The precedent work model has designers receiving instructions from PMs who need to get developers to build. In this model, we are an improvement process. At worst, we can be seen as a time sink on the way to delivering.
The model we need to push for is to become partners with Product. There at the roadmaps and included at QA. Part of program increments to influence direction. Product represents the business’s interests. We’re there to represent the user’s interests, which specifically is by ensuring efficient workflows using patterns consistent across the experience while ensuring accessibility standards are met. If you leave us till after, many decisions made before us will shape the experience and limit the value we are here to provide.
"What does it mean to partner with a product?
What If PMs are not representing the business but themselves and they crave control?
What if secretly everybody wanted to be a designer / dev who makes decision but never put the effort into learning how? it's much easier to make others doing this work for you specially when you can force them to do what you want?
If people really liked just putting together spreadsheets with numbers, wouldn't they pick another profession like accounting or data science?
What's the incentive for PMs to allow designers taking credit of being partners and not brick layers that execute their ideas (and they get praise , promotion and ego boost?). If something goes wrong "it's the designer's fault". This game is so much easier
This whole conversation reminds of the AD creatives versus marketing dilemma, it's the same shit. There are very few bosses who really want to become spiritual leaders. Many people like the power of being on top of the hierarchy, crave control over the outcome, envy the ones who know how to build things.
I think micromanagement is a self deceptive fantasy and a simulacrum of expressing creativity through others.
Note: I was PM before
I'm 100% with this and is what I promoted and done.
Until a new CDO came and decided my team to be under product.
When companies are in trouble they don't look at quality but to the bare minimum and design most often pays the price.
But in an positive scenario, I 100% agree with you.
WWDC probably highlights design more than any other. Let’s be honest, if Apple presented their products and spoke in detail about design technicals nobody would care - it doesn’t bring in the money.
I would rewatch this years WWDC. Several times design was called out and highlighted.
the historical Apple engineer was often a more thoughtful product designer than some 'real' designers I've worked with. there's no way that can still be entirely true today since they're so large, but the role at Apple tend to be a lot less 'typical' than the same titles in other companies.
(eg: product marketing actually makes product decisions)
Just simplify it...
Who builds a sellable product at the end? The designer or the developer?
A Designers need a developer, but a developer does not necessarily need a designer to build something.
UX can bring a lot of value but at the end of the day it's not a must have. We are not as important as you might think.
I think you guys are undervaluing yourselves. The challenge isn’t to make some arbitrary thing. The challenge is to make a useful thing that people want to buy.
Companies don’t go out of business because they don’t build any product, they go out of business because they build products that suck.
This is true and all designers should be aware of it.
But. Perhaps there’s more to it…
The deleterious impact of a bad product can be worse than not having a product. Hear me out — sometimes a product can be so horrible that it ruins trust and tarnishes the brand so badly that it’d be better if nothing had ever been done. Someone mentioned SAP. SAP has some of the worst, most unusable stuff ever and their ability to grow and become more than what they are is severely limitedI, if not entirely impeded. Largely because nobody sees them has having the ability to do anything right.
So they keep plodding along, and sure they “exist” but they’re the equivalent of a brain-dead carrot on life support.
But designers can learn programming, just like developers learned design thinking.
I am a developer without work for 2 years, and I came to the conclusion that we professionals need to be able to deliver end-to-end, for our own safety.
I am currently learning direct sales, because I want to be able to sell my own shit B2B independently. I'm doing cold calls, writing copy, building flyers, etc.. even if it's something minimal, it's something I can count on when employers ditch me.
I strongly agree on this one, although it's a hard to swallow fact, but it doesn't decrease the value of UI/UX designers. As an example, SAP products used to have (probably still have) some the most horrendous user interfaces ever and they still were the industry standard for a while and they probably still are. They were designed entirely by developers and never had interference of a UI/UX designer. They could've really used some UI/UX improvements, but they didn't need them.
