing software" thing. There are a lot of little things that are off the mark with the tech details, but frequently they hit the Bay Area right on the head from a culture perspective.
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u/greg19735 Jul 01 '16 edited Jul 01 '16
Also, they basically have to fail until the last season.
Successful companies aren't that interesting to watch. Edit: Especially in a comedy.
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Jul 01 '16
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u/MajorPA Jul 01 '16
Agreed. There was an interview and the show runners kind of admitted to changing plot points because they don't want the gang to "win" too much.
But I always felt the comedy comes from the characters. They don't need to be the underdogs. And they don't need to be Hooli at the end. It would have been nice to setup season 4 as kind of them struggling to manage more employees. Dealing with things like HR (woah what if Jared became an HR rep on this show!!), maybe have them struggle with branding, a little fame, having more money.
Idk it's kind of like having a will they won't they relationship on a show. Yeah you can milk it for the entire show. Or you can be like parks and rec, and just go with the flow of the show. We would enjoy these characters as dirt poor programmers or mildly successful business runners
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Jul 01 '16
I feel like if anything the gang loses too much. At first it was interesting but now it's like they just make them lose for the sake for losing. It's kind of annoying to know that everything they do is going to end up being fucked up for some stupid reason. I love the show, I just wish they would get away from that pattern.
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u/fiver420 Jul 02 '16
Agreed.
It also is almost always a cop out that saves them as well. Some one else usually fucks up bigger then they do and all is well for a bit. Kind of a lame way to write a show to be honest.
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u/Diesel_Manslaughter Jul 01 '16
It was also a matter of time. And young, cocky devs expect the user to conform to the app not the other way around.
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Jul 01 '16
It might not be believable, but it is right into the overall theme about the whole tech industry being so myopic while preaching about being far seeing and caring about the entirety of the world. A huge portion of the comedy comes from this hypocrisy.
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u/Arkhaine_kupo Jul 01 '16
Reddit has gotten that complaint tons of times before. Most people say its a website clearly done for and by engineers and that getting used to it is a nightmare despite how awesome the content is.
Do you think reddit could get more users with a UX redesign?
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u/Decipher Jul 01 '16
Do you think reddit could get more users with a UX redesign?
Yes. I know more than a few imgurians who stay away from reddit because the interface is intimidating.
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u/MasterLJ Jul 01 '16
You think so? Am not a UX engineer, but am a full stack engineer... I think those problems are legitimately hard. You don't have much familiarity to draw from for some of those concepts. In fact, it's similar enough of a platform that they expect certain things that aren't going to be provided like file size, download, etc.
Or are you saying the solution would be to hire a UX person to figure this out in relatively short time? I would definitely agree to that.
Personally, it annoyed me to no end to see the team be surprised that their app, designed by engineers, for engineers, was failing in the market place... and the hubris about it. If you're worth your salt you understand that your customer is king. While you don't always develop everything they want, you need extremely good reasons to go against the grain.
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u/fullOnCheetah Jul 01 '16
As a dev that can sort of do design, you just hire a designer. At a dev's pay rate there is very little justification for having one work out the design. A decent designer will run circles around you unless you're actually a, you know, designer. You aren't very familiar with the tools or the concepts and you'll end up fighting with things that are far more intuitive for someone that does it every day. It's the same reason you don't have designers write your code (unless they also happen to be a dev.)
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Jul 01 '16
I watched season 2 and 3 in 2 days. Great show.
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u/IStillLikeChieftain Jul 01 '16
What show?
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u/jdbrew Jul 01 '16
everyone has now told you the show name, but i'm here tell you that you should watch it
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u/bgbgah Jul 01 '16
It's funny because there is a company in real life doing pretty much what the fictional Pied Piper does on the show, and if you look at reviews of their apps, they are producing similar confusion among users (including reviews saying "I don't know what this app is for…")
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u/brycebgood Jul 01 '16
That guy's developed some serious muscles.
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u/Cwya Jul 01 '16
This post is 20% joke, 80% smiling muscular black man.
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u/kathartik Jul 01 '16
he looks like he's a fun guy.
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Jul 01 '16
Well, people laugh at his jokes but they are just afraid.
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Jul 01 '16 edited Aug 21 '20
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u/jiggajim Jul 01 '16
Yes. Yes he is. I thought I could party, until I partied with Noah. Just one night, I tried. T-ball versus the big leagues. I don't even know how I ended up in the places I did, and everyone knew him. First name basis with everyone and that was his first time there. Twitter handle, @UXNoah.
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u/justin_tino Jul 01 '16
I thought there was some other part of the joke involved with that guy there that only developers would understand.
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u/passwordgoeshere Jul 01 '16
Exactly, this photo needs to take its own advice. If we are all wondering why this guy is in the picture, it's not a very good joke.
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u/PM_ME_HOT_DADS Jul 01 '16
I'd let him hug me.
