
Are Designers Crazy? - edent
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/01/are-designers-crazy/
======
calinet6
No, designers aren't crazy. You just don't understand a very fundamental
concept of design. It even applies to engineering. It's okay—many people have
the same frustrations as you do.

But those who care about the details achieve truly high quality results
overall. It extends to all areas of the design, not just to the parts you
can't see.

In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," there's a scene in a dark room where
Roger Rabbit (an animated character) flies across the room, knocks a hanging
lamp around, and the lighting becomes so dynamic that all the shadows move
around _including the animated character's shadow._ Here's the scene in
question: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI>

This was such a small detail that it would have been forgivable if the
animators had left it out entirely: if they had not moved the lamp, kept the
shadow steady, no one would have really noticed the difference. It would have
been 100 times easier to animate and the effect wouldn't really have been that
different.

But they did it anyway. The term was later coined, and "bump the lamp" is used
throughout Disney (and probably other organizations) to mean something akin to
"go the extra mile"—but I see it as having a special significance to design.

You're right, most people won't notice. By that logic, you could cut corners a
lot of other places too. You could be lax about button colors matching
exactly, or per-pixel sharpness on the map and buttons. No one would probably
notice.

But if you go for every detail like it was the most important detail, you have
the possibility of reaching a level of design quality that is superlative, and
_some people will notice._ Others will not notice directly, but will see that
the piece exudes style and quality subconsciously, due to the attention to
small details. If you carry this into other areas of your work—programming,
customer service, market strategy, marketing, and more—then you have a chance
to create something of true quality.

If you don't pay attention to detail at that level, well, you might have the
chance to actually get something done. Yes, it's a balance, like everything
else. But you have to know that it won't be quite as good, and understand that
yes, you are sacrificing something, even if you can't see it.

~~~
skrebbel
I see where you're coming from, but to me all you're writing is an excuse for
unlimited perfectionism. Perfectionism rocks of you're among the lucky few
who're in a situation where you can get away with it. In most circumstances,
however, there's a product to ship, with the end of the money in sight.

I mean, in terms of the 80/20 rule (the last 20% of quality costs 80% of the
time), we're not talking about turning an 80% thing (i.e. typical in-house
enterprise software) into a 90% thing here. Hell, even going for 95% is
something I believe we should all go for, and fight our colleagues, bosses and
project managers, and customers for. But the OP's example is more like turning
99.5% into 99.8%.

~~~
polarix
For what it's worth, I, as a programmer, am happiest when working with
designers who strive for this kind of excellence.

~~~
emehrkay
I feel the same way. When you have a designer who strives for perfection, they
seem to think of the edge cases. And when they push you for pixel perfection,
it only makes you that much better. Makes me remember how it is not to be "the
best" or the one who cares the most in the office

------
sgdesign
It's easy to pick extreme examples to make it seems like designer obsess over
unimportant details. But a designer that cares about the exact shade of blue
or creating different versions of assets for each sizes will also care about
making sure that your brand is used the right way or that your user interface
makes sense.

Of course, with experience also comes the knowledge of which things are more
important, and which can be sacrificed for the sake of saving time.

But it's often hard to tell the difference. A lot of details that seemed
superfluous at first turn out to be crucial. So if you can afford to, it's
safer to bring the maximum level of care to everything you do.

~~~
edent
I think that's the best I've heard it expressed. Thanks.

------
malachismith
A plea to designers.... Read the original piece carefully and try to avoid
being defensive. This is an important post for all of you. I've been a
defender of Design and designers for 2 decades now. But you all are your own
worst enemies. This post should serve as a chance for all of you to learn why
you are often Balkanized in business decisions and business structures. It
should serve as a chance for you all to show that you actually understand
business realities and can propose rational arguments.

Instead, reading through these comments I see pretty much nothing but personal
opinion, vigorous hand-waving, very poor and stretched-to-breaking analogies
and the usual "because it means this to me" and "because I say so" and
"because... Apple" arguments.

