[drob518]

I’m convinced that the biggest threat to good UIs are the majority of professional UI designers. Think of it this way… Half of all UI designers are below the median. These people chose UI design as a career. You don’t advance your career by simply defending the status quo year after year. To advance you need to design something new. So, you do. You do whether whatever was there before is working well or not. Because what are you going to do, sit on your hands year after year? And because half of all UI designers are below the median, a new UI design has even odds of being a step backwards. And then you’re on stage yammering about Liquid Glass at an Apple launch event. One thing that makes me sad is that a lot of designers seem to focus on visuals and don’t seem to understand anything about usability. How many designers entering the workforce know what Fitts’s Law is, for instance? How many designers were standing in the breach against all of Liquid Glass’s usability issues, most of which were quite obvious? Honestly, with rare exceptions, the designers are the issue.

[glaslong]

As someone technically under a design role for new product exploration reasons... Yeah... Lots of graphic designers who don't care much for actual product design. Be it the purpose of the product, of this bit of ui, the human factors, the interaction design, or the ux beyond where it fits the aesthetic.

There's a lot of lip service paid to each, but not a lot of real consideration for them, because that's not what will win in a portfolio at interview or in a deck for your leadership. We end up strongly self-selecting against those things.

[bitexploder]

This assumes that every designer is on the bell curve at the big tech firms in the roles that can influence this. I am not defending modern UI/UX, but that is quite an assumption.

[drob518]

You're right, it is a big assumption, but it's not unfounded. I've worked at F50 companies and founded my own startup. It's a lot easier to get two really great designers from the far right side of the bell curve when you're a small startup. As an organization reaches even 1000 people, you're now starting to draw from the middle of the bell curve. In fact, you have to. If you try to hire only from the far right of the bell curve for all positions, you end up with a lot of egos that will clash. In the best case, you hire leaders from the far right of the bell curve and followers from the middle. But at some point those mediocre followers start asking for promotions and your hotshot leader leaves for greener pastures. Controlling for that in your hiring practices at a large organization is virtually impossible, particularly if you have standard (middle of the bell curve) HR people. BTW, this is exactly why startups out-execute large companies every day of the week. A small startup can carefully control its hiring, select from the right side of the bell curve, and avoid all the large company HR crap. But as soon as it starts to scale, the bell curve becomes a looming threat.

[bitexploder]

On the other hand, just working at big tech doesn't mean you are especially great. Conformance and criteria other than raw skill matter. As you say, promotion games, etc... I would just lump all of that under conformance. So, you aren't wrong.

However, why startups outperform big companies isn't just the skill gap. Even if you have the most amazing leadership in big tech it is monumentally difficult to move the needle on some problems purely because of size not because of incompetence. All I am saying is don't overindex on perceived intelligence. A big org can start looking pretty dumb even though it is still far right of the bell curve compared to even a startup (hypothetically). Org size and the constraints that brings are a significant factor.

[drob518]

Oh, absolutely size has a lot to do with it, too. A founder and three engineers can change the plan at lunch to respond to something they see in the market. It takes admin assistants days, possibly a week or two to get the meetings set up and arrange the catered lunch for the same decision to be made at a large company. And even when it’s made, half the company will spend months trying to undermine it.