[nt2h9uh238h]

Design is still massively under-appreciated. Airbnb, Airtable and Coinbase and Stripe massively succeeded, because of Design. And Zorin OS 16 is on the right track, but still: hire an excellent Designer to review the entire system again. Check margins, Branding, consistency of the entire system, and more.

Design makes all the difference and creates real business (and user experience) value.

[tluyben2]

> Design is still massively under-appreciated.

Is it? With everyone talking about it here how important it is, I get the feeling it is over hyped. There is also not a lot or maybe actually no proof at all these sites became popular because of design. They threw massive amounts of VC money into marketing and networking and ads etc. And next to that they went viral (probably because of the massive amounts of vc money and people in influencer circles egging eachother on, for which you can find traces on HN and reddit easily): would be great to see some actual references how you came to say with such certainty this is 'because of design'.

[tomger]

Your definition of design here is limited to graphic design.

For many, design also refers to how a product solves a people problem, how does it affect people’s lives, what’s it worth ...

People who practice (product) design spend time looking at usage data, talking to people and understanding what the impact of a design change is.

I think most will agree those are essential things for a product to be successful.

[tluyben2]

Well, the GP is talking margins and branding. That sounds like graphic design to me.

But it does also apply to your definition somewhat though: if we were marketing forcefed a solution which made (possibly better designed per your definition) competitors die, is this excellent design (per your definition) or is everyone parotting eachother because they had enough cash to 'win the race' and are therefor the new standard? Which has nothing to do with design (even in your broader definition).

Ps. I do agree with you but very much feel that GP is mostly talking about graphical design, which I simply do not think is as important as designers think it is. Compared to most other aspects.

[tomger]

Indeed I don’t agree with GP’s pov that a clean graphical design is a major factor in the success of the products listed. I see it more as a side effect of a good team. That is to say, I would have less faith in a company that can’t get their process in shape to produce basic UI consistency for a consumer product.

[amelius]

> Design makes all the difference and creates real business (and user experience) value

Yes, design adds value, but the graphical aspect (margins, branding, etc) adds less than you think. In my view, given two technically equal systems, design only decides which system users will gravitate towards. Without good design, users will happily use your system, unless they know that there is a better-looking version of the same system elsewhere.

So this makes graphical design mandatory, but in a way that is to a great extent decoupled from value.

[montroser]

ElementaryOS is the best at this I've seen, as far as Linux distros. They have their own desktop environment, pantheon, which a designer has obviously laboured over. Use Inter as a UI font, disable all font hinting, and you have visual aesthetics and usability that is better than Windows, and in striking distance to macOS.

[nt2h9uh238h]

and: please kick sourceforge.net, that download page is incredibly ugly and destroys the "quality aura" you built up on your own website.

[outime]

Totally agree. I don’t understand why so many programmers insist on designing stuff themselves. Except few exceptions we all suck at that (but then I admire people who are good at both).

[benttoothpaste]

Insist? While it is easy to find programmers to contribute to a community project for free, designers expect to be paid. Not everyone has enough spare cash to pay a professional designer. So they do the design themselves to the best of their ability.

[outime]

I’m not talking about people who can’t afford paying and needing one, but even those can find a designer to help them if the project is interesting enough. I have done it myself and it’s been good for everyone involved. But my comment was targeted to the “I could totally afford a designer but I’m good enough myself” when most of the time is just ego speaking.

[mraza007]

I totally agree with your comment. I think design is one of the reasons Linux Hasn’t been able to take over the desktops despite offering so many distros to choose from.

[prox]

Are there any linux teams who need a UX designer / QA process?

[ksec]

Yes. After nearly 20 years the year for "Linux on Desktop", all Linux OS / Distro design still screams Linux right from the start.