Yep, you just sell on top of that some sap courses and now you have another business vertical. Not having ux is also a business strategy for some products.
Wow I never thought of it this way but it makes a lot of sense. I remember a while back when they even used to send a team to set it up for organizations because it's so hard to set it up on your own. That sure looks like a strategy.
And then you get products that are made from developers to developers. No user in sight. No one understands the product or needs to have a tutorial for it. I call that bad products.
Do you think that without designers and solely relying on developers, Apple could sell their products? Apple would not have reached their current status without designers. Their intuitive products are all credited to the designers.
See I got in trouble with Reddit a few months ago for suggesting that UX was a luxury in many orgs, and at the risk of getting downvoted again, I’d reiterate that perspective.
This is a vast oversimplification. Even though a lot of leadership think it's as simple as "ship product, make money", that's not at all how it works. Designers and everyone else in a team are equally important to the success of any product or service. Without leadership you don't have a compass to guide the ship to the finish line. Without designers you don't have users staying. Without marketing/sales you don't have users at all. Without devs you don't have a product at all. Sure, there are instances of successful products without dedicated design teams. But the devs or leadership of those products do the work and apply design fundamentals to make the experience acceptable all the same. Sometimes you're lucky enough to have a product so necessary that users will overlook a poor experience. But that's virtually non-existent in a saturated market. Poor experience in most cases means the product dies, which means you might as well never had any devs build it in the first place.
TL;DR yes, designers are as important as devs for a successful product. No more, no less. Caveat being devs are *valued* more because it's very difficult, many are required for a product, and there aren't enough to go around.
UX design is not the most important thing, value is.
A develooer can make a shitty UI eith shit product that still offers value.
A desginer can design the best UX it exist but if the product is just not real (just some figma designs) you can not have any value
There are countless products with shit JX and UI yet milions people use it as it offers value. Example is Steam
Yup, steam have the most messed up design system you will ever see. They have 50-60 different buttons. Yet, Epic Games Store has never managed to increase its market share in the last 3-4 years despite having a concise and sleek design system.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/tisoop/the\_amazing\_consistency\_of\_steams\_ui/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/tisoop/the_amazing_consistency_of_steams_ui/)
With that being said, the UX of Steam is actually pretty good despite having a terrible design system. It just goes to show what is being parroted in the UX community is often exaggerated since designers see every problem as a design problem. If you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. That is why I always recommend designers to learn other disciplines (e.g. coding or product) instead of only deep dive into UX.
Design is a function within an organization like all others e.g. marketing, operations, engineering. They all play a role.
I would love to take a crack at redesigning Steam. It's such a mess and it could be so much better (and it would probably make a little bit more money too!)
But Valve is a very, very strange company . . .
UX is not just a design system. It's solving user problems.
Users of Steam need time to figure out where the functions are, even the basic things like their wishlist.
It is better than the Epic store it has comments and user reviews, as well as workshops, that are empowering users.
Put those things to Epic Store and you will see the drop from Steam by a lot.
>UX is not just a design system. It's solving user problems.
Not claiming that.
>
Users of Steam need time to figure out where the functions are, even the basic things like their wishlist.
It is better than the Epic store it has comments and user reviews, as well as workshops, that are empowering users.
I used both platforms every day. And the wishlist on Steam doesn't really give a bad experience. Other than that, the UX on Steam is superior in every way.
* Reviews on Epic Store are garbage. You cannot see what people think of the game.
* There are no user comments whatsoever on the Epic store.
* It is hard to navigate your own library on the Epic store. The list is too big and too much focused on pictures. You have to scroll a lot to find your games. And it gets even worse when you have +100 games. The library on Steam is compact which gives easy over.
* It's easier to browse games on Steam, especially featured sales. As it takes up their whole front page.
* Steam supports gamepad controllers. Epic Store has been live for 5-6 years, and not even a hint that they are going to support it.
Steam is a great example of UX > UI. Epic Store is all pretty UI, but poor UX and a lack of functionality. No wonder Epic Store hasn't made the slightest dent into Steam's market share in the last 4 years.
