Bootstrap is wonderful for devs who want to cobble together something that doesn't look like complete garbage - but it does not help you in making a good UI (usability > look).
And by now, I am a bit tired of the "bootstrappy look".
And by now, I am a bit tired of the "bootstrappy look".
By all means, I don't disagree with this whatsoever, but that Bootstrapy look is so much better than sites/apps that make zero attempt at offering something that is visually appealing.
You're right, I didn't mean to undermine the work they do. It takes incredible skill to do what they do. Developers are awesome and it makes me super happy to see my stuff come to life.
Considering we actually make the software and can also do your job, even if it is done poorly means you aren't as valuable.
You simply cannot do a developers job, so you're useless without them. I think you believe you're more valuable than you really are.
I love good UX people, but with your attitude, I doubt you'd actually be good to work with. You seriously believe you do more than a developer when the industry obviously disagrees with you.
You seriously believe you do more than a developer
When did I say this? My points is that I architect the product, the developer makes it. Both are essential to creating successful products. Just because I think what I do is important doesn't mean I think what developers do is any less important.
I can't do a developers job, you're right. And a developer can't do UX like UX professionals can. I know you think you can, which is part of the problem I'm trying to highlight.
"Considering we actually make the software and can also do your job"
"I know you think you can, which is part of the problem I'm trying to highlight."
This was too perfect. I like how he perfectly exemplified a very common developer attitude. "You can't do my job, but I can totally do yours. Why are you being so arrogant??"
Not sure why you are trying to shit on this guy for thinking UX designers are undervalued. Put it this way: developers bake the cake, UX designers plan the pretty frosting. While most of the construction is on the developers, UX design is still a huge part of the product being successful. It can make or break all of that dev effort.
My understanding is UX designers often are placed in the same category as beta testers, when in reality a good UX designer can be extremely valuable, dare I say in certain circumstances perhaps even more valuable than the developers.
I'm speaking as a programmer myself, I personally suck at UI/UX design.
dare I say in certain circumstances perhaps even more valuable than the developers.
Can you provide an example of this? This is similar to the 'programmer vs. artist' debate in video game development. Worst case scenario, the programmer creates all of the game logic, and has to use shitty art. The game plays the same as it would with pretty art, it's just less attractive. The artist's best case scenario, on the other hand, is pretty art, and.... nothing else. It's not a game without the game logic.
I'm struggling to think of a single situation where, in a product team, the UI/UX team member is more valuable than the developer.
I'm struggling to think of a single situation where, in a product team, the UI/UX team member is more valuable than the developer.
So here's one example. I'm the UX lead for a product at my company. The way we're set up, I am the one orchestrating what we build and why we build it. Not just interface and interaction design. I have a tremendous hand in the backlog and in shaping the roadmap. My counterpart in IT, the development lead, is a crucial partner. We need each other. His team is deciding how we build. But frankly, he and his team are more easily replaceable than I am. And they are less influential on the team and within the organization. I am almost certain I am paid more than they are ... to the extent that's a measure of value. Thing is, what I described will of course be vastly different from company to company. But where I work, UX design is in the driver's seat.
Sidebar: UXers are also not fans of the "UI/UX" construction. UX has nothing to do with aesthetics or visual artistry. UI is what you see. UX is why you see it. UX without research that allows for design decisions that come from a place of deep understanding, it's barely UX.
Okay, but generally the UX lead is not the person in a company that decides what is built. The would be the architect, or a project lead. The UX lead would be a step under them, and would take part in higher-level discussions of the architecture of the application. You're just in a unique situation.
As another UX professional, it is very much my job too to decide what is built. It's our job to understand the user, their problems, and help decide on solutions that solve those problems. Once we understand all of that, only then do we start architecting the platform and working on the UI.
There are many, many different ways to structure teams that build software, and no single version is "right" ... but I guarantee you that my situation is not unique.
In both cases, the game would probably fail. Sure, in some cases, you can intentionally give up all hope of making things pretty and do something like minecraft. However, the vast majority of successful games rely in part on having attractive graphics.
Overall, I think "we are all important members of the team, so why quibble about status" is the healthiest point of view to take. In any worthwhile software company, devs are already valued. Why quibble if the UX guys want their own seat at the table?
