devins

Casting such a broad net with the word "doubt" suggests that all questions are argumentative. But in fact, almost none of the questions listed here are necessarily expressions of doubt or the basis for an argument. They are expressions of seeking understanding, which is a designer's job.

A designer who is not a question machine can only ever put lipstick on your product, not really make it better.

I like to think I'm pretty well read, and I read mostly used paperbacks. But, aside from the universal question mark, I have never seen the markings you would prescribe for all to use. I have my own system involving brackets and post-its that suits me just fine.

My point is, it's hard to generalize reading requirements. I couldn't possibly write an extension to enable my markup style, because it changes to suit the book I'm reading. That's why electronic will never replace paper for me. Except for my trashy romance novels.

The market for these products still isn't clear to me. The prototypes they produce are always super unrealistic. And to get anything remotely usable for e.g. user testing, you end up spending huge amounts of time and often writing code. So why not just write code?

Couldn't agree more. I've spent a lot of time trying to explain this concept.

I do think the author has overlooked another common reason that problem definition gets overlooked: people simply conflate problems and solutions. Most of the "problems" people bring to me are actually solutions to some assumed and unacknowledged problem, e.g. "the button should be bigger." This preempts all critical evaluation of the problem and all of the alternative solutions.

Every proposal like this seems to assume that the web is basically the same as paper, and therefore should have tools that work like print tools. And this may be true for many marketing sites, which are effectively posters with download buttons. This is probably the kind of thing the author has in mind, because his wishlist doesn't include anything to do with interactivity, video, sound, etc.

But these are the best parts of the web! As much as designers want to believe it, a web app isn't actually a series of pictures. There are far more possibilities than with paper, and you remove all of those possibilities when you insist on designing like it's paper.

Disclaimer: I am a designer who codes.

I think there's something to be said for the "it suits me" perspective. I had a similar conversion to fitness at the same age (though not running). Everybody also told me I must have such will power, but it really just suits me.

But maybe the real lesson was that if I'd chosen running I could be a famous author.

I've found healthy disagreement to be one of the most productive forces in my work. Another few interesting reads on the subject:

https://www.brown.edu/academics/philosophy/sites/brown.edu.a...

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-self-doubt/

+1 to imagery. Half of Instagram is pictures of food for good reason.

I love the idea. Pretty tedious without the ability to search.