Fall of the Designer, Part 4: Credible Threats | Hacker News Reader

Fall of the Designer, Part 4: Credible Threats

elischiff.com

37 pointsstriking10 comments

If font and color choice with a few vectors was all this designer ever did, then he was in trouble with our without this tool set.

The visual elements of design are only the most superficial elements. Identifying a user problem, creating an interaction journey to solve it, and mapping that to a programmable interface are the valauble parts of design because they are HARD and often not very fun.

Almost anyone can follow color theory and the grid system.

For something that most almost anyone can follow, there are a lot of failures out there.

> If font and color choice with a few vectors was all this designer ever did, then he was in trouble with our without this tool set.

I would say it's more like, for many businesses, a few icons and color choices is all they want in the first place. The bare minimum to have your site/app/whatever not be ugly or unprofessional. And now there are a lot of ways to do that without needing a designer.

I don't think this is a good way to make software, without someone whose job is to think about the person on the other side of the screen, but it is a way.

Good visual designers are immensely hard to find.

This is a great series of articles, although I may be biased because I agree with almost everything I've read so far.

On the flip side though, I think one could argue that this is the rise of the designer/developer, rare as they might be. The flatness trend has created a world in which truly outstanding design can shine against a back drop of blandness. Designer/developers have way more of an edge than ever before.

The article points out that the Windows 10 icons really suck. They don't even look like they belong to the same family. They suck so badly that Iconfactory, which designed some previous Windows icons, issued a public denial that they had anything to do with the Windows 10 icons.

Maybe the next trend will be to get rid of icons and go back to words. Expecting people to learn a new pictographic language for each new product is not working. See the article linked here, and look at the icons in row 1, column 3, row 2, column 1, and row 2, column 3. Any idea what those mean? On touch devices, mousing over an icon to get a popup that tells you what it means no longer works. The user has to know.

There's an SF book by William Gibson, "Idoru", where one of the lead characters carries an icon dictionary around with her.

For what it's worth, I don't think the presence of, essentially, online paint programs with click art support is the end of the designer. Before I worked in tech almost every place I worked had a logo designed by one of the principles. Usually they used Word, Paint, or an image editor. Squarespace might lower the barrier to entry but they're not exactly infusing artistic skill into those that lacked it before.

I think a big point in each of the articles is that design is being devalued by lots of conspiring factors. These sorts of tools are positioned as suitable replacements for a real designer. Square space did issue and update stating they don't think that's the case, but still, it's a sleek presentation and people could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

In some ways, the article reminds me of the documentary "Helvetica" about the eponymous font. In the film, font designers are both for and against, some calling it sterile and corporate/big-brother and others saying that it's about democratizing and humanizing fonts.

I'm gonna lean in favor of "this is the best outcome for everyone", even if it possibly screws specialized design roles (such as Icon creators). Google and Apples approach to design makes good sense (to me at least), as it significantly lowers the bar for what is needed to create a "good looking" app. Perhaps it's a more sterile look, but my apartment also has plain white walls for a reason.

Logo designers are safe from automation until someone invents an algorithm that can understand design trends happening out in the world and create something that stands out.

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