Aug 6, 2026, 1:00 AMI always tell my coworkers “we’re short staffed on designers, but if your thing is very urgent it can be designed by a software engineer” and i have yet to find a taker
- Aug 6, 2026, 1:00 AM
Replies
Aug 6, 2026, 1:01 AM@lzg 😅
prom™️promovicz@chaos.socialAug 6, 2026, 1:17 AM@lzg would be so cool if user-empowerment went less wrong in tech, then self-service high-level apps could work better for more people.
Maura HubbellSistaWendy@toot.catAug 6, 2026, 1:38 AM@lzg No one should trust us to do jobs that aren’t ours, and that goes double for us ourselves.
Nathan A. Stinestinerman@mastodon.socialAug 6, 2026, 2:24 AM@lzg when I get requirements without a mockup, I say that I can throw something together but it'll be ugly. This gets me a mockup pretty quickly.
arclightarclight@oldbytes.spaceAug 6, 2026, 7:28 AM@stinerman @lzg Back in the day I'd end up with some fantasy rendered in Photoshop and curse for a few hours as I built the thing knowing full well they'd change their mind before I was done. Got out of web dev in 98 and into sysadminery. Ops had a better class of problems and was blissfully far from Photoshop mockups.
Aug 6, 2026, 3:00 AM@lzg Hope you like command-line interfaces with ASCII art.
Carlos Solíscsolisr@hub.azkware.netAug 6, 2026, 3:36 AM
thomasmeythomasmey@social.tchncs.deAug 6, 2026, 3:15 AM@lzg and kids, this is why "enterprise" software looks like it does...
CismonXcismonx@mastodon.socialAug 6, 2026, 3:52 AMI tend to like UI/UX designs by (capable) software engineers more than those by professional designers.
That's probably because we developers don't use software quite the same way as those who don't write software themselves.
Also why it's so hard for non tech-savvy people to go "all-in FLOSS".
Brahmsbrahms@chaos.socialAug 6, 2026, 5:49 AM@cismonx @lzg to be fair, some if not most FOSS could really do with some UX design. there is a reason why studying user interfaces is its own science (specially considering disabilities and accessibility is seldom done at all).
then again, most proprietary software is just as bad, if not worse. At least free software doesnt have to give a crap about hooking users and increasing KPIs
Alexandre KleinTheyCallMeHacked@social.tchncs.deAug 6, 2026, 5:59 AM@brahms @lzg I think the point @cismonx was trying to make is that software engineers will make interfaces that work very well for themselves. This means the UX will be particullarly well adapted to people who have similar priors, i.e. other software engineers; and particullarly ill-adapted to anyone else.
Aug 6, 2026, 7:23 AMA lot of things designed by software engineers, including a lot of F/OSS, is objectively bad for usability. That’s not hyperbole, there are things you can objectively measure (Fitts’ Law, number of operations to complete common tasks) as well as more subjective things (such as discoverability of features, visual cues for interactivity, and so on).
Unfortunately, a lot of interfaces designed by designers in the last 15-20 years are the same.
I think the cutoff point was when people started talking about UX instead of HCI. Human Computer Interaction is a science that incorporates cognitive and behavioural psychology and is driven by user studies to actually measure their claims. User eXperience is a buzzword, mostly pushed by people who didn’t want to go to the effort of studying usability to justify why people should adopt their bad ideas. There was a period of about five years where no one who actually knew what they were talking about said UX, which made it a useful filter, but now even good designers use the term.
‘Software engineer’ may mean someone who analyses requirements, designs maintainable and scalable systems, and produces high-quality code. It may also be someone who can write code that kind-of works if you don’t look too carefully.
Similarly, ‘designer’ might mean someone with a strong background in psychology, who will carefully examine user stories and build a system that gets out of the user’s way and behaves in a way that is a joy to use, or it might mean a failed artist who wants to get their ‘vision’ into a real product.
Unfortunately, the latter seems to be dominating the profession. The Design Museum in London used to be my favourite museum because everything in it was form following function. Things that were aesthetically pleasing but also worked perfectly for their intended purpose with minimal user friction. One of my favourite bits was an exhibit on the evolution of the Tube map, as the realisation that users needed to know the location of stations but not of the lines between them gradually dominated. The last time I went, it was entirely things that matched the private aesthetic of some ‘designer’ and were barely usable, including an entire floor on some of the least comfortable shoes ever made. And that’s what the profession is lauding. It was incredibly disappointing.
NinaGinaNinaGina@mastodon.socialAug 6, 2026, 3:53 AM@lzg use a hashtag?
Aug 6, 2026, 4:52 AM@lzg
I'll take a UI designed by a software engineer over some fancy "designer design" any day of the week.
meowkimeowki@meowstodon.euAug 6, 2026, 4:59 AM@lzg wow, rude!
Christopher Evansbecomingwisest@hachyderm.ioAug 6, 2026, 5:10 AM
cheskaprogrammablecat@post.lurk.orgAug 6, 2026, 7:05 AM@lzg Pfft, rude. Well, they’d miss out because I was building AND designing websites since the geocities era. You don’t need all these fancy design principles or wireframing or user testing. I’m sure the user will figure it out.
