[doodliego]

This guy is putting customers first, which is the exact opposite of most UX design philosophies I've been on the receiving end of. The entire discipline prioritizes minimalism, copying Apple, and making random changes to the interface just so they have "accomplished" something, which is how you get randomly broken messes like Youtube.

If UX designers made a gas pump, it would be a featureless white pillar with a single button and a hose and it wouldn't work.

[andykx]

For better or worse, UX is as much about curating a company “image” as it is about creating user-friendly interfaces. When users see that your website looks like Apple’s, they immediately think, “Wow, this company is the real deal.” This part of the user’s experience is, unfortunately, the focus of many marketing/design teams.

[eric-hu]

Design is a broad field. I believe you're mistaking UX design for visual design or industrial design.

[dmix]

UX is one of the most abused terms. So I'm not surprised he's mistaking what it really means.

So many big firms hire mediocre "designers" out of college and they wireframe whatever the project managers tell them to and they do what they are told.

I better term is just "product designer" but I like UX designer as the name encompasses it perfectly... your job is to know and understand the users experience inside and out, and make it as ideal as possible.

When done right, just like programmers who push back on stupid features because they often have a better grasp of what "good software" compared to the average "business person". Another bad group is the non-startup people who come from older, bigger IT megacorps and run product development, which is a disaster waiting to happen but I've heard of many examples of this.

I should also note I'm only talking from my experience working with startups and SMBs. I personally don't know much about operating design within a giant company.

[specialist]

File under "Can't Prove It, But I Know It's True":

Those crappy UIs were the result of PHBs sabotaging the work.

I stopped doing UI. It was pointless. We'd mock things up. Validate with usability testing. Rinse, lather, repeat. Until it was spotless.

And then it'd all get trashed by someone(s) with a corner office.

[mc3]

UX is completely about the end user. A UX should be studying how people are using a product, see where they trip up and get confused and design a better experience as a result.

[mbyrne]

A hose is not very elegant and should be removed. It would look much cleaner to have the gasoline just squirt into the car's open gas tank. Possibly with some LEDs around the gas pump's flush-mounted nozzle to create sparkles in the gasoline stream as it arcs through the air into the gas tank fill hole. Finally, clean hands!

[drcross]

YouTube is terrible. I have ample space on my dual screens to display controls while watching a YouTube video. Everything from scrubbing, speed control and volume changes should be a single click away at all times.

[deftnerd]

For optimization, I would just make it easy to remove the payment process and selecting the fuel grade.

Everytime a car drives up, use a camera to determine their license plate number. If they are a new customer, ask them if they want to save their payment information and fuel grade preferences. If so, everytime they come back, the pump can display "Welcome back John Doe, you can begin pumping".