Airbnb CEO: Designers Deserve Respect Like Engineers

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-15/airbnb-ceo-designers-deserve-respect-like-engineers.html

by stevewillensky • 14 years ago

29 47 14 years ago

coopdog• 14 years ago

But unlike anyone else

sakri• 14 years ago

Project managers think they are the life of a project, Developers think they are the life of a project, Designers think they are the life of a project.

meaty5• 14 years ago

The thing is, without the project managers and designers, the project still gets delivered...

hboon• 14 years ago

Programmers, product management, project managers and designers are just roles. It doesn't mean that they have to be performed by different people.

Without product and project management, the right product wouldn't be shipped on time. Every role is necessary.

raverbashing2• 14 years ago

Yes, it gets delivered

If it is usable and drives revenue is a different story

HelloMcFly• 14 years ago

Hey look, someone on Hacker News devaluing the contribution of other team members relative to engineers. How novel.

puranjay2• 14 years ago

That is, an unusable mess of a project.

Do you want to just create, or create something actually usable?

Yaa1013• 14 years ago

No they don't, they base their attainment on what looks nice or looks to be working.

Engineers base it on knowledge, technique and what really works.

Do you really think that the world let Architects (form of designer) put down buildings without engineer bureaus thoroughly calculating if the plans are really able? I think not.

This world should stop celebrating their extrovert superstars instead of the people that really make this world tick, and stop seeing their shallow remarks as true.

citricsquid3• 14 years ago

and do you think the world would let engineers put down buildings without architects?

Yaa1013• 14 years ago

Actually that happens a lot.

puranjay2• 14 years ago

And by God are they ugly monstrosities no sane person would want to live in.

I should know. I live in India and half the buildings here don't have architects. The result is something straight out of Sauron's nightmares.

Engineers are fine and all that, but please, stop putting down other professions. I know the new century has been good to your nerddom, but do remember the people who call the real shots are rarely the people who actually, you know, code.

netcan2• 14 years ago

If by respect for designers you mean recruiting intelligent, productive and talented people, allowing them to have an impact and encouraging them to do great work then I surely agree. Great products have great design at their heart.

If by respect for designers you mean feeding the ego of so called "creatives" while indulging in endless bike shed meetings that achieve nothing then I surely disagree. Better lipstick will not make your pig taste any more or less like bacon.

This is my position.. yad yada yada

Neputys• 14 years ago

Same thing goes for Engineers

raverbashing2• 14 years ago

The "bike shed meetings" are usually driven by bosses, not engineers or designers

A designer will usually take a briefing and come up with certain (reasonable) proposals.

Then the bosses come and begin to tell that they like green, that they should "look like Amazon.com", and that he doesn't get this, that, yada yada yada

Not to forget the customer is not the boss but people that go to the website or use the product. It's their needs the designer and engineer should cater.

yummyfajitas• 14 years ago

In my experience bike shed meetings are more likely to be about design than other topics. This is probably just because bikeshedding about a green version of Amazon.com is easier than bikeshedding about backoff/retry strategies or sql optimization.

michaelochurch2• 14 years ago

Good designers don't fall in love with their work. At least, they don't when under corporate constraint, because they know perfection is neither possible nor desirable.

I don't think designers are worse when it comes to bike-shedding than anyone else. I've had more problems with product managers and arrogant bosses when it comes to that.

dkhenry2• 14 years ago

for those of you who missed it yesterday on HN

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey

pinaceae• 14 years ago

awesome, the if-by-whiskey tactic in play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey

good job on not getting caught immediately. :)

killermonkeys• 14 years ago

I've spent as much time hiring one designer as ten engineers. In that sense good designers are more rare and harder to discern. But they go and stay where they're respected (like engineers and everyone else) so I don't think this will change anyone's behavior toward them. Despite some of the negative comments here, i think most folks who have worked with a good designer can see the difference and don't accuse them of "superstar syndrome" any more than any other team member. That's not the same as respect and that is why it is hard to get them.

helipad• 14 years ago

AirBnB is a beautiful site and better than any hotel booking site.

However, it falls down when hosts are unresponsive after booking. Reminds me of eBay from long ago. We thought of eBay as shopping - until a seller goes AWOL.

arocks• 14 years ago

Designers as a group tend to include all sort of people into one lump. It includes an artist who can design a photoshop mockup that might be visually appealing but too heavy to load. It also includes multi-talented interface designers who can design an elegant but highly functional widget.