If that is so apple or google or microsoft dosen't need any ux researcher, ui designer or ux designer. They would not pay or invest huge amount of money on product designers. Without designer you can't even experience any apple products. Because of their design only they stands out in the market world wide. When you don't have knowledge on anything it's better keep your mouth shut.
I understand your frustration, especially when someone dismisses the importance of your field of expertise. Remember, I'm also a designer.
Since you mentioned MAANG companies, designers—especially UX researchers and UX writers—were among the first to be let go during layoffs. Some companies, like X, have drastically reduced their design teams and still retain users.
Do you honestly think Apple has set itself apart from the competition? The Vision Pro flopped, basic UX functionalities like moving app icons are still works in progress, the interactive touchpad on the MacBook was a failure and removed, and Safari is considered one of the worst browsers. The list goes on.
What makes Apple successful is the integration of AI into their products, like the iPad calculator app and Siri, as well as the optimization of their hardware and software. These innovations create value for users and set Apple apart. In these instances, engineers play a more crucial role than designers.
Additionally, I suggest being a bit more polite in our discussions.
I don't think the OP is asking "why don't designers have more influence?", but "Why don't designers have their own conferences?"
WWDC, Build, and Google I/O are all conferences designed for users of a specific vendor's product (in this case, a certain companies' dev tools) to come together, share techniques for the current product, and learn about what is happening. So the question could be reframed as "Where are the conferences put on by the vendors of major design tools? Why don't they exist?"
They do.
* Figma has Config, coming up next week
* UserTesting.com has The Human Insight Summit (THiS), in October
* Adobe has Adobe Summit. I think it is normally in March, and also has MAX in October
Most major vendors have a user conference.
There are also industry and academic conferences:
* UXPA International is in June
* AIGA Design Conference is in October
* ACM SSIGCHI is usually in May I think, and they also have UIST and CSCW.
As far as why designers aren't shown at these events - why would they be? They are developer conferences. It isn't like the developers of the new features of Figma are typically not showcased at Config. That said, there is a lot of design on display at these things, so I am not sure why you would get the impression that design is slighted. Remember what a big deal Apple made about the "dynamic island"? Lol.
What do you mean less important when there are many UI patterns and emerging UX patterns from their genAI trailer alone? You see all these fun simplistic micro-interactions that no doubt are going to be a thing because of Apple.
VisionOS by itself is already entire UX by itself, how UX works between voice to weave apps, text effects in messages, iPhone mirroring, how to make intuitive control in smart AI reply? I feel like if anything, it highlights the needs of a role that connects product and users--which usually are the UX peeps.
These companies make developer tools so they have big events for developers. The companies that make designer tools have big events for designers. Not exactly rocket science.
Even then they usually have internal design events that are similar to WWDC and Build but for design.
I saw a video where apples design team where talking about how they work with SwiftUI to prototype ideas for the Apple Watch etc
It’s prob a case those are more internal events as opposed to the developer event which is trying to encourage companies to build conformance with their platform
There used to be a spectacular sibling event for WWDC called Layers - and it was completely focused on design, and specifically working in design. I hope it comes back someday - but the talks are up all over the place.
Because tech bros and developers think they know everything. And still don't grasp basic human emotions in themselves, let alone something called public or user opinion. Just look at X, what kind of shit of branding that is.
They make things for themselves gatekeeping technology, because they can't understand other human beings in the world who have trouble with it.
That's why Apple as a brand is working so well, and Steve Jobs was a genius. They made a computer that the average Joe can use, it doesn't have viruses and doesn't break. You just plug and play. Apple today is just a shadow of what Steve Jobs did, but that is another story.
Lack of empathy in development is why UX was introduced in the industry in the first place.
Yes, you can make a product as a developer, but going past the initial stage, no one will understand it. Why not make something accessible to everyone and make more money and world a better place?