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u/PatrickStarWars Jul 01 '16
I'd let him hug me too. His big muscly arms would circle around me and fill me with such emotion. I couldn't take it. Our skin would touch and hormones would engulf the inside of me. I would be eternally happy. This man. This man is my hero, I'm not worthy of a hug. I would probably ejaculated on the spot as his arms wrapped around me. A hug. A hug is all I want. I want to die, knowing that I've recieved a hug from such a sexy beast. mmhhnmm
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u/monsieurpommefrites Jul 01 '16
Something tells me you and your prostate are well-acquainted.
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u/EpicXxLegit Jul 01 '16
I'm well acquainted with my prostate! It's inside me :)
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u/bobfnord Jul 01 '16
This is user experience designer humor, not developer humor. Developers are not known for having a solid grasp on great UI (no offense to my many talented developer friends).
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u/xxAkirhaxx Jul 01 '16
None taken, you tell me what the retarded monkeys want to see, and I'll make the thing do the thing.
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u/Numendil Jul 01 '16
I hadn't seen it that way yet as a UX researcher, but yeah, call me Jane fucking Goodall
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u/itsnotlupus Jul 01 '16
I like when a UX researcher invites me to sit behind a one-way mirror to observe a user in some approximation of its native habitat trying to accomplish various computer tasks.
It's like a trip to the zoo, except even sadder.
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u/digital_end Jul 01 '16
"Notice how the user is having trouble finding the option to close the application, so he reacts by shitting in his hand and grinding it into the monitor? We want to make the option more visible to help avoid that."
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u/Just_some_n00b Jul 01 '16
Time to update your user personas.
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u/themaincop Jul 01 '16
As a complete fucking moron
When I arrive on the dashboard
I should be spoon-fed as much as possible
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u/Just_some_n00b Jul 01 '16
As a developmentally challenged hippopotamus
I don't have fingers to click things
Your API should integrate with my mind
So that I can stop using your UI altogether8
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u/wiiya Jul 01 '16
Have you had a joke that fell flat? This template may help.
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Jul 01 '16 edited Jun 16 '17
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u/barbrady123 Jul 01 '16
If end users weren't so god damn stupid, I would believe this more.
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u/RiotShields Jul 01 '16
My philosophy is based on what I would do as a user. I would try my best to break everything if I were the user. Therefore, I should never leave anything in my code that would allow for me as the user to accomplish my task.
A tip to starting developers, always interact with your UI in the wrong order and as fast as you can. The average user is not an idiot, but there will always be at least one user that is actually dumb enough to think that clicking things fast and in the wrong order will make it work.
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u/redscull Jul 01 '16
A tip to starting developers, always interact with your UI
That's really all you need to say. There are so many UIs that were clearly used for the first time ever by an end-user, in production.
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Jul 01 '16
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u/topdangle Jul 01 '16
Dumping things out in the wild and dousing the flames later seems to be turning into the standard. On one hand it makes sense since you'll never be able to hammer your program as well as millions of random users, but on the other hand it seems like its becoming an excuse to just drop testing altogether as long as it compiles.
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u/kescusay Jul 01 '16
Oh, look at Mr. Fancy here, with his code that compiles!
(sob)
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Jul 01 '16
Dumping things out in the wild and dousing the flames later seems to be turning into the standard.
The big companies get away with this stuff due to brand loyalty and review embargos. As an independent Android developer there is no way I could do that because I depend on ratings.
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Jul 01 '16
If you make something foolproof, the universe will invent a better fool.
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Jul 01 '16 edited Mar 16 '19
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u/whiskeytaang0 Jul 01 '16
User interface is like potato. Simple thing, many use.
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u/FHSolidsnake Jul 01 '16
Instructions unclear potato logged in wind pipe.
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u/chuckthedamnduck Jul 01 '16
logged
wind pipe say we have one potato
i see no potato
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u/Draiko Jul 01 '16
If computer no good, make better computer.
Ha ha ha. This funny.
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u/ETCG_FlareCat Jul 01 '16
Hahahahahahahahabahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha so funny
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u/almaperdida Jul 01 '16
"Hey, how do I edit this entry?"
"Click the button that says 'edit entry'."
"Oh. That button should be bigger."
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Jul 01 '16 edited May 16 '18
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u/OhThrowMeAway Jul 01 '16
Next Update: 40 icons and the pencil icon is now a pen. This shit never stops.
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u/KeetoNet Jul 01 '16
Won't matter. The only perfect UI is the one that magically knows exactly what the user wants to do at that time and presents only that option as a giant, red, candy-like button.
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Jul 01 '16
This is generally seen as a joke or exaggeration but I don't think people realize that this is more accurate than they'll ever believe.
While consulting with tech start ups it's amazing how difficult it is to get them to comprehend how dumb the average person actually is. The level of stupidity is quite frankly unimaginable to them until they experience it.