I'd suggest reading again with the mindset of "this is the way non designers
think about us" and then come back and (with facts this time) explain your
perspective.

And remember... this is Hacker News. We work at Start-ups. We believe in
shipping early, shipping often, and iterating to improve. Your answers and
perspective MUST work within this construct or we will ignore you (and you
will thus teach all of us that designers are, in fact, crazy).

Ball's in your court.

~~~
fpal3
> _This post should serve as a chance for all of you to learn why you are
> often Balkanized in business decisions and business structures. It should
> serve as a chance for you all to show that you actually understand business
> realities and can propose rational arguments._

Heh. Because "business decisions" are always so rational, demonstrating a
genuine understanding of the product and what the people that actually are
going to use it will want from it?

> _And remember... this is Hacker News. We work at Start-ups. We believe in
> shipping early, shipping often, and iterating to improve. Your answers and
> perspective MUST work within this construct or we will ignore you (and you
> will thus teach all of us that designers are, in fact, crazy)._

Sigh. Some of us want to ship genuinely high-quality products, not ship
whatever we manage to shit out every other day.

If my users are noticing my bugs (or design faults), that adds up to an
aggregate middling opinion of my product. One thing you got right -- I _do_
want to be Apple, not Time Warner Cable.

> _Ball's in your court._

Not really. You sound like someone that will willingly produce mediocre
products, and I don't really know why anyone interested in excellence (and the
rewards that it brings) would want to work with you. So this becomes a self-
fulfilling prophesy for yourself.

~~~
greggman
You sound like someone who ships a mediocre product because you run out of
time trying to perfect everything and end up having to leave stuff unfinished
because of deadlines.

Most products have a budget and deadlines. Your job as a designer is to do the
best job you can given the time and money allotted. There are very few
projects that have unlimited time and unlimited money.

I've been on too many projects where designers didn't get that and given the
promises to distributors, retailers and advertisers we had to ship a worse
product than we wanted to because the designers spent to much time perfecting
certain elements and not giving enough time to others.

------
kybernetyk
I've worked with quite a few designers. (Mostly I have hired them for my
projects.)

And many of them just lack pragmatism. There's a point where stuff is
$good_enough and a user wouldn't ever notice that it's not optimal - but still
many designer tend not to accept this. They strive for perfection. (Which
might be fine if they weren't burning my money.)

But that's not confined to designers. Lack of pragmatism is generally a
problem. Many engineers I know won't let a problem go until their solution
would work for every possible edge case - even if it's impossible for said
edge case to happen with the current project.

~~~
jongold
Totally agree; been guilty of it myself in the past. Getting the perfect
modular golden-ratio-derived grid is less important than shipping, but being
excellent is better than being _good_.

Designer culture in startups is still relatively new; most of us are still
relatively recent imports from graphic design & advertising agencies where
things are totally different.

But I've seen programmers exhibit the same deadly perfectionism in startups
(namely, premature optimization. overly-ambitious architecture for week-long
MVPs, and writing hundreds of lines of Rspec tests for code that is _designed_
to be thrown out after an experiment).

~~~
kybernetyk
> But I've seen programmers exhibit the same deadly perfectionism in startups

Yeah, programmers are not immune to that. When I was younger I wanted to be a
game developer. So I made games ... well, I rather designed game engines,
threw them away as I came up with 'better' designs and threw those away too
because I dreamt up an even better system.

In the end I didn't ship even one game in my 6 years of being an aspiring game
programmer :)

------
csmeder

       "Ok... Now I see some differences. On one, the 
       buttons are slightly larger, the colours slightly 
       more nuanced, the shading is subtly different. If 
       I zoom to an extreme level, the font on "ebay" 
       in slightly smoother."
    
    

I understand the above is frustrating, however, you are missing the main
reason the image needed some extra love.