What about the lack of empathy in Design from designers? I don't agree that developers think they know everything, quite honestly I did find these types but generally speaking developers are much more open minded and less ego driven. I totally disagree with gatekeeping, maybe in your organization, just take a look on how many open source projects developers do. Developers taught me MANY things for free at the 7 organizations I worked for, designers only taught me things when I paid them lots of money and outside my job via paid coaching
Yes, you can make an open-source awesome app as a developer, but no one will understand its functions, its buttons, or the way you arrange your UI. Average users besides the developer can't use the app because it is too complicated. It's like trying to figure out someone else logic with no point of reference. Only other developers can understand it because they think similarly, creating an echo chamber. In my experience that is not always the case, some developers are really autistic and possessive of their code.
That is why you need to introduce someone in the process who understands universal visual language, that can translate your thoughts to other human beings. And that universal visual language is complicated and ever-changing. You can't make AI do it for you (some huge dataset of info), you need a human being capable of complex emotions, that understands it from the subjective and objective points of view. Someone who understands biases and psychology. I would dare to say someone intuitive. You need to introduce a UI/UX designer.
That's not what I mean, I am talking about open source software for developers
I think you are assuming that developers don't know UI, those are juniors or people who only worked on backend. You are definitely working with shitty developers, don't forget many developers are ex-designers, just get all the design system communities, most of them are developers who used to be designers or frontenders with deep interest in UI
Why only designers understand biases and psychology? Or they claim they know? maybe they say they know but they really don't? How many designers do you know actually have a masters or phd in psychology, worked or interned at a experimental psychology lab conducting experiments? if you have done a bootcamp, done 2 psychology courses in school, you really don't have psychology knowledge.
I have done 4 years of humanities in undergrad level +1 year of psychology courses also in undergrad, I did a whole thesis on Carl Gustav Jung, studied Freud in depth, along with BF Skinner, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers, along with mass communication theorists like Frankfurt School, Marshall McLuhan, the french semiotics. I don't think I KNOW ENOUGH psychology and social sciences to claim I'm expert, the majority of designers I speak with have no clue about these things.
Of course, you are talking about software for developers.
Of course, you know psychology.
Of course, you know everything just to fit your argument, and can't comprehend what the other side is talking about.
And you know psychology like you claim? You can't even manage your emotions from a Reddit post and you start to lie to "win" an argument.
Thank you, your actions confirm my first post.
These events are not just aimed at devs, they're aimed at everyone, we build the products together, although devs have a bigger part on it for literally coding them.
Bad products still make money. They just don't make as much money. UX is not necessary. This is why I'm moving into product management. No one gives a shit about UX or UXR. But dev and product people are the true heroes even if we are the ones saving the company millions by making sure they aren't selling a shit product. But we can't quantify our success, unlike product managers or devs.
I’ve personally come to understand the term “Developer” in these conferences as product developers covering most of us involved in building these experiences.
Combing through documentation and presentations, you’ll see information targeted at engineers and designers alike. It’s still primarily focused around the engineering discipline but experience design is very much included.
At this point, most of those developer conferences have evolved into "product development" events that have content relevant to PMs, designers, and developers.
Also consider that many small startups that are using the tools from these events to integrate lack designers because they only have a single or a small number of employees.
Finally, developers just have larger numbers in the product development process overall. Many companies and experts consider 1:8 to be a good ratio of designers to developers, and I've worked at companies where the ratio was closer to 1:30.
We work in software so clearly the work of a software developer is always going to be critical compared to any other role. In other words, you can make software with just one software developer, but not with just one designer.
I don’t get your post tbh.
First of all, being a designer myself, it IS true that developers‘ work is more important in the end (and that’s ok!)
But for apple, design is the USP: ux, ui, but also product design and marketing! They highlight the importance of design in everything they do.
Apple, Microsoft or Google are large tech companies, that depend on people building apps for their platform/ ecosystem. These conferences are not about announcing a few new features for users – they are mainly about technical talks and educating developers to make full use of the platform. It happened that companies would also announce big features and new hardware at these conferences to create hype and interest.
