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A comment on This is what happens when you let programmers design interfaces (PNG).

Re:This is what happens when you let programmers design inte... by PieSquared on Sunday April 13, 2008 @09:41AM (#162395)
People who aren't specialists design interfaces they think they'd like. Programmers, therefore, design interfaces for programmers. This is going to suck for consumer apps, of course, because most people aren't programmers - but this is actually a good thing for other programmers. Take a look at Emacs or Vi - is there ANY way they can get more confusing and badly designed from a consumer-app point of view? Yet they're perfect for the programmer.
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Re:This is what happens when you let programmers design inte... by natophonic on Sunday April 13, 2008 @04:09PM (#162594)
Indeed, bad design is bad design, but just because the dash and controls of an industrial lift crane are 'more confusing' than a Dodge Neon, doesn't mean the crane's designers sucked.

Being a UI designer has it's pluses, but while I've on occasion been lectured by a geeky accountant or sales guy on the pros and cons of multicore processing or platform independence or something, I've found that almost everyone in the company has strong opinions on why the UI designer's work sucks. It seems that 95% of the public are really "artists" (not that you could tell from anything other than the passion of the aesthetic opinions) just working to pay the rent.

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Re:This is what happens when you let programmers design inte... by LostInTheWoods on Sunday April 13, 2008 @01:06PM (#162493)
Its not so much that "programmers design for programmers". When designing a GUI we make assumptions about what the users knows, and how much we think they're comfortable figuring out on their own. Programmers I think, tend to err on people knowing too much, and being able to figure out too much.
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