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Comment by wintom | Hacker News Reader

I couldn't disagree more sir.

Microsoft just started giving a shit about design with all the flat stuff and clearly it's failing harder than ever. They should focus on engineering and solving hard engineering problems more than ever if they want to survive, not design.

Google does now seem to care about design but its core product still has one input box and button and that's still the main way they make all of their money, and engineers still run that organization. They hired the hipsters when they made their money.

In the end design is not indicative of shit in high tech companies, I think my opinion is valid.

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I'd disagree with both you, I use all 3 of the most publicized OSes on a daily basis and I don't see MS as laggig. My experience is this:

Linux is improving on a daily basis (but there are too many DEs/WMs which adds to barriers of entry for new users [1].

OS X has dropped the ball, I see too many services being pushed that I do not want and they are getting in the way of me using my Mac.

Windows are actually ahead of the times. The every device with one OS was such a good idea on paper, but they jumped the gun. It's the legacy windows support that hold them back. The lack of start menu in Win8 is a priime example, it wouldn't have mattered if everyone had gone over to touchscreens on Jan 1 2014, but they didn't.

[1] Recently the good people at Bodhi Linux forked E17 calling the fork Moksha, because they want stability over new features, I would have preferred Jeff and the team to contribute to Enlightenment, but that would mean the Enlightenment team would need ears and continued support of E17. Now I'm not sure I want to swap my DE to Moksha or just keep using E19, forking is the FOSS plague, and its saviour.

I think your opinion is misguided and it comes across as immature. Design can be indicative of a variety of important things, like a company's commitment to its users/customers. Google's simple search experience was a conscious design decision that helped it stand out and build a following early on. Although Facebook has changed considerably, when it first launched, it was a design inspiration compared to MySpace. For all the dismissing you do of design, it's interesting that, at least with these two examples, you've picked companies that made very smart and very conscious design decisions early on, helping them rocket to the success stories they are today. For pioneering companies that are tackling hard engineering problems and bringing these breakthroughs to the public, I would agree that design might not be as important initially. This is one of the advantages of being first to market with something people want. You get to set the bar and you can get away with a lot of things (Although it's not an example of breakthrough tech and more an example of a first mover advantage, Snapchat's UX is horrible [it has improved!] but since they popularized disappearing content, users were willing to deal with a poor user experience.). As markets mature, as technology spreads, or as established players attempt to enter new markets (Google with Google+), it can be harder to stand out on engineering alone unless you continue to push boundaries and break new ground (Hangouts!), but even then, it might not be enough (Hangouts...). In other words, in scenarios where technology is getting commoditized, you could argue that design (how it looks and feels) can become even more important than engineering (how it's built). Is the iPhone's success due more to it's revolutionary engineering or it's thoughtful design? (Personally, I think it's both + brilliant marketing, but you get my point).

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