Comment by TheZenPsycho | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheZenPsycho | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

I'll agree with what TheZenPsycho said and add my own bit.

I think designers are getting worse and worse at doing one aspect of design and so they ignore it and latch onto a term that purposefully disregards that aspect. So a UX designer would scoff at the visual design aspect because that's not part of their job.

In most cases, outside of huge companies, a designer does pretty much every aspect of what most people consider to be design; visual, UX, UI, Information architecture, research, and branding. That's what designers are trained to do, that's the point of being a designer, you NEED to know how to do all of these things in order to call yourself a designer.

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.

From the Wikipedia page on graphic design:

"Graphic design is a creative process between a client and a designer, traditionally completed in conjunction with producers of form (printers, sign makers, programmers etc.). Graphic design is created to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience. The field is also often referred to as Visual Communication or Communication Design. Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use a combination of typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce a final result. Graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated. Common uses of graphic design include identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers and books), print advertisements, posters, billboards, website graphics and elements, signs and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as images, shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements."

It seems to me graphic design is more about the visual appearance than "how it works." I've read a fair amount of books on interaction, product, and visual design and have never read that graphic design had been all of those things.

I've worked at companies where you have people working specifically on either interaction design, visual design, motion design, or user research. All of them were contributing to how it works and how it looks, and had distinct jobs (although they worked closely together).

Also, Human-Computer Interaction is a field that is newer than graphic design, and touches more on just visual design, so I'm not really sure why you are pushing this idea that graphic design = UX/interaction/product design.

From your own quote: "Graphic design is created to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience" = form follows function (communication), not the other way around.

Oh well I guess your 10 minutes skimming wikipedia defeats my 6 years of university, 10 years experience and constant obsessive reading.

The point I am making is "Design" is how it works. Graphic design is the design of printed, or visual communications. Graphic from the Greek Graphos, for "writing". That is, how the written communication works. To go from that to conclude that "Oh graphic design is just how it looks then" doesn't make any sense, and demonstrates a very shallow understanding of what it actually involves.

Furthermore, with graphic design along with any design process- the most important thing you learn is the process. The process of research, iteration, prototyping, throwing out most of your ideas, starting again and again and refining, and learning- all towards the goal of solving a specific problem.

That is all design. Not just graphic design. To go from there to "Oh but this guy can do some neat looking bevels in photoshop", it really just blows my mind, how amazingly dismissive and disrespectful such a view point is.

That Human-Computer interaction is "new" is really just way to hype it up. There is absolutely nothing new about the process of achieving a good HCI design, because it's the same principles from graphic design, typography, and industrial design all over again, simply applied to this new medium. There is nothing special or unique about it, except that you can get a faster turnaround time on prototypes.

It's not surprising that designers specialise, and all contribute to how it works. But it's like a british tank. All the soldiers in the tank are trained to do each other's jobs, so they can take over if required. They are all "Designers".

Great comment on my history of the field... Except I also studied this in university and I am a designer as well, who also reads books, articles, and academic papers as well.

If you want to argue that designers should be knowledgable about all aspects of product design, I agree. But graphic design != interaction or product design.

>I'm pretty sure "UX" was created as a term in response to the market getting flooded with stylists

UX is an umrbella term[1] for usability related disciplines; it's recent conflation as a buzz-word has led to the misinterpretation of it's original meaning.

>UX won't get similarly watered down?

It already has been seeing as how no one seems to know what it means.

[1] http://www.interaction-design.org/images/encyclopedia/human_...

I have seen very similar diagrams. except the circle in that diagram labeled "UX" is usually labelled "Design".

And incidentally what on earth is HCI, Human Factors, and Industrial design doing all disjoint? they should all overlap.

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