
Hire Good Designers - bkbleikamp
http://bleikamp.com/hire-good-designers.html
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lachyg
This is pretty silly; all designers should be _good_ designers, but most
specialise in different mediums e.g. you usually wouldn't hire a print
designer for the web, or a web designer for an iPhone app as they don't
understand the HIG.

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martey
I think the point of the post is that good designers should be generalists. A
_good designer_ would read (or re-read) the iOS HIG in order to have a good
idea of the platform's guidelines before beginning work.

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tobtoh
If that is what the author is trying to say, then I think they are stating the
blindingly obvious. Hire people who understand the fundamentals - that goes
for every single job and is a given.

"There is nothing special about the web that makes it more or less challenging
than designing on an iPad. They are just different."

Differences are exactly what makes something special. Specialists are those
people who have in-depth knowledge of the differences and know how to make use
of them ... and know how to make use of those differences _now_ , not after
they experiment and figure things out from first principles.

So advertising for an OSX designer, or an Android designer is a sound
decision. I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired
Linux sysadmins (unix is unix as the cliche goes) ... but I won't - Linux
admins may know the fundamentals of unix, but I want people who really
understand Solaris and how to get the most out of it. And I don't want to wait
whilst a Linux sysadmin learns the differences between them.

To be a little critical of the author, it doesn't sound like he has much
experience as a designer - the blog post sounds like something written by
someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know. Isn't the saying that the
'devil is in the details' (or differences) ... I would have thought that a
good designer would understand that and never argue that all you need is
generalist knowledge.

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bkbleikamp
"I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux
sysadmins…"

Now you're comparing system administration to design - this doesn't really
work. Technical skills like this don't translate well, and I never claimed
they do.

The post is about UI and interaction design and those principles are the same
across all platforms. Design patterns for a specific device, operating system,
or medium (e.g. the browser) are not something you need to be a specialist to
learn, analyze, or pick up - you need to understand the fundamentals of
design.

Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers
designing on the web. They had to learn and come up with new design patterns,
but since they were good, it was well within their skill set.

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tobtoh
Technical skills like this don't translate well ..."

Heheh I knew I should never have used an analogy, there is always something
that won't quite hold true to the point you are trying to make :) The main
point I'm trying to make is I believe in any field, the details are always
important and things like patterns are shortcuts to speed up a process, but
they aren't a fix-all for whatever problem you are trying to solve.

If you compare the best iphone apps today to the best iphone apps from the
start, I think most people would argue that today's apps are far slicker and
easier to use. Why is that? it's because people have built on previous
experience of what worked and what didn't. Experience matters, understanding
the differences matters, specialist knowledge matters and it's why advertising
for a specific type of designer matters.

I will agree with you that a good designer can, with enough time, achieve the
same results as a 'specialist' designer - but that's the whole reason people
advertise for a specific skillset, they don't want to wait.

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ThomPete
I think what he is trying to say is that you should get designers who aren't
tied down into a niche part of design, as this would often indicate that they
aren't really designers but merely people who use photoshop and happen to make
their money doing Wordpress design or Shopify design etc.

What I think he is missing and why I think he is basically giving bad advice
is that sometimes you have to label yourself in such a way that you minimize
friction from a getting hired point of view.

Many clients believe that there is a difference between a good Wordpress
designer and a good iPhone designer, but obviously the truth is that if they
are anything worth they don't care what they have to design for.

Design is not simply how it looks but as much how it works.

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Angostura
And this is is why it makes sense to buy a car designed by someone with
experience designing wedding dresses.

Oh, wait - perhaps knowledge of the medium and its constraints _is_ important
on occasion.

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bkbleikamp
Coming up with extremes is a really valuable skill. So clever.

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jtchang
Blanket statements kill me. Yes you should hire a good designer. But you
should attempt to target a niche when it makes sense.

If I am making an iPhone app I'd like a designer who has experience with it.
So it is the difference between "I want a designer with OS X experience" and
"I want a OSX Designer". Aren't they almost one and the same?

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rglover
What Ben is getting at is that a truly good designer is a person who has
little aversion to what medium they're working on. Additionally, I think he's
also coded in a bit of a slant toward most of the businesses out there that
are hiring who only associate design with certain products or languages. An
honest mistake, sure, especially for those who don't know about design.

But we're beginning to enter an era where if you run a business and your
adement about having a well-designed product, then you should be willing to
take the time to develop a cursory knowledge of the industry. Be able to
differentiate between buzzwords and the all-too-familiar "insert development
platform here" designer. Although his argument is a bit understated, Ben's
point is clear: don't waste time with people who aren't absolutely head-over-
heels about design. They cost more and sometimes require more resources, but
the return on that investment will surprise most people. Even if they don't
believe it, people respond to good design.

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yoda_sl
I believe that in addition for a good designer the skill set required is to
understand the overall user experience.

Coming up with a great looking photoshop comps can be achieved by a lot, but
creating a consistent user experience is the most critical.

I am not sure that all the 'designers' do understand that. And this is an area
where Apple is well known to spend a lot of time for all their apps.

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dylanrw
A good designer will learn the medium they need to solve a problem. Great
post.

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tuhin
"If you can design one thing, you can design everything."

 _— Massimo Vignelli._

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pan69
Exactly. If you can design a chair, you can also design a rocket-ship.

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korussian
I need someone to paint my house. Does anyone know that guy who stencils rats
around London?

