
The Dribbblisation of Design - pbiggar
http://insideintercom.io/the-dribbblisation-of-design/
======
rriepe
As someone who went through a job hunt without a "Dribbblized" portfolio a
couple years ago: Go with the Dribbble approach. At least if you're looking
for anything resembling a design job.

That final layer of polish and execution is what gets you hired. If you don't
have that, you get eliminated immediately. Nobody will ask about your process
or your wireframes if your resume gets tossed in the trash bin. You'll never
have a conversation about the organizational mission and how it relates to the
product if you never get called back for an interview.

If you go in with Paul's first three steps (like I did) and you're lucky
enough to talk to someone who doesn't eliminate based on that all-important
fourth step of visual design, you'll find yourself in disagreement. There's
8,000 ways to build a product, and chances are your method simply won't line
up with theirs.

Meanwhile, there's also 8,000 ways to make something look good, but all of
those ways end up beautiful. It's hard to argue about solid visual design,
even if it doesn't fit your particular style or tastes.

You can get away with subpar visual design skills at your own startup, like I
did, but don't ever expect to get hired without developing those skills.
They're more important than the other three combined.

~~~
Aloisius
As someone who has hired designers over the years for various startups, I
agree.

The author seems to conflate UX with visual design or graphic design. They are
not the same thing and often aren't done by the same person.

I've had fantastic UX designers who, frankly, can't get perfectly laid out
pixel perfect work done or do eye candy. I've had UI/graphic designers who
were awful at figuring out flow.

I've had people who are great at both. But one thing is certain, I want my
products to be _intuitive_ AND _sexy_ because there is a certain subset of the
market that will try your product just because it looks professionally
designed and is on trend. There is a high overlap of those people with taste
makers and I need those people using my product.

~~~
TheZenPsycho
The author isn't conflating. That is what the words mean, and "UX" is the made
up wank word. It's the "Web 2.0." of the design world.

I'm pretty sure "UX" was created as a term in response to the market getting
flooded with stylists (interested amateurs) calling themselves "designers".
I'm interested to see what you believe to be the distinction between "visual
design" and "graphic design". Traditionally, Graphic design is about how it
_works_ , with how it looks (what you call "eye candy") being secondary to
(but still a part of) function. This is the sort of thing you can learn if you
read books instead of just reading blog posts.

And clearly, the definition of "graphic design" has been watered down to the
point of irrelevance, and replaced with "UX". sure, fine call yourself
whatever you want. But what makes you think UX won't get similarly watered
down? The problem isn't the word itself, it's that the culture as a whole
doesn't value design, including "designers". (in your language, the culture
doesn't value "UX")

Of course language is designed* by its users, and for the moment, it seems
that we have indeed fully rotated our hierarchy words a notch down over the
past 20 years. But please let us not be ignorant of history, and tradition,
and what "graphic design" actually is (Or at least.. .used to be) and that the
whole totem pole of design and designers is sliding on a downward trajectory.
(I blame adobe for making it look easy. you could always look more
convincingly like a skilled professional while operating a huge desk sized
typesetting machine and laying out magazines by hand with paper, exacto
blades, and photographic color separations)

But sure, maybe inventing new wank words will prop up our careers for 5 more
years. It's good marketing. it's good design, to invent words, to sell
ourselves. Inventing a new word for "design" is a very designery thing to do.
You can make design seem interesting and exciting again by giving it a new
flashy buzzword. That will only take you so far though, until the novelty
wears off, and suddenly you find everyone believes "UX" means "interested
amateur who can make eye candy in photoshop" again.

* see what I did there? "Design" being used to denote the decisions involved in how something works and is experienced, with no reference to how anything looks. Imagine that.

~~~
eflowers
I can't tell if you're saying that visual/graphic designers are saying they
are doing "UX", or if "UX" people are really just hand-waving visual
designers?

I got lost around "wank word" and UX being the "Web 2.0 of the design world."
Most UX people I know are focused on user research, usability, information
architecture, and interaction design. I'd say maybe, 1 in 5 are visual
designers, and maybe 1 in 3 have any passable graphic design skill at all.

Maybe you're saying that people will be just called "user researcher",
"information architect", etc etc and not use the word UX. But I think "wank
word" is a tad inaccurate.

