[vacri]

Proper design is about melding form and function. You're just talking about 'form' designers, who would be better termed as artists.

You're also just grabbing Microsoft and Google as being designer-free in their successful years, which is patent nonsense.

> In the end engineers build great high tech organizations

Again, nonsense. Engineers alone did not make Apple the behemoth it is today. The designers made their unusual products desirable. And the Apple marketing cohort never get their props for the incredible job they did in making a computer company funky. Then there are props to the Apple staff who did magic with their supply chain. You think engineers are the most essential part of a great company? Try to run a company when your business folk can't close a deal to save themselves. History is littered with superior engineering designs that failed in the marketplace. Doesn't matter how good your engineers are if their stuff doesn't sell.

Frankly, fuck this "my job is more important than yours" dick-swinging competition. In today's economic-rationalising environment, few jobs aren't essential.

[wintom]

My point is today, more than ever, engineers are essential.

Design is not and the article misses that point and is using design as a gauge for a companies health. That's not accurate, anyway that's my opinion.

Also it's not just google and Microsoft. It's every other high tech company being Bourne today. Engineering lead organizations are much more likely to succeed.

[vacri]

Part of what you're missing is that designers are closer to the user than engineers usually are, and the article relies on that link. I did support for many years, and I am very aware of the disconnect between what non-customer-contact engineers think users want, and what users actually want. Your customer-contact staff are an excellent barometer to the mood of your users, because they're actually looking at what's going on. And in the case of support and sales staff, they're at the pointy end.

And of course engineers are essential to a high-tech company. It's like saying lawyers are essential to a legal firm. But in a lot of tech companies, the engineers are insulated from users, or are even dismissive or abusive of them.

Also, the biggest tech company in the world was led from near-bankruptcy to "more cash than the USA" by not an engineer, not a designer, but a business guy. To make a great company - google, microsoft, whatever, you need hardcore business folks that can play the game hard at the highest level. Having a clean engineering setup is nowhere near enough.

[Gibbon1]

Oh you get get it. Closing that loop between what the customer thinks they want, what they actually need, what the engineers can provide and at what cost, so so so important. I'd agree with the article, having the UX guys (or any keep team) dispirited is a bad sign. For companies with some sort of monopoly this stuff can continue indefinitely. Companies that don't have some sort of market power usually are a few years or quarters from death when you see this stuff.

[sizzle]

Wholeheartedly agree. I see some people here would benefit from reading, 'The Inmates Are Running the Asylum' by Alan Cooper.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum/dp/0672...

[gjolund]

It's not "my job is more important than yours", but instead "I'm doing my job AND yours."