

Designers vs. Engineers - endtwist
http://tumble.unwieldy.net/post/2581395544/designers-vs-engineers

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bluekeybox
I've had a similar experience. My work right now can be roughly described as
engineering. However I've had a brief experience of trying to market myself as
an artist/photographer about three years ago (I did photography as a hobby).
People in the arts community are very picky when it comes to design. I had to
learn nearly everything by myself. I found that as I was learning more about
design, my outlook about art in general started to change, which in turn
started to affect my photography (i.e. my content). Design is a very subtle
thing. It is a mistake to think about design as "making things pretty." Design
is communication. Everything you do reveals something about yourself. Design
is about taking control of what the choices you make reveal about yourself.

A lot of engineers I know have the attitude (it's almost a cliche to say it)
that "design is unnecessary; things don't have to be pretty." They say that
because they have never experienced _great_ design or have never had a chance
to work with _great_ designers. Great designers do not make things pretty;
making things pretty for its own sake is frowned upon in the design community.
This is not the 19th century when design amounted to putting in as much
ornament as you could fit. The best 20th century design was closer to
"information design" than to decoration.

Some of the greatest designers of the 20th century were also engineers and
architects. Charles Eames was an expert in structural engineering and
materials science, which gave him a distinctive edge (Charles and Ray
introduced many new materials such as plywood, fiberglass into their furniture
designs). Muller Brockmann (inventor of the "grid") was extremely precise (as
well as concise) with his poster layouts -- as precise as any engineer is with
the blueprints.

A related tendency some engineers have is that they dismiss the expertise of
people who went to a design school or an art school. They assume (incorrectly)
that whatever they themselves "like" will also be liked by other people. In
this regard, I blame engineers more than I blame designers. Designers (at
least all the good ones) understand that engineering is a complex domain and
that they have to listen to the words of people who have studied it and/or are
doing it professionally. Engineers, on the other hand, have this tendency to
look down on art and design as "soft" subjects, to view them as unnecessary,
and they tend to be dismissive of people who studied it. This attitude is
self-defeating, however, since it only contributes to the proliferation of bad
designs, which in turn gives the advantage to good designs because they start
to be seen as "rare" and distinctive.

~~~
kaylarose
"A related tendency some engineers have is that they dismiss the expertise of
people who went to a design school or an art school. They think (incorrectly)
that whatever they themselves "like" will also be liked by other
people....Engineers, on the other hand, have this tendency to look down on art
and design as "soft" subjects, to view them as unnecessary, and they tend to
be dismissive of people who studied it."

I agree, whole hearted-ly. But I also think that, with effort, those opinions
can be changed.

I have a similar background as the Author - brief stint in a Fine Arts school,
went to college for Graphic/Web Design, transitioned into web and desktop
development. I work in a "Enterprise Java" shop with tons of guys with
Computer Engineering Degrees that think like this.

When I was hired it was like "here comes this girl talking about making things
look pretty, blah blah". But I found after I just designed some apps (simple
to use, nice-looking) and users started complimenting it, they started to
change their minds. After awhile explaining to them what makes for good
designs (simplicity, subtlety, small details, alignment, etc.) and why, a lot
of those things started to work their way into our products.

In my opinion, most people that don't appreciate good design just haven't been
exposed to the knowledge to appreciate it or just need to see concrete
benefits.

Edit: It also helps win them over faster if you can write good code behind the
designs too.

------
geebee
I enjoyed this post, it's a good kick-off for a discussion, but I don't think
it quite gets at the real point of contention between designers and developers
(btw, the original post is clearly about more than just software, whereas my
response is more or less limited to software and especially web application
development).

"To an engineer, design seems like an unnecessary and tangental part of the
creation process. “It just needs to work,” we say, “it doesn’t need to be
pretty!”"

I don't personally know any programmers who would say this (with full
recognition that everyone's personal experience can be unrepresentative). What
I have heard developers say (well, not quite so bluntly), is "I don't need
designers to help me create software, I just need them to pretty it up at the
end." This, of course, trivializes the designer's role in the development
process.

Some designers take an approach that marginalizes programmers just as badly -
"I don't need programmers to help me create software, I just need them to code
up my vision."

I actually _have_ seen both approaches result in usable software. Intricate
wireframes to the nth detail finally handed over to an antisocial programmer
who just codes it up has worked. Programmers who write an ap, and then hand it
off to a "designer" who pretties it up with nice fonts and borders has worked.
But it's better when they work together throughout the process, and it's best
when all members of the team have skills in both areas.

To me, this is actually one of those situations where the more you can get
into a single head, the better. The programmers are probably in a slightly
stronger situation, since they can ship and they all have _some_ ability to
create UI, whereas I know a lot of designers who simply _can't_ code. So the
designers with no programming skkills _can't_ write software without the help
of a programmer, whereas a programmer with poor design skills would probably
just write crappy software.

But ultimately, I think the problem here is notion that designer and
programmer are exclusive terms. People will lean one way or the other, but you
just can't score a zero in one of these two categories.

------
RoyG
While I agree with the author's general points, the examples were very general
and vague; for example, he uses the bike design seemingly to show a designer
who was uncoupled from engineering, yet I would bet this bike design was
created by engineers, as hubless wheels are an engineering fascination.

Also, using Google circa 1999 as an example of great design through
engineering is way behind the times. Look up what Douglas Bowman had to say
about his tenure as Design Director at Google, and you will find
quantification outrules design qualification at Google – if they can't measure
it, it's worse by definition.

Today, Google is a UI mess, as they haven't changed with the times, and keep
adding content to their once clean design. (Even KISS sites need to be
refreshed).

Finally, he missed the opportunity to dispel another Engineers' myth about
design, by lauding the addition of the Google logotype as exemplary design –
as if slapping a new logo onto an engineer's layout somehow transforms a Plain
Jane site into high design. We're not in 1999 anymore, and the bar is higher.

Overall, the assertions are correct, however, I feel that the author could
have taken the time to come up with better/deeper examples to help prove his
points.

~~~
huertanix
"Today, Google is a UI mess, as they haven't changed with the times, and keep
adding content to their once clean design. (Even KISS sites need to be
refreshed)."

Its not just the Google homepage; Android's UI is outright hideous, and while
99% of what matters in a search engine is results, a smartphone is too
multifaceted in function to neglect a clean, working, uniform UI to organize
the chaos of features into something that people can figure out.

I suspect this is why Android hasn't moved beyond the fellow nerds in my
circle of friends.

------
TimJRobinson
Great post, as an engineer I've never really thought about learning design
principles and have usually just found designs I like and basically copied
them (or purchased something off theme forest).

Where do you recommend an engineer should go to learn the basics of good
design/typography etc?

~~~
carols10cents
The book that changed my outlook (as an engineer) and got me started on the
road to appreciating good design is The Non-Designer's Design Book
([http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-
Willia...](http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-
Williams/dp/0321534042/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294074978&sr=8-1)). It taught
me the basics of what makes a good design vs a poor design-- but beware, after
reading this you will notice (and be annoyed by) poor design forever :D

------
saturdayplace
> Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside
> the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad
> design, not no design at all. - Douglas Martin:
> (<http://www.stcsig.org/usability/resources/pith.html>)