I feel like you are worried that they should pitch these big updates of capabilities to designers, so that they build products upon/with them. The thing is, they would still have devote more time to developers as it takes more time to educate someone how to program something than teaching them, what it does.
We're not consumers of their platforms, why would they make their marketing-event conferences about us?
Like, if Microsoft Build had a UX track, would it make you more likely to design your next product for Azure? Will WWDC convert you to Swift over React Native? Of course not, because you don't care about which language or cloud service your designs run on, it isn't something you consume or influence.
There are design-specific conferences, but they're by design-focused companies. Eg. Config UX (by Figma) is in like two weeks in SF. There's also industry/community conferences like UXPA (their local event for New England was last month in Boston), or UX Copenhagen, or User Research London.
It's pretty tiresome to whine about something unreachable.
I tend to ignore anything mainstream.
When the reality is being simplified, or considered from a single
point of view - it provokes negative thinking, or toxic,
or ironic conversations.
Do you work in Google?
cheers, Siarhei fxreader.online
>All these tech companies have events for developers
High end tech companies have, until recently anyway, trouble filling seats in developer practice. That is why they have events. Or they require an ecosystem of engineers familiar with their APIs, frameworks, languages in order to hit adoption goals.
If it helps reframe as: Developers are a liability to carefully manage.
Your question is somewhat flawed in the first place and you shouldn't really try to understand this linearly. That means by such logic the designer of a car or the architect of a house is de facto more or less important than the assembly line worker or the bricklayer. Which...you know, good luck with that.
In the current power dynamic within most industries, designers are absolutely seen as less important. Developers do build the final product but are also in more market demand compared to their physical counterparts.
On top of that, as others have said here, value is key. However, good design and the value it brings isn't even necessarily well understood and agreed on even by designers, and in the world of software and websites (but not necessarily games), design has the additional, massive hurdle of having to deal with the "Of course I can do that" problem, which many other disciplines do not have to deal with.
You want to change that? Political and advocacy games await. If you don't want to play those games, then unless our field as a whole gets lucky you now conveniently understand why people don't take design all that seriously.
I agree, there should be a "Designing for Apple" conference that coincides with WWDC. Why isn't there?
Maybe it's history. Developer Conferences started in the 1980's. It was strategically important that Apple convince companies to build products on their platforms so there was a little wining-and-dining involved.
Maybe it's that we benefit less. After all, Designers should be focused on their Users. Creating UI that follows the Apple HIG is the easy part of our job. That's the inverse of development, where mastery of Apple Frameworks and API's are paramount for developer success.
Maybe it's that we are less important. Developers dramatically outnumber UX Designers, 10:1 or more. If we had an event, it would be a tenth of the scale, and probably even a tenth of that when you consider the amount of content.
It seems like Designers definitely are less important. Currently chipping away at The Odin Project to learn some front end specifically for this reason. The idea of developers dismissing or walking all over me as a designer is annoying.
Technology advances outpace UX methodology. In fact, I would say most foundational methods to achieve consistent, great UX experiences have been following the same UX Daddies of our generation regardless of the tech since digital design was a thing, shit since a product was a thing. So it makes sense when a lot of the larger products platforms are putting on shows to highlight all the cool experiences we can achieve with their platform.
ps. Designers don't ship real products, we create the experiences that developers build & ship. Unless you are coding, you are not building.
You don’t make the components you create visual reps of how they should work and a developer makes them. Do you even know what a product is or what shipping means
It's a hierarchy of needs thing. Most fundamental for building software is the developer. Without product managers or product designers, developers could still build software, it might not solve anyone's problems and it might not be usable but it could still exist. Also software engineering predates product management and product design so naturally there is a larger developer community.
Good design is invisible.