~~~
TheZenPsycho
I am saying that "Design" encompasses a lot of skills, many of which are
"invisible" to most laymen- much in the same way that most of the code a
developer writes is "invisible" making two pieces of software that outwardly
appear to operate identically, can, in terms of code structure,
maintainability, be vastly different in quality.

Most people in hiring positions couldn't give two shits that a designer is
supposed to do more than just make things pretty- And so they hire people who
call themselves "designers" that actually _are_ little more than glorified
photoshop operators. Why? because these "designers" are cheaper than these
other "designers" and it's not obvious why. The amateurs undercut the
professionals.

This puts the real designers, the ones with educations, that actually know
design principles, typography, psychology, etc, and have years of experience-
in the difficult situation of having to distinguish themselves from these
interested amateurs- these "stylists". So I believe, in a turn of marketing
genius, some designers came up with the term "UX", and insist that it is NOT
this lowly "design" thing, as you know it. It's this totally different thing
that is /more/ than just making things look pretty.

Even though, all the things under the "UX" banner are familiar to people with
design educations as "design".

That's what "Design" is. UX is just "Design". These are the normal things that
you have to do to make a design work.

But how do you communicate that? How do you communicate that Javascript and
HTML are capable of so much more now, than they were 5 years ago? You come up
with a buzz word. Ajax. Web 2.0. HTML5. To experts who actually know their
craft, these are obvious wank words. Meaningless checkboxes that accountants
and recruiters can look for on resumes, designed to repackage skills that are
decades old as something new and exciting.

But this is hacker news. We shouldn't have to use bullshit marketing terms
here. That's for recruiters. That's for clients. Cut the shit, I say. Use the
real words with their real meanings.

------
toddmorey
The article contains this gem: _...Redesigns of other people’s work is pure
folly e.g. the new Yahoo logo, iOS7, changes to Facebook, the New New Twitter,
the American Airlines rebrand. People have no context for the decision making
process involved in these projects, no knowledge of the requirements,
constraints, organisational politics._

First, most of these redesigns are done in good fun, as a thought exercise for
the designer. New thinking applied to familiar context.

But secondly, it's so important to understand that all brands and interfaces
are ultimately judged by your customers, who have "no knowledge of [or
patience for] the requirements, constraints, organisational politics." I've
just heard that argument way too often used to prop up a poor design outcome.
Good design remembers that the context of your product is in the hands of your
consumer, not in the conference room of your headquarters.

If someone outside your company offers some free thoughts on your brand and
identity, it's not a bad idea to look them over. They are relating to you as a
customer. (And usually, a huge promoter.)

~~~
snowwrestler
I upvoted you but I disagree. When designers do unsolicited "spec" redesigns
of big brands, I don't think they are representing the customer.

You can't represent the customer without doing some real research with real
customers. I can't remember ever seeing those sorts of results in a spec
redesign post.

Instead, I think they are using the brand as a canvas to show off their own
abilities. And they always pick a big popular brand, because then they can
leverage that popularity to promote their work.

~~~
jamesdelaneyie
Andrew Kim has a great unsolicited redesign of the American Ballot system that
considered users primarily and doesn't lean too heavy on using the brand as a
canvas. [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/america-
elect](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/america-elect)

Teensy bit bland for my tastes but it goes to show there are designer out
there who do some quality redesigns.

