Programming is Product Design

http://wademeredith.com/2011/09/programming-is-product-design/

by mildweed • 15 years ago

7 5 15 years ago

wccrawford• 15 years ago

"A programmer who does not design and illustrate is not programming for humans, but practicing at mathematics."

And it is -AWESOME-.

I've always envied people who can draw and design. It simply isn't one of my talents and I quit apologizing for it a while back. Instead, ask me to program your back end... It'll be amazing. Or even ask me to work with your designer. We'll all be happy.

But don't expect me to also do design for the same price as specializing in programming. The people who can do that are 'rock stars' and get paid as such.

If you think otherwise, what you've been hiring are designers who can do some coding... Just enough coding to get by. It's not visible to you because you're not looking at the code.

yinrunning• 15 years ago

Yeah, I'd have to disagree, to a certain extent. I think that to say that serving the end user completely as a programmer is a great thing. But to say that A) Coding is "just math" is completely incorrect. Coding is working with a language. A real programmer is a Creative individual, not necessarily an Analytical individual. It takes analytical skills and talent to realize what you need to program. But a good line of code is an elegant, poetic, wholeheartedly joyous expression of logic, efficiency, and your own Voice as a speaker of programming language. B) To ask that developers have the same skillsets as designers / graphic artists / branding specialists / etc. etc. is just really... Unreasonable. A basic conceptual understanding, sure. But I'll NEVER know what someone with a BFA degree knows. Not even a thumble's worth. And that's as it should be.

At the end of the day, trying to be "good" at both disciplines is going to leave you severely lacking in either one area or the other. And that's why I mock job postings that read along the lines of "We want you to know everything from doing print catalogs to how to performance tweak a database". Those are _at_least_ two different people.

meiji• 15 years ago

Can't decide if the writer is trolling for traffic or not. It's clear SOME programmers should take an interest given the number of awful GUIs we see on desktop, web and mobile apps but not all "programmers" need to have anything to do with an interface so, as yinrunning said, training to understand design would just dilute their ability to learn what they need to know.

As a professional developer I enjoyed the front-end stuff for a while but quickly learned I preferred providing a framework for the more visual people and get on with the back-end stuff which I guess Wade considers maths.

So, as a question to anyone; what do we think about designers who have no ability to code or, even worse, ability to design with sympathy for the technology they're using?

kp8383• 15 years ago

I think both designers and coders (and designer/coders) need to focus primarily on building an optimal environment for efficient and enjoyable HCI. Each skillset has its merits, and I don't necessarily think you have to have a hand in both in order to be successful. But in any capacity, you have to keep your mind on building an optimal product. So yes, programming is product design, as graphic design is product design. They go hand-in-hand toward building and designing something that people will love and find useful.

movingahead• 15 years ago

I think this post is undermining the importance of both design and development. Design is not for people who are not interested in it. Surely, developers appreciate the importance of good design, but to expect developers to design it themselves is wrong. Will you ask someone who works at AMG tweaking Mercedes-Benz engines to learn how to design the next Merc ?

Programming is Product Design

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