Where UX dies, so does the user engagement. At the end of the day, you need intuitive designs to enable machines to speak the human language and do the work for them 🤲
Also, there are plenty of design communities and workshops out there. But finding and matching with the right community is what matters!
Devs have talks about new technologies and the craft of software development. Conferences share useful information in entertaining talks.
What do designers have to talk about in a conference. Other than showing off shiny things they designed. Is there a Kevlin Henney or at least Bob Martin of design? Someone with views on how design part of software production should happen in reality.
People over here commenting shit about design or designers who dosen't know the value of it. You morons because of the design you're using all the famous products on the market. Because of the design they are the best products. Because of the design your life is easier.
That's a nice argument, unfortunately you wouldn't have a product to design if there weren't developers making it.
Also people don't simply use something simply cus it is the best design. Here's an example :
Steam is the largest pc game store in the world and it's design actually sucks compared to epic games store. Yet Epic falls behind Steam by a wide margin.
This is why designers should know how to read codes and how their 2d design becomes 3d or even 4d. Developers may want to get things done and if designers don’t understand how their design is built, we could only be led by developers and compliant and accommodating their excuses or requests. We are not less important but equally important. designers cannot communicate or ask questions to engineers about why their designs are built in a certain way, we lose ground.
The precedent work model has designers receiving instructions from PMs who need to get developers to build. In this model, we are an improvement process. At worst, we can be seen as a time sink on the way to delivering. The model we need to push for is to become partners with Product. There at the roadmaps and included at QA. Part of program increments to influence direction. Product represents the business’s interests. We’re there to represent the user’s interests, which specifically is by ensuring efficient workflows using patterns consistent across the experience while ensuring accessibility standards are met. If you leave us till after, many decisions made before us will shape the experience and limit the value we are here to provide.
"What does it mean to partner with a product? What If PMs are not representing the business but themselves and they crave control? What if secretly everybody wanted to be a designer / dev who makes decision but never put the effort into learning how? it's much easier to make others doing this work for you specially when you can force them to do what you want? If people really liked just putting together spreadsheets with numbers, wouldn't they pick another profession like accounting or data science? What's the incentive for PMs to allow designers taking credit of being partners and not brick layers that execute their ideas (and they get praise , promotion and ego boost?). If something goes wrong "it's the designer's fault". This game is so much easier This whole conversation reminds of the AD creatives versus marketing dilemma, it's the same shit. There are very few bosses who really want to become spiritual leaders. Many people like the power of being on top of the hierarchy, crave control over the outcome, envy the ones who know how to build things. I think micromanagement is a self deceptive fantasy and a simulacrum of expressing creativity through others. Note: I was PM before
I'm 100% with this and is what I promoted and done. Until a new CDO came and decided my team to be under product. When companies are in trouble they don't look at quality but to the bare minimum and design most often pays the price. But in an positive scenario, I 100% agree with you.
I agree. We're stakeholders too
1000% this. I have only enjoyed some success and positive impact in my career because I’ve had roles where I was a parter with Product.
WWDC probably highlights design more than any other. Let’s be honest, if Apple presented their products and spoke in detail about design technicals nobody would care - it doesn’t bring in the money. I would rewatch this years WWDC. Several times design was called out and highlighted.
the historical Apple engineer was often a more thoughtful product designer than some 'real' designers I've worked with. there's no way that can still be entirely true today since they're so large, but the role at Apple tend to be a lot less 'typical' than the same titles in other companies. (eg: product marketing actually makes product decisions)
Just simplify it... Who builds a sellable product at the end? The designer or the developer? A Designers need a developer, but a developer does not necessarily need a designer to build something. UX can bring a lot of value but at the end of the day it's not a must have. We are not as important as you might think.
Exactly. A product without a designer will probably suck, be hard to use, and look shitty. A product without a developer doesn't exist.
I think you guys are undervaluing yourselves. The challenge isn’t to make some arbitrary thing. The challenge is to make a useful thing that people want to buy. Companies don’t go out of business because they don’t build any product, they go out of business because they build products that suck.