------
einai
I'm a designer on Dribbble. The work I present on Dribbble and the "actual"
work I do for my clients are quite different most of the time. You can think
of Dribbble as the "runway" of graphic/UI design - most of the stuff there are
for showing off the designers' ability and/or are conceptual. They are fun and
beautiful to look at, but not always designed for practical use, just like
most people won't wear runway fashion everyday.

~~~
bigiain
So it sounds to me like you agree with him – your Dribbble content is closer
to "digital art" than "examples of your typical design work".

I wonder if there'd be an opportunity for a Dribbble-like site to showcase
your "business goal articulation" or "optimised interaction flow"? I'm
guessing not – partly because I don't think nearly as many people do that work
for "fun" (in the way that many people _do_ create polished final renderings
as an art/pastime), but mostly because I suspect there's significantly more
business value in them – I'd expect to see that sort of higher-level business-
strategic work showcased as whitepapers on a Digital Agency's website (or
locked away behind NDAs or contractual/provacy agreements with the clients).

~~~
colmvp
I mean... behance allows you to present your work in a way that's similar to a
case study so people often do writeups and show sketches of their process.

~~~
bigiain
Thanks, I hadn't seen Behance before, it seems interesting - I'll take a
longer look later.

On a quick glance though, it's not quite what I was imagining, it's still
_mostly_ focused on the final visuals. I was imagining something which'd stop
well short of that (or at least downplay the final graphic styling), and
instead highlight the problem discovery and solution process, the business
goal articulation, the interaction design – perhaps everything upto the brief
you'd then give to a designer. That'd fascinate me (but as I said upthread,
that's quite probably considered significantly more valuable business
intelligence or intellectual property by the people who're good at it than
even highly polished visual designs – that's the stuff that makes a Razorfish
or Mule Design job worth mid six figures, and why they're not competing with
$5k or $25k "web design" firms).

------
didgeoridoo
If you want designers to stop designing for Dribbble, stop hiring designers on
the basis of their Dribbble profiles.

Right now, the evaluation and hiring process for designers in most companies
is so shallow that cranking out eye-catching niblets is a HIGHLY rational move
for designers looking to promote themselves.

~~~
cschmidt
I hired my logo designer off of Dribbble, with excellent results. It probably
is less of a problem for logo design, than for something like UX or UI.

~~~
dreamfactory
Out of interest, how do you measure excellent results?

~~~
cschmidt
It was a good process. My designer was quick, responsive, fairly priced, and
came up with what I think is a great logo. I'm very happy with it, and I
consistently get positive feedback ('cool robot'). What do you think:
[http://www.predictobot.com/](http://www.predictobot.com/) ?

~~~
neovi
I'm going to use your logo as an example of what design should be and why the
author is on the right track.

Your logo looks good. Visually, it's fine...

But what's the point of having dual colored shapes? Why is there a circle
behind the antennas? What does the robot represent? Why orange? If you showed
the logo to someone, would they be able to think of a word that coincides with
a goal/mission of your company? Why is it looking down? If you're looking to
predict (keywords: future, time, ready, etc.) then why not make it look
forward?

These are the types of questions that struck me first looking at the logo. It
feels like there was more focus on how it looked than to what it represents.
That's how Dribble designs feel.

They look good and they get the job done (i.e. you have a logo, a client gets
a site, etc.), but when you combine functionality with design, that's a real
home run.

Using logo design as the example, the first goal of the designer should be to
understand the company. What does it want to do? Why does it exist? Like a
person, you want to get to know it before you can label it. Once you have the
part of what you want to symbolize, what you want to communicate, you can
start sketching. Start trying to really capture the soul of the company and
present it in an aesthetic and still functional way.

Having aesthetics without much focus on function, that's what I feel the
author is categorizing Dribble designers as.

Having functionality without aesthetic, well, we'll use an automobile for that
example. A functional without aesthetic car would be a garbage truck.

Having aesthetics and function, you get brands like Porsche, Apple, Lego,
OXO...

Sorry for going on a rant using your logo :-)

~~~
cschmidt
I appreciate what you're trying to say. People hire someone based on something
shiny they see on Dribble, and they get something shallow and shiny as a
result.

However, in my case, there was actually a lot more thought about the feel I
wanted to the logo to project than you give us credit for. My company is about
making predictive modeling easy, for people who are non-programmers. I wanted
a look that was friendly, accessible, futuristic and high tech. I did spend a
long time explaining to Ty Wilkins, my designer, what my business was about,
and the feel I wanted to project.

