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Comment by gdrulia | Hacker News Reader

Design is complicated and very much like taste - subjective. Of course there are guidelines of what goes together and what not. Overall it is nice to see transition between the different stages of the product.

As per product itself, I assume it is very much alike tomahawk, is that right? It would be nice to have well designed tomahawk type of product which would work fast and be easy to use, so keep up.

Want to notice that I've tried to download application, but windows "SmartScreen" tells me that app is from Unknown Publisher and strongly encourages NOT to install. I assume this will prevent most windows users from installing this application.

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>Design is complicated and very much like taste - subjective.

Aesthetics are subjective. Design is not. Design can contain aesthetics, which complicates things.

Just because something is difficult to measure doesn't mean that it can't be measured. A design exists to solve a problem. How well it solves problems is not subjective. The priorities might be subjective, but how well it fulfills its goals is not subjective.

> How well it solves problems is not subjective.

It may very well solve the problem better for some people than others. Which is one definition of 'subjective'.

You can decide you want to target some types or groups of people and not others, for commercial or other reasons. Even "most people" is some people and not others, and is a choice.

>It may very well solve the problem better for some people than others. Which is one definition of 'subjective'.

That's like saying a hammer's effectiveness is subjective because it doesn't work well with screws.

What about saying a scissors effectiveness is subjective because it doesn't work well when used by left-handed people?

...it objectively doesn't work well for left-handed people. It's not really a matter of personal taste. A right hand glove does not "subjectively" fit poorly on a left hand.

> Design is complicated and very much like taste - subjective.

The problem is "Design" is a bit like UX/UI ,it doesnt really mean anything concrete,but some vague thought process to create a product.

Usability is not subjective,that's why I prefer that word.

Usability is a hard science,there are rules,just like in programming.

You want a product to be smart,to facilitate whatever your user is trying to do,to make simple what might sound complex,but you also want to get user's feeback because they'll always try to use your app in unexpected ways.

I think that field could benificiate from all these machine learning experts.Imagine apps that really adapt to their users,trying to learn patterns,adapting the UI depending on usage etc ... I'm not aware of the researches in that field,but it could be the next big thing in usability.

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