The main difference is pixel fitting [1]. The fuzzy border lines on the
buttons are like "nails on a chalkboard" to me. "Nails on a chalk board" don't
actually bother me that much but I notice it. For many cases I would just
ignore it. However, if I am shipping a product that I am hoping will get free
advertising from people talking about how beautifully it is designed, I am
going to pixel fit the damn thing.

In this case, the designer is not being crazy, he is looking out for the the
bottom line. Free word of mouth advertising and free blog articles written
about the beauty of the pixels contribute to the bottom line much more than
the cost of doing a little pixel fitting.

Look at the Hulu example below

[1] <http://dcurt.is/pixel-fitting>

~~~
spion
Makes me wonder - is it possible to make an algorithm that does automatic
pixel fitting?

~~~
baddox
Font hinting is precisely that, and it works quite well, at least for body
text. I'm sure that more critical applications like logo design still require
some hands-on work to get the best results.

As with any vector rasterization, you do trade _accuracy_ for pixel fitting,
but for things like small body text you almost always want that. For example,
if the 1 pixel wide vertical stem of a "b" is supposed to be between two
columns of pixels, the hinting algorithm can push the stem either left or
right so it is rendered as a single black column of pixels, rather than two
gray columns of pixels. This will look less fuzzy, but it will technically
cause the "b" to be closer than it should be to an adjacent character.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_hinting>

~~~
spion
Yes, after I wrote that it hit me: font hinting would qualify as automatic
pixel fitting.

I was thinking about something more elaborate, like an algorithm that takes
distances between neighboring elements, proportions and other factors into
account (and which can be tuned to include/exclude factors).

An example "smart" rule would be: If a group of elements are aligned, the same
size and the same distance, they must remain aligned, the same size and the
same distance after the processing

Ideally it would be a plugin for a vector graphics application which could
then allow the designer to add finishing touches to the places where the
algorithm got it wrong.

------
kaolinite
Just as crazy as programmers are for caring about their indentation or doing
things "right". There are times when you need to rush a little and you can't
do things perfectly, but it feels good to finish something and know you did it
"properly" - whatever that may mean to you.

If you have seen Jony Ive's tribute to Steve Jobs, you may recall the part
where he talks about "giving a damn". I think that is very relevant here.

~~~
mbenjaminsmith
Writing "good code" is always preferable, especially when you do things
"right" the first time.

But what happens when you want to refactor something when 1) it's not strictly
necessary in terms of functionality and 2) it will cost the client some non-
zero amount of money. You easily slip into a gray area that this visual
example illustrates well. Sure there are differences but are they material to
the overall design goals? It's hard to say yes.

There's no such thing as "giving a damn" in an absolute sense. It's hard to
say that any software product is ever done. If that's the case then it's the
programmer's / artist's responsibility to say when something is good enough
for the project's current goals.

~~~
calinet6
If you had unlimited time and money, what would you do?

The higher quality thing is still higher quality, regardless of time or value
constraints. If you choose a lower quality path while acknowledging you're
balancing time and money, you're still choosing lower quality.

Realistically you can't achieve perfection (sometimes even completion) because
you don't have unlimited time or money, and there are always new variables.
But it is important to strive for that high quality as an ideal, even if you
can never reach it. You know it is still better in some absolute sense. It's
always out there as an intangible goal, and if you reach for it, you can
understand and center on that balance beam even better.

