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Why do developers suck at design?

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  • edited March 2006
    That part is true, ya. I was trying to say that making it usable isn't what made it look like crap, but I seem to have lost site of my goal after I said "I disagree.". ROFL. edit After further review my point is moot anyways, as his site doesn't even pass good old validation. So.... Now what? :P
  • Hah. I love it when i start posts with a clear thought in my head then ramble on for hours trying to get it out then eventually realise i missed the point completely.
  • His site is massively ugly, but it doesn't suck. If it did, it wouldn't be ranked 7,849 on Alexa. Remember, web design isn't about art, it's about money. -_-
  • "I think programmers are great at usability design, though not necessarily artistic design."

    I have to disagree. I find coders rarely know what they are doing in terms of usability. Take a look at the majority of applications on sourceforge. Great apps often, but almost all have very poor gui.

    I think coders sometimes think the artists are only good for making icons, but, I've found one of the biggest and sometimes most unexpected contributions an artist can make to an application's development is to help the coder improve usability/gui.

    The concept that you can teach good design imo is completely false. It takes a lot of natural skill to be able to produce something attractive. With practice one can start making things that can pass, and not be offensive, but to actually create good looking sites/applications you need someone to some natural born artistic talent.
  • Designers are usually very smart, but they are very methodical and organized. Their abilities are limited to solving problems in the fastest, most efficient way possible. Designers, on the other hand, don't usually care at all about functionality or whether something is feasible. That is why my designers always give me webpages that are 1/2 meg with images and I have to rework everything to get them down to a normal size. Generally speaking, good programmers make poor designers and good designers make poor programmers. Its a totally different way of thinking.
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