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Comment by tmarthal | Hacker News Reader

There is one difference that everyone always seems to overlook: design is very opinion oriented, development is not.

Now, it really boils down to the type of feedback that you get as a designer is much different than the type of feedback that you get as a developer. Usually "it does not look right" vice "it does not work". One is aesthetic and the other is logical.

As a developer, I find that I usually only really trust decisions made by data (via A/B testing, or what have you). Otherwise, there is a quote paraphrased as "If we are going to use someone's opinion, it may as well be mine." (< not sure who said that originally).

I think that is the chasm between the two disciplines; really why someone can't be a great brain-surgeon and psychiatrist. As a self-characterized developer, I do not want to spend time arguing about the superiority of my artistic opinions. If this is a characteristic of the 'fixed' mindset that the article linked, well then.

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From what I've seen as a designer, development is highly opinion oriented. There are dozens, likely hundreds of choices you can make regarding languages, server strategies, 3rd party services, modularity etc. There is a reason why a part of the development process is actually called "design".

Likewise, there are a lot of rules that apply to design. It's not simply about what something looks like — it's just as much about whether "it works" or not. If users can't find your "sign up" button, then no amount of engineering and optimizing the way it works will make click rates better.

Developers and designers both have to think about usability, and there are numerous overlapping technical and aesthetic considerations for both to arrive at the final product.

It seems like you're only seeing the aesthetic side of design and missing the functional side. For example interface patterns, typography and color palettes can be evaluated without opinion.

Interface patterns have their best use cases and the designer needs to pick the right one for each part of the design, making sure it works as a whole.

Typography is based on making text easily readable - there's always some leeway for opinionated typography but a designer shouldn't stray far from best practices.

While the exact colors in a palette can be opinionated, they too have characteristics that should be assessed without opinion. Are there enough contrast between the colours? What if the user is colorblind? Will people with low vision be able to see everything clearly, especially text? Are the colors appropriate for their intended use, for example a red hue for alert, green for success)?

"It does not look right" and "it does not work" are the kind of feedback you get from people who don't know the inner logics of a design. Feedback from an experienced designer might not mention aesthetics at all.

The developers I know are definitely opinion oriented. DIC, patterns, which NoSQL data store, whether this controller/view is logic-free enough; the list goes on.

Like design, there are definite development trends: some based on data and a lot based on emotion and feeling/herd mentality.

"World class" to me means the top 5-10 in the world, so is hardly worth talking about. I do believe you can easily be a good designer and 'X', where X may be Web developer, Systems Architect or PM. Even a programmer - occasionally.

You seem like someone who would benefit from trying to learn design in addition to coding, since you don't seem to understand what design is. It's a classic case of "you don't know what you don't know."

As someone who both designs and codes, your premise is uninformed and inaccurate.

Can you tell me how the premise is uninformed and/or inaccurate? I am interested in learning and will definitely keep an open mind.

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