~~~
nahname
Perfection is unobtainable by it's very nature. If you froze the world and
left the designer alone for centuries what came out would not be perfection.
Don't kid yourself that it would be otherwise.

~~~
calinet6
I never said it was even real. All I'm saying is that some things are higher
quality than others, and the higher quality things are _better._ It's a simple
tautology.

I did say, "realistically you can't achieve perfection" which would appear to
indicate that I'm not kidding myself here.

Understanding quality in both the realistic obtainable realm, as well as the
unobtainable more-pefect level allows you to differentiate the two, and make
conscious decisions about the level of quality you're targeting as well as
your ability to do so in reality. The higher unobtainable level of quality
doesn't even have to be close to the _perfect_ you're talking about—if you
have time and money constraints, that unobtainable level of quality might be a
_lot_ lower than perfect.

If you dismiss all levels of quality above a certain level as being this
mythical unobtainable thing before even attempting to think about them in the
abstract, then you've cut yourself off from a true understanding of the
balance and compromise involved.

Of course you can't achieve it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware
of it.

At some point this idea becomes a philosophical discussion and ceases to be
useful. Just as at some point, your perfectionism becomes a philosophical
endeavor and ceases to be useful. There is a balance where the pursuit is
useful and complete.

------
melvinram
Design is about empathy.

When I design, I am placing myself in the viewer/users shoes and thinking
about what it is they are trying to do/understand. The subtile differences may
not be critical when viewed at first glance but the designer thought it
affected the experience enough when they were thinking about it from the end-
user/viewer's perspective, that he/she thought it needed to be slightly
different.

Sometimes it is just insanity. Yes, I admit it is a bit crazy to spend 30
minutes on something that no one will really look at twice and I'm completely
guilty of it. And as a designer, sometimes we can't help ourselves... because
"it just doesn't look right." I can't explain what "right" is but I'll know it
when I see it... so I'll experiment with a numer of different approaches.

Sometimes however, it's a genuine care for the experience and the cumulative
effect of sweating the small things showcase a level of polish and care that
Apple is/was famous for. You just have to decide whether it matters to you (as
a company) or not.

Some of the design choices made for the two versions seem like just an
evolution in the style for the app that weren't back-ported to the older
version. For example, the different colors of orange for the button, gradient
shading, etc. Other changes are adjustments that, from his eyes, seemed
necessary to make the experience better/acceptable on the 2x version, such as
the sizing of the Search button, border bevel, etc.

------
mejarc
Having literally bruised my fingers trying to appease a visual designer who
wanted browser rendering to look exactly like Photoshop (for instance, the
CSS-drawn gradients didn't meet her approval, so we had to lard the interface
with background graphics), I'm now in the "Put designers in straitjackets
until they learn the fundamentals of modern Web application design" camp.

It's the year 2013, and your competition is using frameworks like Bootstrap or
Foundation to release something while your dev team is fussing over bespoke
line-heights specified in points. Maybe your app looks better, but how many
users are waiting for that placed-just-so button image to download?

~~~
josegonzalez
Disclaimer: I work on Operations at SeatGeek

We take design very seriously, and thats because better designs have been
quantifiably proven to have a meaningful impact on our bottom line. That means
sometimes we try and polish something for the first release, but we always set
a limit to that - if it's not in production, it's not shipped, and we will
forget about it amongst the 23524 other things going on in a given week.
Therefore, we usually set at least some internal goal of "good enough" and
then ship. It just so happens one of our founders really likes digging into
design.

Also note, this is an iPhone app, not a web application. Very different rules
apply here, so you can't just slap Bootstrap on your UI and hope for the best
:)

------
demian
You seem to be describing, basically, overengineering applied to visual
design.

For a developer, an example of equivalent behaviour is being overzealous about
a specific programming paradigm. Things that can't be directly quantified in
business terms (unlike "response time").

IMHO, it's about pragmatism and business sensibility versus artistic
perfection. And it applies for both worlds.

An argument from a more business-oriented visual designer could be, for
example, about how some button color can affect conversion rate.

------
fredtruman
The example about Google engineers "thinking like designers" is actually an
example of "engineers thinking like engineers thinking about engineering a
color choice" which the author is calling design. This is embarrassing.
Engineers shouldn't think about design. Remember Douglas Bowman?
<http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html>

People want to use things - i.e. products, digital or otherwise - with style
and performance. People, real people, don't give a rats ass about computer
science or design - they just want the product to do something for them and
they want to look cool doing it. With their expectations of performance aside
for the moment, there is nothing cool about engineers "optimizing" style.

~~~
TorbjornLunde
“Engineers shouldn't think about design.”

In my experience engineers who think a little bit about design work better
with designers than those who don’t.