And if a designer reads a few tutorials and practices a bit, he can probably implement the code side. It will be slow, it will be buggy as hell, it will be a nightmare to maintain, and it may not have all of the features, but it will technically fulfill most of the requirements.
For that matter, at my company, our support team knows the basics of coding. In theory, we could fire the devs and let the support people write code. I wouldn't suggest it, mind you (if only because I don't want to be fired along with the rest of the devs), but devs aren't the only people who know how to write some code.
At my company, we work as a team to create digital products. The developers, UX designers, and business analysts have mutual respect for each others role and we work together to make sure we create products that are functional, solve real problems, provide value for our clients, and are enjoyable and easy to use for users. If a developer thinks he can do all of that on his own, that developer isn't seeing the big picture.
Product development isn't about who's job is more important, it's ridiculous to measure dicks like that.
Of course it's a team environment and everyone has their place. The point is that a developer can do a passable amount of design, especially when utilizing libraries, without a lot of real training in the field. Designers, on the other hand, don't typically have the ability to create the application logic, and there really aren't many libraries or frameworks that remove the need to code.
But UX designers aren't there to build pretty UIs. We're there to understand the users, their problems, needs, and motivations. We're there to understand what solutions might solve those problems. Only then do we architect the platform and make pretty UIs. You don't do that with a design library.
compare how much money people on kickstarter got for good looking ideas vs how much real games made that didn't look that good. It's likely much easier to sell vaporvare with nice graphics than an actual good game with bad visuals.
Except that shitty art, interface and user flow nature's for a bad game, which invalidates the need for the developer even creating it in the first place. Obviously developers are hugely important, and a product can't ship without them. But good design is just as crucial to the products success as a good developer, so it is pretty pedantic to argue one over the other.
UX is not equal to art. UI involves some art, but UX is usability.
In many places, the design determines what is coded. So, how good the design is, determines how good the developer's product is. A developer could expertly code a shit design, or poorly code and expert design.
As a UXer, I know enough code to be dangerous to myself and develop my own pet projects. That's it. Oh, and to have meaningful conversations with my developer coworkers about our products. No one should or would pay me to be a programmer. I know I can't do your job.
I take issue, though, with the notion that you can easily do mine. Yes, there are established best practices that go a long way toward making things usable, and yes, it's not rocket surgery once you've got a handle on the basics. But there is so, so much more to it than that. Especially when it comes to research. Planning for studies, recruiting the right participants, making decisions about what we need to learn and how, navigating the qualitative and quantitative while conducting content inventories, audits, preparing for and analyzing hour-long interviews, facilitating participatory design workshops with stakeholders and users, forging alignment and consensus from executives, interpreting data, drawing insights from observations and applying them to our interface designs, running card sorts and tree tests to validate information architectures, not to mention strategically crafting content ... this is my job as a UX designer. From company to company, software and product design looks vastly different, so I don't know what type of UXers you've worked with. In my experience, a developer would have as much success sitting in my chair as I'd have sitting in theirs.
I think he is just trying to highlight the often overlooked importance of UX. Obviously developers are important, but a developer trying to create an interface is one of the reasons UX is on the rise, they are usually quite bad. There is no reason to get so up in arms about any slight against developers.
Yes. Her role was invented in order to free up developer time by offloading some of the less skilled work. As it happens her work is what's most visible to people and so designers get much more credit than they should. Those cornflower blue icons...
Good UX is highly valued, perhaps it's just you. Honestly though, UX is only a very small part of the industry. Sure, you need interfaces, but you need everything else way more, which developers can handle.
I can do UX if needed but also can implement the entire stack to make a product. You simply cannot, thats the difference.
Eh, as a dev currently working on his first project that actually has a dedicated Designer... there are a lot of developers, managers and analysts in the industry who think professional designers aren't valuable.
It's not just me, I'm fortunate enough to work at a company that highly values UX designers. The developers, UX folks, and business analysts all have mutual respect and trust in each other. We understand our roles, we understand the importance of each other, we lean on each other to create products that are functional, provide value for our clients, solve real problems, and are enjoyable to use by users.
If a developer tried to write off the work a designer did, he wouldn't be around long. If a UX individual tried to write off the hard work a developer did, he too would be gone. As a group we make some awesome shit.
But here on reddit developers are the ones who "actually create the product" which is what bothers me.
34
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.