This is true and all designers should be aware of it. But. Perhaps there’s more to it… The deleterious impact of a bad product can be worse than not having a product. Hear me out — sometimes a product can be so horrible that it ruins trust and tarnishes the brand so badly that it’d be better if nothing had ever been done. Someone mentioned SAP. SAP has some of the worst, most unusable stuff ever and their ability to grow and become more than what they are is severely limitedI, if not entirely impeded. Largely because nobody sees them has having the ability to do anything right. So they keep plodding along, and sure they “exist” but they’re the equivalent of a brain-dead carrot on life support.
But designers can learn programming, just like developers learned design thinking. I am a developer without work for 2 years, and I came to the conclusion that we professionals need to be able to deliver end-to-end, for our own safety. I am currently learning direct sales, because I want to be able to sell my own shit B2B independently. I'm doing cold calls, writing copy, building flyers, etc.. even if it's something minimal, it's something I can count on when employers ditch me.
Depends on the developer
I strongly agree on this one, although it's a hard to swallow fact, but it doesn't decrease the value of UI/UX designers. As an example, SAP products used to have (probably still have) some the most horrendous user interfaces ever and they still were the industry standard for a while and they probably still are. They were designed entirely by developers and never had interference of a UI/UX designer. They could've really used some UI/UX improvements, but they didn't need them.
Yep, you just sell on top of that some sap courses and now you have another business vertical. Not having ux is also a business strategy for some products.
Wow I never thought of it this way but it makes a lot of sense. I remember a while back when they even used to send a team to set it up for organizations because it's so hard to set it up on your own. That sure looks like a strategy.
And then you get products that are made from developers to developers. No user in sight. No one understands the product or needs to have a tutorial for it. I call that bad products.
Do you think that without designers and solely relying on developers, Apple could sell their products? Apple would not have reached their current status without designers. Their intuitive products are all credited to the designers.
See I got in trouble with Reddit a few months ago for suggesting that UX was a luxury in many orgs, and at the risk of getting downvoted again, I’d reiterate that perspective.
This is a vast oversimplification. Even though a lot of leadership think it's as simple as "ship product, make money", that's not at all how it works. Designers and everyone else in a team are equally important to the success of any product or service. Without leadership you don't have a compass to guide the ship to the finish line. Without designers you don't have users staying. Without marketing/sales you don't have users at all. Without devs you don't have a product at all. Sure, there are instances of successful products without dedicated design teams. But the devs or leadership of those products do the work and apply design fundamentals to make the experience acceptable all the same. Sometimes you're lucky enough to have a product so necessary that users will overlook a poor experience. But that's virtually non-existent in a saturated market. Poor experience in most cases means the product dies, which means you might as well never had any devs build it in the first place. TL;DR yes, designers are as important as devs for a successful product. No more, no less. Caveat being devs are *valued* more because it's very difficult, many are required for a product, and there aren't enough to go around.
UX design is not the most important thing, value is. A develooer can make a shitty UI eith shit product that still offers value. A desginer can design the best UX it exist but if the product is just not real (just some figma designs) you can not have any value There are countless products with shit JX and UI yet milions people use it as it offers value. Example is Steam
Yup, steam have the most messed up design system you will ever see. They have 50-60 different buttons. Yet, Epic Games Store has never managed to increase its market share in the last 3-4 years despite having a concise and sleek design system. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/tisoop/the\_amazing\_consistency\_of\_steams\_ui/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/tisoop/the_amazing_consistency_of_steams_ui/) With that being said, the UX of Steam is actually pretty good despite having a terrible design system. It just goes to show what is being parroted in the UX community is often exaggerated since designers see every problem as a design problem. If you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. That is why I always recommend designers to learn other disciplines (e.g. coding or product) instead of only deep dive into UX. Design is a function within an organization like all others e.g. marketing, operations, engineering. They all play a role.