We eventually decided that's we go with a mid-century "Tomorrowland" version
of futuristic, as a way of combining the friendly with futuristic. The robot
came out of that line of work. Since 50's robots were intelligent, it gets at
prediction.

I think if you showed it to people they would come up with words like
friendly. Eventually, I changed the name of the website to be Predictobot, to
have a stronger tie in with the logo.

I did try hard not to be a back seat designer, since that's why I was hiring
Ty. So the overall form of the robot is entirely his. The circle behind the
antennas is to echo the '50's TV antennas. The orange is a warmer, friendlier
color than more typical logo blues and greens.

So maybe I'm being naive, but I do think that we went through a good process
of thought, that led to a solution that fit the brief. It wasn't just "give me
something that looks good".

People do seem to connect with it. I don't hand out a single business card
without getting a comment on how they like my logo. It represents what _I_
wanted to project for my one person business. And I found Ty on Dribbble ;-).

------
brianfryer
As a designer, I totally, totally, totally agree with this statement:

> people say designers should code. Whether you agree with that or not,
> designers certainly need to define the problem and solution not in pixels,
> but in terms of describing what happens between components in a system (
> [http://insideintercom.io/the-dribbblisation-of-
> design/](http://insideintercom.io/the-dribbblisation-of-design/))

My job isn't to make things pretty. Rather, it's to make things
understandable. Only when aesthetic appeal makes something easier-to-use &
understand does it make sense for me to incorporate it into my design.

In other words: A good designer won't just polish a turd.

------
joelle
"Design starts at the top of a company with the company mission. Then the
company vision. It’s very hard to do great design in an organisation without a
clear and actionable mission and vision. Don’t underestimate the importance of
this. If your company lacks a clear mission, make it your job to facilitate
the creation of one."

This is so true. It's way to easy to get lost in creating beautiful designs,
oohing and ahhing at little neat interactions, etc. But if it's not fulfilling
the initial goal of what you're trying to accomplish it's sadly a waste of
time and resources. That's not to say you can't accomplish both (beautiful
design that also meets the goals of the app) - but it's a lot harder than it
sounds. And very easy to get derailed. Setting up some periodic checkpoints
along the way to keep checking back that you're still on target can definitely
help.

------
williamldennis
The author seems to incorrectly conflate UX and visual design.

Dribbble is purely for showcasing visual design (aka technical
implementation). It's the price of admission for being a designer. Dribbble
isn't for, nor should it be for, explaining UX decisions.

User experience design and interaction design are different skill sets within
the design discipline.

If you are impressed with someone's dribbble, then arrange for a phone
interview or an in-person white boarding session.

Design is problem solving just like engineering, just a different type of
problem set. Treat it as such.

------
klimhn
Interesting point.

I recently started using dribbble and thought, "I wish there was more detail
in how they came to that conclusion regarding design, layout, and some
information architecture". There have few who actually do, but was dribbble
founded with the OP main concern in mind? I have a background in research from
working in a Research Lab, IT, and project management. Now I'm starting my
career in UXD and UD. From my perspective it helps to start with a wireframe,
documenting a sitemap, interview the clients, hell even have a case study
(this one is usually over looked), call-to-actions, purpose of the created
User Experience. I've met with a couple senior UXD people in the field (who
are nice as well, btw) and always say mention people always are trapped in the
color schemes, wow factor, and forget that main question: "Who is your user?".

~~~
abbazabba
I'm in the same boat (background in data/finance trying to eek into UX or prod
mgmt). I've noticed it all just boils down to definition.

"Design" seems to be evolving from pure aesthetics (what's the first emotion
evoked upon sight) to aesthetics+function (what's the first reaction, and how
does this affect my audience). Maybe it's because 10 years ago "designer" was
purely synonymous with fashion or pure photoshop/illustrator. Now it seems to
represent anyone and everyone from graphics/visuals, to interaction and
information, and even just product.

It makes me wonder though, if there were a dribbble of site flows, wireframes,
and creative call-to-actions, would people flock to it?

------
pcurve
I hire UI and UX designers. It is rather difficult to find someone who is
truly adept at even one of those skills, let alone both. Throw in HTML/CSS
skill, and now this big-picture-focused-thinking mindset, and I might as well
go on an albino sasquatch hunt in Central Park. And if you work for a big
company like me, you have to stick to a salary range set by HR department for
a given position.

This article offers many solid advice for that talented albino sasquatch
designer looking to differentiate himself in his job application for a well-
funded start up.

But for the rest of us monkeys, having an extremely solid looking visual
design skill (even at the expense of being a bit too trendy) will serve us
well. These days, I have to go through about 30 resumes to see 1 that has
fairly good design skill, and still not Dribbbbbble level.

------
coldcode
When I read this type of criticism, I always get the impression that everyone
thinks they are better at what they do than everyone else.