~~~
calinet6
In my experience, multi-disciplinary people of any kind work better than those
who aren't. Such a rare and precious thing to understand the boundaries
between fields and how connected they really are...

------
jkat
Currently dealing with design and usability experts that are spending a lot of
time building things instead of shipping and trying out different approached.

There seems to be an aversion to A/B testing because that would clearly
challenge their title of "experts".

~~~
calinet6
There's something to be said for both strategies.

Once you get down to a functional and complete design, it's useful to A/B test
details to optimize.

But it's nearly impossible to design something using an A/B test. Design
simply does not work that way—it is not an evolutionary process on three
variables, initially whether you believe in it or not, it is an art and as
such takes in thousands of variables in thousands of forms and outputs
something that works. That's the job of the expert—at the beginning, they are
using their internal A/B test to produce something they know will be
successful in the grand scheme. Give them a chance, please.

------
netfire
Although these changes may seem like an unnecessary level of attention to
detail, its important to keep in mind that this would be a very minor change
to make design and engineering-wise. We're not talking about moving around
elements or re-doing the entire design, just changing some colors/gradients.
In my opinion, the little bit of extra effort required to put this level of
polish on a product is completely worth it.

Most problems with perfectionism in design and engineering come from people
making bad decisions early on in the design/development process and not
realizing that something is fundamentally wrong until much later on--when its
much harder to fix.

------
damncabbage
The flip-back-and-forth example given in the post:
[http://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Design-
Di...](http://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Design-
Difference.gif)

Notice how the edges are now fuzzy? On the buttons, on the edge just below the
map, on the cog. That sticks out to me personally on this monitor here, and I
tend to find differences like becoming even _more_ noticeable when looking at
the phone with it's hi-res "Retina" display.

They may not be crazy; they just notice different things. :)

~~~
rachelbythebay
Those two versions are certainly different, but _better_ is a difficult call
to make.

Of course, I still watch analog NTSC on a CRT TV, so what do I know about
image quality?

------
Too

        > *"A design can be wrong. The entire thing can be wrong, parts can be
        > wrong, or even a tiny, 10x10 pixel area can be wrong. Not, "I think it's 
        > good but it needs improvement" but flat-out wrong. 1 + 1 = 3 wrong. A 
        > spelling mistake in a book wrong. A syntax error in a code file wrong. 
        > It's not an opinion, it's not a matter of subjectivity, it's a fact: a 
        > design can be wrong."*
    

[http://flyosity.com/application-design/your-design-is-
wrong-...](http://flyosity.com/application-design/your-design-is-wrong-and-
heres-why.php)

The buttons with numbers in his example are such.

There's still the question of whether fixing it is worth it or not though...

------
surrealize
I'm not a visual designer, but I do see the difference in crispness between
the two stadium images, and I think the improvement in the sharper one is non-
trivial.

However, I'm frustrated with designers who associate thoroughness with being
"pixel-perfect". Pixels should not be the focus. We live in a multi-res world;
different people have differing visual acuity and varying ppi screens that
they hold at varying distances. Being user-centered means accounting for all
that variation, not optimizing individual pixels for your super-designer-
vision. Just use vector art instead.