The former don't get much respect because they are often unaware of the constraints that others in the company are working in. But the latter are certainly well regarded in most companies because a designer's work is almost always noticed. Airbnb seems to have a well designed and functional interface, so this statement makes sense for them.

tmh88j2• 14 years ago

>Designers as a group tend to include all sort of people into one lump

Kind of like the title "engineer": Electrical engineers do everything from circuit design to PLC programming and power generation.

Uchikoma• 14 years ago

Every employee deserve the same respect, including the CEO and the cleaning staff.

tmh88j2• 14 years ago

I think the term respect is used loosely here. Sure, everyone should be treated with the same respect, but I feel like they're substituting it for admiration.

michaelochurch2• 14 years ago

Engineers are a respected class in California?

Hell's balls, I need to move.

EnderMB2• 14 years ago

It has been my experience in agencies that designers are often the guys running the show at larger companies, with development often viewed as a commodity that is nice to have in-house, but could be traded away to another agency with little difficulty.

As an example, a guy I know that is now a director at a London based agency is hiring a Head of User Experience/Design, and a Head of Development. The design role requires many years of experience with large brands, leading projects, experience working with board members/multiple stakeholder environments with a salary range from £65-80k a year. The development role requires the same amount of experience as a developer; leading projects and people, but has a salary of £50-65k. This seems fairly common across agencies in London and with the pay scale lowered seems about the same in cities like Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, etc.

A company like Airbnb is going to be entirely different from the norm, but this is already common practice across many other agencies. The rise of Apple has done a lot for creatives, possibly a lot more than the technical might of companies like Microsoft and Google have done for developers.

lusr• 14 years ago

Is this agency you refer to a marketing or design agency?

If so, this data point is most likely somewhat deceptive. The core competency of a marketing or design agency is creative work, and naturally you want exceptional talent in that respect. Such an agency is generally going to be building straightforward websites that don't require particularly skillful software engineering. (And even if they did, it'd be an option to contract out, whereas contracting creativity out is not - as far as I know - a real option.)

If you look at the salary of an equivalent "Head of Development" and "Head of User Experience/Design" at e.g. Microsoft I suspect you'll see the opposite salary situation because of the relative focus of the organisation (although Microsoft is putting a lot of emphasis on design these days so who knows?).

EnderMB2• 14 years ago

I should have been clearer. Both examples market themselves as full-service agencies.

You're absolutely right that creative and marketing agencies skew their pay towards the creative and business sides. Sadly, in my experience, a lot of full-service agencies side towards creatives over developers, both in pay scale and decision making. I've known a few Technical Directors that seem to be equal in name only, and are often restricted solely to purely technical subjects.

calinet6• 14 years ago

This is humorous to me considering the engineering experience I've had with their site. In a word, lax.

You can attack it from either angle, surely—a tool requires both design and engineering—but you have to strike a balance.

If I had one recommendation, it would be for every engineer to be a designer and every designer an engineer. Only then will you begin to understand the process and problems that the other side faces at every turn.

Anecdotally, being both an engineer and designer has helped me immensely in aspects of each practice in untold ways.

So, yes, the article is right, but they shouldn't be making people think more like designers—that, too, is closed minded and limiting. Aim for a balance between engineering and design that works together. Looking at the problem from any one side is incomplete.

tokenizer• 14 years ago

Function and Form. You need to be able to design a system to be an engineer, and the same goes for designers. I would go even further and say that both disciplines are essentially the same with each emphasizing function (engineer), and form (designer) respectively.

super_mario• 14 years ago

Wait, guys. Wait. Engineers are respected? If designers aspiration is to be as respected as engineers, then design roles must involve toilet cleaning at some stage.

loceng• 14 years ago

I think it's likely just harder to show functional value with design work. If you're coding, there's something usually active that will happen from the work. If you design something, it's really up to tastes of the people reviewing it - unless its coupled with A/B testing, but even then A/B testing can be done badly, and the metrics you're following could be wrong, too.

dkhenry2• 14 years ago

Maybe its just me, but I always see people who claim their profession needs more respect don't have a good understanding of _others_ professions. I will tell you now from my perspective designers do amazing things and I have a very high level of respect for what they do. I can't do it, my designs suck. In the same way designers I work with tell me what I do is amazing. I don't think what I do is amazing ,and I get the vibe they have the same feeling towards their profession. When someone starts complaining that they don't get enough credit or respect for what their doing it tells me they think they are awesome and better then everyone else and somehow they need more acknowledgement for their work then the rest of the disciplines that go into making a functioning product.

Airbnb CEO: Designers Deserve Respect Like Engineers

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