With a preposterous amount of Facebook users all across the world, I think we are all projecting our personal experience on millions of others to make a value judgement. I personally get nothing out of it. How is it positively changing your life?
273 karma · joined February 22, 2011
There is also a big different between a user experience architect and an art director. The UX architect plans the system to meet the user and business needs (with an understanding of the technical ramifications of interaction design decisions). An art director works in photoshop to create the visual style. Again, on a small product team, it is likely that these roles will be carried out by the same person.
Programmer contempt for 'designers' often seems ubiquitous. Maybe it is only until they have worked with a proper professional.
Kids fresh out of HCI and interaction design school are close to useless, because they have no experience having their designs developed. Seeing them interact with (frustrated) seasoned developers can be very painful. UX designers should learn enough about programming to be dangerous for many reasons, but hand coding prototypes probably isn't ever going to be a scalable answer. I fantasize about working on a next gen UX prototyping tool all the time, but, to use the article's metaphor, I don't have a dance partner for that.
Don't know what the deleted comment said, but I second that. A good PM protects you from the nonsense that kills focus.
I don't think there is any reason to criticize you personally for thinking/responding this way, but I find that that attitude leads to the comments on Hacker News that I think are most unhelpful and discouraging (other than blatant trolling).
teehan+lax always have the best iOS templates (they are included in the 40 free UI PSDs list): http://www.teehanlax.com/downloads/
I think the reason why reinventing email always fails is that it is generally skin deep.
I know we have a mess of terms on the digital side. Lots of people with different specialties are trying to claim the architect title. People tend to say they are "architecting" the design of the backend system. Aren't they really "engineering" it? Maybe it doesn't really matter. Debating the meaning of "architect" is about as much fun as debating the real meaning of "design."
As they should.
For software, I was impressed with Ableton live. It would be a very daunting app to learn without built in tutorials and a module in the bottom left of the app that gives a great explanation of anything you roll over. Adobe sucks at this stuff, but they are the industry standard, so people slog through it. 3D modeling software could also benefit from some first timer love.
The real problem is the weak product idea. The agency wasn't in a position to tell the client their idea was bad because they wanted the money.
All these people were involved: Account director, Project Manager, Business Analyst, Marketing Specialists (3 of them for some reason), Copy writer, Content Strategist, User Experience, Art Director, Technical Manager, Front end developer, Back End developer
The agency burned through enough money to hire 4-5 employees for a year. We had a few meetings with the client and 8 people from the agency. The math there is pretty painful for the client. 8 people for an hour (at $165+ each per hour) means that each meeting costs well over $1k.
Hire a freelancer (like meeeeeee) or get full time employees. Agencies best serve large companies that can't (or don't want to) maintain design and development teams in house.
While many of your points are valid, I don’t see the author as a misguided person who has made a temporary, superficial discovery about interpersonal relationships. Having gone through a lot of this myself, I see the author as taking a huge first step towards the growth of his emotional intelligence. He implies that he has a history of speaking his mind (with a lack of tact). Now he is learning to emphathize and have pleasant relationships. The next step is learning to balance those things. Speak your mind when doing so is important, and consider the impact of your words while doing so. Sometimes telling someone a hard truth is the true kindness. As the author points out, the way you deliver those messages determines whether they are helpful or just hurtful.
I agree with your agreement, but it certainly would be an interesting experiment to try to train your brain to take back some of the responsibility you put on list. My memory is relatively weak, so I make lists of things I actually have to do, too.
Going after that type of client often means the work itself isn't as interesting, but it's great advice when you are getting the momentum (and savings account) going.
I've done a little bit of interaction design consulting for old school ad agencies. It was a pretty silly experience. Large advertising agencies that have slowly added web, mobile apps, Facebook apps, etc. to their list of services as clients expectations have changed. These agencies are still organized in the Mad Men style (copy writers, art directors, account directors, project managers, strategist/planners, media buyers, etc.). Traditional ad agencies are very very very bad at doing the digital work. The "creatives" guard their turf as owners of all the concept and design work, but they have a very poor grasp on the technical side of digital work as well as standard user experience design patterns. User centered design isn't really a part of the culture.
I was asked a few times to do wireframes for projects. They wanted me to trace and annotate completed and approved visual design comps.