I hoped that the retina iStuff would finally break designers of their pixel-
focus, but it seems that it's just become a way to obsess even more about
pixels.

~~~
notatoad
That's because pixels are important. The non-trivial blurring you see is the
result of the edge of the image not being aligned with the edge of the pixel.
the screen has to anti-alias it onto the subpixel, and it looks shitty. High
PPI screens mitigate this somewhat, and i'm sure every designer would love to
get away from using pixels but the results just aren't good when you do.

------
robomartin
Well, on mobile it can be hard to quantify and connect design to value. On the
web it's a different story.

There's nothing wrong with beautiful design as long as you are willing to
accept the fact that at one point it is serving art and not business needs.
And that's OK.

If the requirement is to strictly serve business needs, then you have to A/B
test, generate numbers and go with what optimizes conversions or whatever you
are after. People react to what they see in amazingly different ways. I don't
think anyone has a canonical "manual" for what will please most people or what
will compel most people to take a given action. I mean, look at Craigslist!

------
jimsilverman
as a designer, i wholeheartedly agree with his points on the obsessive strive
for pixel perfection. no one cares besides designers. or at least no non-
designer i've ever asked.

it's becoming a problem. look at dribbble. countless designers would be more
likely to obsess over a single misaligned pixel rather than focusing on far
more impactful improvements to the user experience.

a pixel perfect button in the wrong spot will always perform worse than a
misaligned button in the right spot.

~~~
Shorel
I write C++ code as a hobby. I have no idea of color palettes or similar
design stuff.

I will notice pixel perfection every time. So thank you all for the attention
to detail.

------
madisp
aren't both of these sample images scaled down? Unless one sees the actual raw
screenshots (640x960 and 320x480) one can't really tell if there are
inaccuracies or not.

Also, if the @2x version has 1px features then these will definitely become
blurry when scaled.

~~~
edent
I think the point is both are displayed as 320x480 but one is designed
specifically for that resolution whereas the other is just shrunk.

Even so, when held at arm's length I'm doubtful of how noticeable the
differences are.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Even so, when held at arm's length I'm doubtful of how noticeable the
> differences are.

I know of no-one, tech or non-tech, that holds their phone at arm's length.
Most hold their phones much closer.

------
nahname
Maybe I am the crazy one, but it feels like the real issue is that design
practices are just less practical (mature?) than software engineering ones. We
both strive for perfection and idealize great work. The difference is that few
places allow for that kind of waste in their software departments because
history has shown us that endless supplies of time and money just result in
waste and churn, not significant changes in quality.

------
amadeus
This may have been said before, but I am posting anyways since there's so many
comments here and I don't have time to read them all.

I think I have a way to explain why pixel perfection is a very good
optimization that caters to more of a a developer mindset like yourself; it
comes down to image compression, and specifically PNG compression.

When it comes to UI elements, the fewer colors you use, the better. This means
avoiding things like gradients, or unnecessary colors can have a major impact
on file size. It's also the 'art of design' to manage to create a beautiful
design without a lot of crappy and needless 'veneer'.

I don't know the specifics of the PNG algorithm, but it can do an amazing job
at compressing an image if it's made up of few and often repeating colors
(typically it's terrible at photographs, however).

When you apply a scaling algorithm (as exemplified by the post) other than
nearest neighbor, it tends to create a lot of intermediary colors that end up
hurting the size of the image.

Looking closely at the borders of those buttons, that blur is going to end up
adding to the file size because it adds colors that didn't exist before. If
you properly 'scale' (which sometimes requires a redraw at a smaller size to
get it right), it can have a huge impact (sometimes as much as 2x or 3x).

Oftentimes you can get away with it from a 1/2x scale fairly easily, but you
have to remember there are many android devices at a 1.5x scale, and that can
sometimes require completely new rounded corners that take advantage of that
pixel density.

This is of course anecdotal, but it's not as simple as 'looks' even though I
could immediately see the differences between the properly and unproperly
scaled images.

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting screed. I've observed that some folks "see" more than others (my
daughter for example notices very minute details in things I completely miss)
which may explain most of the observed 'crazyness'.

There seems to be something similar to the 'uncanny valley' where something
nearly complete becomes more obviously incomplete before being complete. (I
know how crazy does _that_ sound!) But an example might help, if you
straighten up a room, it goes from fully chaotic to less and less messy until
the 'organized' parts start dominating the scene with respect to the messy
parts. Than as you approach completely organized a small bit of chaos sticks
out more and more. Until that is eliminated and everything is in its place.

Different folks have different tolerances (I know, Doh! right?) People who
consider themselves designers have worked hard on being able to see where
something can be improved visually, so they are much more likely to see issues
that detract. Non-designers just don't see things the same way.

------
mbq
I 100% agree that rescaled bitmap will almost always be an ugly bitmap and
certainly needs to be fixed, but IMO it is a crazy idea to fix such problem
with manual pixel-wise tuning. This something machines should do while
rendering vector input, otherwise it will be a pure waste of energy that will
never scale.

