
Airbnb CEO: Designers Deserve Respect Like Engineers - stevewillensky
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-15/airbnb-ceo-designers-deserve-respect-like-engineers.html
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netcan
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

~~~
raverbashing
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
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.

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EnderMB
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
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?).

~~~
EnderMB
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.

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calinet6
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
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.

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arocks
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.

~~~
tmh88j
>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.

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killermonkeys
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.

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super_mario
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
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.

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sakri
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.

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

~~~
hboon
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.

~~~
Kurtz79
Strictly speaking, no.

I would say that is possible to have a very basic product without designers
and managers, but not without engineers.

~~~
netcan
Unless the designer or project manager engineers it.

~~~
Kurtz79
Of course. But that would make him an "engineer", at least in the scope of
that project :).

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dkhenry
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.

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helipad
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.

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coopdog
But unlike anyone else

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

~~~
tmh88j
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.

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michaelochurch
Engineers are a respected class in California?

Hell's balls, I need to move.

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Yaa101
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.

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

~~~
puranjay
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_.

~~~
Yaa101
I am not putting down other professions, I just think that designers should
not have the same level of respect that engineers have.

for instance, You (and I) would not be able to react here if it wasn't for
engineers to calculate and refine the process of growing pure silicon and
causing a revolution of large scale integrated logics. Or engineers creating
the integrated computer network called internet.

The history of science is full of examples that show how engineers pave the
roads of most areas to enable others (like designers) to build further.

I also lamented the fact that mostly designers and others, whos work is much
more clear and in the open are celebrated much more than the people that do
really important work to make the world go round.