~~~
nemothekid
How so? And what is "this type of criticism"? To me it looks like the design
world has taken one concept and hyped and warped it, missing the point of the
original goals.

I don't see this article as any different than the misuse of Hadoop article
that was posted yesterday.

~~~
nilliams
>> And what is "this type of criticism"?

Perhaps _gross generalisation_ is a fitting term? Basically it's somewhat
insulting to insinuate that designers on Dribbble believe glamour shots are
the be-all and end-all of design. I've heard several prominent Dribbblers
interviewed on various web design podcasts, they know what it is and what it
isn't.

>> To me it looks like the design world...

Whoah there, you can judge the collective opinion of 'the design world' from
your desk?! :)

------
jakebellacera
While the author gives some great tips about product design, I don't think
it's fair to say that Dribbble is belittling product design. You don't really
get the full picture with each shot. You don't know what the designer's agenda
is with that particular image, whether it's for fun or is going to be
implemented in an actual product. I doubt that all designers on Dribbble go in
head-first by only caring about the visuals. I can see where the author tried
to go with this article, but I don't think that you can really place a single
label on an entire community.

------
spader725
I agree with this article, but who is to say the goal of Dribbble isn't to
just showcase visual design? To join Dribbble, you must get an invite from a
Dribbble user. Dribbble users invite people who have similar taste and design
state-of-mind as they do. So in the end you get a gated community of designers
who think and work alike.

The problem with this I see is that non-design people who wants to hire
designers think that Dribbble is the "go to" standard of design, without
thinking of usability problems their product[s] have that needs solving.

~~~
dmyler
You nailed it. Dribbble excels at featuring and sharing solutions to visual
design challenges. Icons. Logos. UI components that show effective affordance
(as best you can tell from a small screenshot).

I think Dribbble is somewhat a victim of success; everyone wants in and uses
it as they see fit.

------
bitwize
I do not expect a company with a name that seems cribbed straight from the
lyrics to "Here Comes Another Bubble" to remain a mainstay of standards in the
design world for very long.

