
An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Working With Designers - gjenkin
http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2014/02/25/graham-jenkin-an-entrepreneurs-guide-to-working-with-designers/
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imkevinxu
A much better guide to working with designers by Julie Zhuo, a Facebook PM
[https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-
glass/6c975dede14...](https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-
glass/6c975dede146)

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ianstormtaylor
Wow, thank you so much for that link. Just read five of Julie's articles and
they are really great reads. Highly recommended for designers at mid-stage
startups (and really everyone).

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seivan
You want to design on iOS? Hire an engineer familiar with UIKit

Mac OS? Appkit

Web? JS,CSS & HTML.

Etc etc.

Basically only hire designers that can write their design. A .PSD isn't much
value to you.

Then again I'm getting more annoyed by so called UX experts or PSD-designers
as time goes.

Now, I am sure Brett who I'm quoting doesn't agree with me, but:

"…these brilliant designers could not make real things. They could only
suggest. They would draw mockups in Photoshop… the designers could not produce
anything that they could ship as-is. Instead, they were dependent on engineers
to translate their ideas into lines of text. Even at Apple, a designer
aristocracy like no other, there was always a subtle undercurrent of
helplessness, and the timidity and hesitation that comes from not being self-
reliant. It’s fashionable to rationalize this helplessness with talk of
“complementary skill-sets” and other such bullshit. But the truth is: An
author can write a book. A musician can compose a song, a [sic] animator can
compose a short, a painter can compose a painting."

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crazygringo
Please. This attitude really needs to stop -- it's insulting to designers,
because it implies their design skills aren't enough, and it's insulting to
programmers, because it implies programming is so trivial that a designer
should just be able to pick it up. Show some respect.

If you think a PSD isn't of much value, you don't have a clue as to what
design even is. It's the equivalent of a designer saying that backend
architecture isn't of much value to the product, just because they don't
understand it.

I know a lot of people on HN come from solely a coding background, and think
design is irrelevant at best, or even harmful at worst. But in most instances,
that's just pure ignorance.

Print designers can't run printing presses. Hardware designers don't know how
to smelt aluminum. Everybody has a job they're good at -- let designers be
good at theirs, respect it, and appreciate the fact that designing and
programming are entirely different skillsets.

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seivan
I never said programming was easy. I don't expect nor would want all software
engineers to be good at design either. That be ing said, are you building
front-facing products (say iOS or a front-end for a web application) you'd be
better off with a software engineer who can design. Than a designer that can
do photoshop mockups. Not everyone on that product team should know how to
design out of the engineers.

But I am saying that designer that can't code their front-end, wether thats
web or mobile, is kinda weird for 2014?

I never said design was unnecessary, I said a designer who' a single skill
queen (in my world) is unnecessary. No one is advocating that design lack
importance, but unless you can code the interface you design, you really don't
add much value. Like an MBA with the next social media idea that will acquire
a billion users in a week because it's such an amazing idea.

Implementation is the only thing that matters and ironically design is
subjective enough for that.

Not to be confused with an illustrator - drawing is fuckhard.

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bennyg
Do you also think that a mobile app programmer who can't design is a waste?
They are also a one-skill queen, unable to implement and create a _product_.

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seivan
No, because software is inherently hard.

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themodelplumber
As a designer, this reminds me of "men, here's how to talk to women."

