Comments on: Programmers are generally bad at user interface design?

By: Programmers are generally bad at user interface design? | Juan Carlos Pontaza

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:04:32 +0000

[...] Nadeem Shabir is making making really good points about why generally “we think” that programmers are bad at user interface designers. Basically I share with him one point, that I explained on my previous post: Is not that [...]

By: VirtualChaos - Nadeem’s blog » Information Software and the Graphical Interface

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:36:56 +0000

[...] On the face of it this sounds reasonable – a picture speaks a thousand words. How we present information to our users has to be the most important question software designers should be asking themselves. So why don’t they? Well I wrote a piece offering my views on that question a while ago: programmers are generally bad at user interface design. So as you might imagine I find myself agreeing with what Bret writes here: Compared to excellent ink-and-paper designs, most current software communicates deplorably. This is a problem of surface, but not a superficial problem. The main cause, I believe, is that many software designers feel they are designing a machine. Their foremost concern is behaviorâ€”what the software does. They start by asking: What functions must the software perform? What commands must it accept? What parameters can be adjusted? (In the case of websites: What pages must there be? How are they linked together? What are the dynamic features?) These designers start by specifying functionality, but the essence of information software is the presentation. [...]

By: Jim Coplien

Jim Coplien — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:27:51 +0000

I agree that the main reason projects fail to build good interfaces is because the underlying processes don’t emphasize that aspect of development, so the issue doesn’t as easily come to the surface. But I personally found that I also needed quite a bit of education to be able to design good interfaces. Last, I found that GUI-builders often got in my wayand made it impossible to build humane systems. So, in short, you need three things: the support of the boss; knowledge of the interface area; and an environment that lets you lovingly hand-craft a productive interface.

By: VirtualChaos - Nadeem’s blog » Why software sucks

VirtualChaos - Nadeem’s blog » Why software sucks — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:07:48 +0000

[...] Over on slashdot theres an excellent little article and debate around the issue of why software sucks. The slashdot article points to this news story on the Fox News Network. that discusses the book by David Platt entitled “Why software sucks …. and what you can do about it“. I haven’t read the book yet but I’ve added it to my things to read list. The debate on slashdot though is actually quite interesting and worth reading in its own right. What interests me is how some of the sentiments echoed in the articles and discussions resonate around my earlier views that programmers arent usability experts, and until we start developing software centred around the user … software will continue to suck. [...]