~~~
alayne
You won't get away from tuning of some sort so it's not like vector images are
a panacea. Fonts require "hints" to scale. [http://www.pushing-
pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-...](http://www.pushing-
pixels.org/2011/11/04/about-those-vector-icons.html)

~~~
mbq
Precisely; hinted, procedural vector graphics are this panacea (see SVG's
shape-rendering and media queries). There is significant initial cost to
create a library of widgets and icons, but they are perfectly reusable and
thus overtake a designer pixel-perfecting every screen to all target devices
fast.

~~~
calinet6
No designer worth his salt would object to a method such as that, as long as
it produced good results.

------
knitting
This really hits close to home because I do often wonder if it does "matter".
When the audience do not appreciate the three hours I spent on the title's
kerning or decision on the thickness of the boarder or the difference between
ultramarine to navy, I do feel a sort of defeat that can result in a "why do I
bother" attitude. But the next time, I would still put in the effort because
as insignificant as it is, I do notice it and I believe it does make an impact
in the viewer's pleasure. Design is a lot of the time a struggle between
satisfying the employer and holding onto the designer's own concerns. And even
though most, like the author, might not see a difference or even undermine
what the designers hold dear, there are people who will notice, if not
appreciate the details.

------
gnarbarian
YES some designers are crazy divas, rigid, and unwilling to compromise or see
the big picture.

~~~
ZephyrP
I think this is the real crux of the article

------
hmexx
These types of optimizations can be crazy only if they are relevant to a
_SINGLE INSTANCE_.

If the designer figured out a better way of scaling an image, that he will use
_EVERY TIME_ moving forward, he has just improved himself and/or his trade.

~~~
calinet6
Many designers use repetitive methods and don't capture their processes for
re-use.

It doesn't make them crazy necessarily, it just makes them _not programmers._

~~~
hmexx
Even if they don't "capture" the process in an obvious way, they will often
capture it in the form of experience.

In the rare case that it does not lead to a better process or experience AND
is not noticed by the end-user AND is not noticed by the employer, then you
can argue that it is indeed 'crazy'.

Or you can call it self-satisfaction, pride, etc... :)

------
jheriko
Not crazy, just deluded.

The 'scaling problem' and 'aspect ratio problem' are both ancient and well
solved - I can't take anyone seriously complaining about iPhone form factors -
its just a new problem for them because they are utterly inexperienced and
new.

What I find interesting is that the example you give has many more ugly design
problems than the minuscule changes from compensating for the scaling. Look at
how poorly the text is arranged in the buttons for instance... I also hope the
colour banding is an image compression artefact and not in the actual app...

------
ThomPete
Think about it as code formatting. In order for your code to be extensible and
readable you need to make sure that you are using the right fundamental
indentatation, naming convention etc.

Where you look at the buttons individually, the designer looks at the style.
The sum of all the items styled in a certain way.

The real question is not whether designers go too much into details but rather
when they should and when they shouldn't.

------
j4n
perfection is the enemy of doneness. I agree that Obsessing over every pixel
achieves the highest quality of work, but it carries a high risk of the work
never getting finished. I think both designers and developers can obsess over
stuff like this Ad infinitum, and if they have the budget to do so, good for
them. I however, would much prefer having a project that's finished rather
than perfect.

------
groue
I haven't read anyone noticing that developers lose countless hours fighting
with badly crafted PSDs like the one shown in the article, just to extract
proper assets that keep their code tight. Think pixel fitting, but also
dimensions consistency, color consistency, etc. Off-by one/three/eleven pixels
are a plague. Save money on the design: you may well increase your development
costs.

------
sevenupcan
Sure understanding the relationship between good design and how it applies to
different technologies takes time. Whether that be resolution independence or
color correction, but once you've got your head around the "working out",
there's no reason why you shouldn't strive for perfection.

Achieving pixel perfect design nowadays doesn't mean you have to go insane in
the process.

------
jcromartie
It's about perception. The slightest imperfection can be glaringly obvious to
one type of person, while another will never notice.

I am not sure if that kind of "eye" can be trained or not, but I know I have
it, and that the slightest misalignment or aliasing will jump out at me and I
have to fix it (if I can help it).

------
tom_m
But that's not design. That's technical details. Let's out it this way...we
didn't learn how to smooth pixels at my art school which is jsyt about the
best place you can go for a degree in graphic design in the country.

