I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not for me

Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by wccrawford on Sunday November 14, 2010 @05:21PM (#1904373)

The car door analogy is faulty. A designer spent a lot of time making that car door look pretty -after- an engineer made it work. It isn't that exact shape just because it works.

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Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by dkokelley on Sunday November 14, 2010 @05:38PM (#1904428)

I disagree. The engineer made it work, by understanding the handle mechanisms, positioning it so that it was reachable and provided enough leverage to move the door. In essence, the engineer 'designed' the door. The author's argument is that design refers to functionality and usability - not only aesthetic appeal. Yes, appealing colors and gradients make the site easier on the eyes, and should be included as a subset of the entire design process.

My interpretation is that design encompasses all UI interactions, and the author feels that too many self-described designers defer to the aesthetics while underplaying other important considerations like usability and intuitiveness, even though the title of designer implies (or should imply) those.

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Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by kelnos on Sunday November 14, 2010 @06:16PM (#1904523)

The engineer made it work, by understanding the handle mechanisms, positioning it so that it was reachable and provided enough leverage to move the door.

Did an engineer design that, or did the equivalent of an interaction designer do it?

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Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by dkokelley on Sunday November 14, 2010 @06:44PM (#1904600)

A car door analogy is weak, simply because I don't know enough about how they are designed and built. Maybe an artist goes to town, and then the engineers and interaction team have to bend over backwards to make the concept work (probably a bad way go about making car doors!).

Still my point is that aesthetics, functionality, and usability are all subsets of design (according to the author).

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Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by zalew on Sunday November 14, 2010 @07:17PM (#1904672)

Actually that's completely not how cars are designed. Design comes, then come the engineers, then come the clerks, multiply that by a lot of iterations and you got the car which looks far different from the first concept.

A car is a great example how a fantastic design in terms of aesthetics can fail against engineers' (or economics) limitations. A quite recent example: BMW X6's tail lights were sent back to redesign after engineers found out that one 'beauty' line caused Cx (aerodynamics factor) increase. Imagine it happens all the time during the design process which takes years, not days.

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Re:I am a hacker, not a decorator - Design candies are not f... by kingsidharth on Sunday November 14, 2010 @05:24PM (#1904387)

Made it work - if you are talking about "Internal mechanics" well yah he did. But that's not all of 'How it works'

The way it is shaped and crafted has a reason - that's design (not beauty). Though reason creates beauty.

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