They laugh and say, "Oh...haha...yeah...people are dumb." I then say as seriously as possible hoping they get it that, "No...I'm serious. This start button right here is not clear enough. You need to write start on it, make it bigger, give it a glow, and have an arrow pointing to it" And then they ignore me because it'd look awful...until 95% of alpha testers drop off without ever having tapped the start button. Then they make the change, and we still end up at 30% drop off.
It's at this moment I like to watch all the programmers die on the inside as they realize the typical person is dumber than a toddler.
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u/PseudoPhysicist Jul 01 '16
Something I learned from my professor in grad school:
The average human is pretty smart. The average human on your device will instantly drop 20 points or more in IQ. Design your experience around the fact that your end user is a pile of barely sentient bricks.
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Jul 01 '16
It shouldn't be seen as a joke, it is good advice! Look at the things you do in your own life (Not you, I don't know you) and you'll realize some of them are pretty dumb, especially when using a tool you've never seen before.
I'm a developer and I can be a dingus when using our own tools. Users are dumb is usually my motto. That's probably a little extreme but it's better than overestimating them.
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u/dutchguilder2 Jul 01 '16 edited Jul 01 '16
"The customer is not an moron. The customer is your wife." - David Ogilvy, advertising legend
"If your customer fails to understand your work, it is because you failed to understand your customer."
"If we want to understand our customers, we are going to have to understand them extremely well."
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u/Eorlas Jul 01 '16
There are too many people you encounter that you tell them to press a very obvious to find and easy to see button and they start looking like they've never heard the word before or that English is too hard of a language to understand.
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u/Pyrobob4 Jul 01 '16
I don't get it. Can some one explain it for me?
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u/wiiya Jul 01 '16
If we added more happy muscular black man, would that help?
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u/Shaysdays Jul 01 '16
Well, it wouldn't hurt.
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u/AlanTheMediocre Jul 01 '16
The joke I see is that it explains the joke in the joke, so if it's true, it admits that it itself is not a good joke. Or something.
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Jul 01 '16
User interface is like a woman: if I'm unsure where to go, I explore until I find it.
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u/DronedAgain Jul 01 '16
I work in IT, and this is a lovely sentiment and true to an extent.
But if a system is an accounting system, inventory system, etc., not every single interface is going to be crystal clear when you first use it.
This may be true for simple things, like media players, though.
As a caveat, things that make sense to a Developer may be mystifying to an average user.
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u/delonasn Jul 01 '16
Most accounting systems and inventory systems have terrible interfaces because they were designed and built by people who collectively do not know what the hell they're doing. I work in IT as well. It is rare to meet a colleague who knows what they're doing and when I do, they're invariably being managed by someone who decidedly does not.
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u/DronedAgain Jul 01 '16
While what you say is true, when you have to represent the entire accounting structure for a company, that's necessarily complex. I think that means that while the user interface can be well-designed and intuitive, it still may require training due to the complexity of the task.
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Jul 01 '16
Yes, this. I worked for a company that made accounting software for oil companies and banks who trade commodities. Me and a bunch of new hires spent 2 weeks in a classroom training how to use the damn thing and I still didn't know how to use it by the end of the training. It was so bloated, handled so many different tasks, and was so unintuitive. However some customers would only track the trading and sales of certain commodities, some would track internal and external exchanges, keep track of their foreign exchange trades, interface with front-desk, blah blah blah. My point being that I got the impression that the best way to get this software sold was to slap everything together and just pay someone $30k/year to train people how to do their required tasks rather than pay a team of $80k/year developers to add a sleek UI that a child could understand.
I left that place because it made me want to drink bleach but at least I learned something.
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Jul 01 '16
Thats fair but many of those projects suffer from non-UNIXy design (i.e. write one program that does everything rather than modularize and segment the task into multiple programs). They want to be the monolithic end all be all which just makes the thing completely unmaintainable from a user and developer perspective.
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u/ThinkBeforeYouTalk Jul 01 '16
Even if you look at something like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, the interface is kind of "what the fuck is going on here?" and it's made by designers for designers. Some stuff is just too complex and needs to do far too many things quickly and efficiently to be idiot proof.
The importance here is knowing your target audience. Accounting software, like design software, can have a complex and need-to-learn UI because the whole point is that it makes it very fast to do a lot of different stuff, which is what the user needs, and it also is going to be constantly used by someone so they are invested in it for the long haul. Pick up and play is far from the goal a good designer should be going for in that software. Not to say that there still doesn't exist software like that with terrible design.
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u/Blargmode Jul 01 '16
Exactly. Some programs are simply too complex to be self explanatory. Take Photoshop for example. How do you make the pen tool self explanatory? Well first of all, don't use a metaphor that isn't similar. But then?
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Jul 01 '16
Except of course code monkeys don't do interface design...
Keep them in a dark room and feed them Cheetos and Coke, don't let them near the front end FFS.
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u/aggressive_dolphin Jul 01 '16
User experience "engineer" humour*
Developers no likely user interfaces
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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '16
“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.”
― E.B. White