~~~
tiredoffps
There are a lot of things you learn on the job that you'll never learn from a
university.

Retina Design is brand spanking new. You're not going to find it being taught
in a university anytime soon.

------
jongold
Are people who think designers are crazy, crazy? Not to be a dick but the
other day with the WP-Svbtle thing you demonstrated you don't understand
principles of design. That's cool; you don't have to.

But this is just trolling man.

------
edu
I'm not a designer but I think that the left one has been scaled down. The
borders of the buttons are less crisp than in the right image, that have
become pretty blurry. Not a big difference, but it's there.

~~~
jimsilverman
the main problem in this example is that the designer is worrying about the
scaling of the graphics, rather than the fact that the stadium map and ticket
listing are severely lacking any sort of visual association.

"pixel perfection" trumped actual ux improvements.

------
devgutt
For me this is not a matter of perfectionism but knowledge. If you know
something, you would like to apply this knowledge. If you don't, you wouldn't
care that much or will think that is irrelevant.

------
ndbos
Yes - designers are crazy

------
loceng
Some designers are crazy.

------
philfreo
The quality of _both_ images in the animated flipping version is greatly
reduced from the original, making it not a really fair comparison.

------
adamkochanowicz
While I have some disagreements, I think it's great you bring this up. You're
addressing an elephant in the room.

------
3rd3
Envy.. This rant obviously shows that the author doesn’t get along with his
artistic inabilities.

------
olgeni
There are things they cannot ignore once they figure out that they can
actually be noticed :)

------
loceng
How can you not notice the brighter orange? It draws your attention / jumps
out at you / causes you to notice it - when before it was equally as bland as
the other colours. The brightness of it comparatively causes you to notice it,
note it as more importance, as you skim down to see what action options you
have on screen.

~~~
Kiro
"Ok, one button is orange - but that's it.".

Try again.

~~~
loceng
Indeed. I should have just stated the importance of colour ...

------
sublimit
The article uses a good example of _designing things for other designers_. The
difference doesn't improve the product in a way that benefits the user. It's
why I fail to understand designers sometimes.

On the other hand, I'm sure designers would say the same complaints about
source code optimizations. But I hope we can agree it's about personal
satisfaction, and that there's not necessarily anything "crazy" about it, it's
just the sort of passion that results in quality.

~~~
polarix
The examples in the article do benefit the user by reducing fatigue.

~~~
teamonkey
Fatigue in the short period that the user will have the app open? They'll open
it only while they're doing the specific task they opened it for. This app
isn't for the gawping.

------
angersock
The funniest part to me about this is that it's a free app at the end of the
day:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seatgeek-tickets-
concerts/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seatgeek-tickets-
concerts/id582790430?ls=1&mt=8)

~~~
josegonzalez
Our site - <http://seatgeek.com> \- is free to use as well ;)

~~~
angersock
I mean no offense! You guys are doing great work! :)

------
theDoug
Applying Betteridge's Law of Headlines, _no_.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_law_of_headlines>

