> I increasingly subscribe to the thesis that many designers and design teams design primarily in an effort to impress other designers. They don't have to use the things. They often don't even really care if the things work at all. They care that other designers - their artistic peers - are impressed.

I've been a designer for about a long time. I've done many dumb things, but never that. I have definitely had the irrational thought that "users will think I'm a bad designer if we ship this product", but that's usually because it was a bad product that shouldn't have been shipped.

I've never gotten the sense that my peers do this either. I have definitely gotten the sense that some designers want their designs to impress Apple, and Steve Jobs specifically.

Everybody wants to impress their peers to some degree, but to be clear, that usually translates into just doing a really good job. I've never had another designer show me something and say "Nobody else will appreciate this, but I thought you'd like it".