Comment by alsomike | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alsomike | Hacker News Reader

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That's only because you're created a straw-man definition of design. Don't buy the hype: design is about influencing the subjective state of the audience. Sure, beauty is one kind of experience, and maybe it gets a lot of attention, but it's certainly not the only thing designers care about.

I think the main skill that designers bring to the table is empathy. Unlike traditional artists, who can safely ignore what other people think, designers have to be interested in how something feels to their audience. This is important if you're building things for people who aren't like you and don't think like you, and you want to get their attention, get them to think what they're buying is useful and usable and yes, maybe beautiful if that matters, and the people who made it are trustworthy and reliable.

Design is about communication--it's a kind of language. Who could argue that words don't matter, only function matters?

It's like code. A good, experienced coder writes simple code that does the job.

A talented but inexperienced coder will write a meta-framework platform that will do the job, but be hard to use.

A good designer with lots of experience should be able to make a slick, but minimalistic, design.

I think the main skill that designers bring to the table is empathy.

How do business results show the benefits of empathy?

This seems kind of obvious, but OK. How do you know what a customer needs? How do you know whether your idea meets that need? You have to look at the world from their perspective begin to answer those questions.

Follow-up question here, as I have just come from attending a focus group this evening. Is what you describe a typical part of the job description of a Web designer (what prompted my question above) or is it really the job of, say, a focus group facilitator?

A focus group facilitator doesn't try to influence the audience. And focus groups usually don't even empathize with the customer, they simply write down what the customer wants, if they prefer blue or red, not why they prefer it and what that says about their overall goals.

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