This, too, shall pass.

~~~
bigiain
While I mostly agree with you, I bet the AltaVista team at Digital said the
same thing about that stupidly named "Google" company started by those two
academics with no business experience…

------
jessaustin
This piece seems to me to inject just the right amount of formalism into this
process. That is, I've seen other efforts in this direction build prodigious
piles of abstraction, rules, and theory around this mission/vision device and
around the equivalents of these four-layer and "jobs" models. Whereas, I can
imagine any small group of decision-makers responding productively to this
material.

------
programminggeek
I think a company having a design language and identity is a powerful and
wonderful thing. It makes decisions easier, it makes things so much more clear
and improves what you do a lot.

At a higher level, having a vision, a framework, a filter by which you make
choices and solve problems makes the whole process of doing these things
easier.

------
keithpeter
[http://creativebeatle.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/elements_o...](http://creativebeatle.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/elements_of_user_experience_design.jpg)

Referenced in the notes. Very useful.

------
true_religion
I always thought the point of Dribble was to have someplace to show off your
greenfield pie-in-the-sky work to other designers, not to impress clients with
how well you can work with their organization.

------
jared314
It sounds like you could relate the same statement to using github has hiring
criteria. And, I believe enough discussion around that, as an indicator of
technical ability, has already happened to say that it is only an indicator of
awareness, interest, and activity. I would be interested in knowing how other
industries have handled the online portfolio trend. Has SoundCloud affected
the hiring of musicians, or YouTube and acting auditions?

------
vxNsr
I've actually been having trouble recommending people upgrade to (or purchase
new) iOS7 (devices) for this exact reason, even I sometimes don't understand
how to use it anymore, so I can't tell my Luddite F&F to use something that
costs more and has become as hard to use, as say android.

I can only hope that Apple will learn the error of their ways and turn back to
function over form.

------
ibuildthings
While I agree with the main sentiment of this article, I have a nitpick on the
main caption image. For me there is a significant loss of information, when an
app summarizes something as non-linear and hard-to-predict as weather into
boolean statements. So I am not sure if the umbrella app is solving weather
reporting problem correctly.

------
AdamFernandez
_The web is with us all the time. It’s already moving into our cars, into our
clothes, into the things we own, into monitoring our health._

Is he using the word 'web' instead of 'Internet'? Does anyone know of the web
moving into our clothes?

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
It's a very, very common synonym, short for world-wide web.

~~~
AdamFernandez
I'm aware. They shouldn't be used interchangeably.

~~~
vxNsr
Could you expand on that, I've heard people say this but I've never heard a
good reason for why, they just assumed I understood it intuitively, when it
wasn't too clear at all.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
The web is the network of hypermedia documents, the internet is the network of
computer networks. A "web page" is a node in the graph of the web. A
"computer" is a node in the graph of the internet. For practical purposes, the
"internet" is the things that link together using
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol)
and the "web" is things that link together using URIs.

The web is content, the net is machinery.

When you are on Xbox and playing against someone else, you are playing over
the internet but you are not playing over the web. Similarly, you can download
web pages but you cannot download the internet.

------
AtTheLast
I agree Dribbble favors visual designers. But, there are some really great UX
people on there too. Follow the right people and you will get a nice blend of
UX and Visual Design.

------
denisnazarov
What are some resources/guides to design in a Dribbble style? There is
obviously a consistent aesthetic (effects, shadows, etc.)

------
auggierose
I stopped reading the article when I saw the image of the Intercom product
architecture. Who needs shitty documentation like that?

------
pearjuice
If there is anything I hate more than the technique described in the OP, it
are websites which don't center content.

------
Glyptodon
Product design != Graphic design. Theming an app != designing an app. Bye.

------
lcnmrn
Dribbble is to design what GitHub is to coding. Case closed.

~~~
justinph
If so, dribbble is like letting you post only the first 5 lines of a README.md
without commit history. Not quite the same.

~~~
lcnmrn
In design world, if you need more than 5 lines, you're doing it wrong.

------
zzzsh
The problem is ego, Designers have a too much of it.

------
camus
The problem with this article is the author doesnt understand that

1/ People are not going to post briefs,diagrams, or product strategies of
their clients. No business want these informations to be public. It's like
sharing the source code of some proprietary app. Even during an interview you
dont do that.

2/ Dribble is for static assets , png ,final results that can be made public,
not some hidden documents on the why of the what.

3/ Redesign as an exercice is good,it is not art nor restyling. You have
constraints set by the product it self.

4/ Yes, Dribbble is basically a showcase and an inspiration tool for designers
,there is nothing wrong with that.

~~~
colmvp
Exactly. Dribbble is a canvas where you post whatever the fuck you want
knowing that most likely you won't be able to use it anyway. It's a way to
say, "look how cool it is", and move on.

It's not unlike posting a snippet of cool JS/CSS/whatever on HN and showcasing
it. Yes it's not practical but it COULD be inspirational.

One reason why fashion shows exist is to give trickle inspiration to other
fashion designers, not to be an exercise in practicality.