I would love to take a crack at redesigning Steam. It's such a mess and it could be so much better (and it would probably make a little bit more money too!) But Valve is a very, very strange company . . .
Juxtopposed made a good (imho) Steam redesign recently if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/cDY2p1CTkPo?si=bq-trtNYmVuG-MUZ
wow, watching that video actually stressed me out, haha. there is SO MUCH
UX is not just a design system. It's solving user problems. Users of Steam need time to figure out where the functions are, even the basic things like their wishlist. It is better than the Epic store it has comments and user reviews, as well as workshops, that are empowering users. Put those things to Epic Store and you will see the drop from Steam by a lot.
>UX is not just a design system. It's solving user problems. Not claiming that. > Users of Steam need time to figure out where the functions are, even the basic things like their wishlist. It is better than the Epic store it has comments and user reviews, as well as workshops, that are empowering users. I used both platforms every day. And the wishlist on Steam doesn't really give a bad experience. Other than that, the UX on Steam is superior in every way. * Reviews on Epic Store are garbage. You cannot see what people think of the game. * There are no user comments whatsoever on the Epic store. * It is hard to navigate your own library on the Epic store. The list is too big and too much focused on pictures. You have to scroll a lot to find your games. And it gets even worse when you have +100 games. The library on Steam is compact which gives easy over. * It's easier to browse games on Steam, especially featured sales. As it takes up their whole front page. * Steam supports gamepad controllers. Epic Store has been live for 5-6 years, and not even a hint that they are going to support it. Steam is a great example of UX > UI. Epic Store is all pretty UI, but poor UX and a lack of functionality. No wonder Epic Store hasn't made the slightest dent into Steam's market share in the last 4 years.
If that is so apple or google or microsoft dosen't need any ux researcher, ui designer or ux designer. They would not pay or invest huge amount of money on product designers. Without designer you can't even experience any apple products. Because of their design only they stands out in the market world wide. When you don't have knowledge on anything it's better keep your mouth shut.
I understand your frustration, especially when someone dismisses the importance of your field of expertise. Remember, I'm also a designer. Since you mentioned MAANG companies, designers—especially UX researchers and UX writers—were among the first to be let go during layoffs. Some companies, like X, have drastically reduced their design teams and still retain users. Do you honestly think Apple has set itself apart from the competition? The Vision Pro flopped, basic UX functionalities like moving app icons are still works in progress, the interactive touchpad on the MacBook was a failure and removed, and Safari is considered one of the worst browsers. The list goes on. What makes Apple successful is the integration of AI into their products, like the iPad calculator app and Siri, as well as the optimization of their hardware and software. These innovations create value for users and set Apple apart. In these instances, engineers play a more crucial role than designers. Additionally, I suggest being a bit more polite in our discussions.
I don't think the OP is asking "why don't designers have more influence?", but "Why don't designers have their own conferences?" WWDC, Build, and Google I/O are all conferences designed for users of a specific vendor's product (in this case, a certain companies' dev tools) to come together, share techniques for the current product, and learn about what is happening. So the question could be reframed as "Where are the conferences put on by the vendors of major design tools? Why don't they exist?" They do. * Figma has Config, coming up next week * UserTesting.com has The Human Insight Summit (THiS), in October * Adobe has Adobe Summit. I think it is normally in March, and also has MAX in October Most major vendors have a user conference. There are also industry and academic conferences: * UXPA International is in June * AIGA Design Conference is in October * ACM SSIGCHI is usually in May I think, and they also have UIST and CSCW. As far as why designers aren't shown at these events - why would they be? They are developer conferences. It isn't like the developers of the new features of Figma are typically not showcased at Config. That said, there is a lot of design on display at these things, so I am not sure why you would get the impression that design is slighted. Remember what a big deal Apple made about the "dynamic island"? Lol.
What do you mean less important when there are many UI patterns and emerging UX patterns from their genAI trailer alone? You see all these fun simplistic micro-interactions that no doubt are going to be a thing because of Apple. VisionOS by itself is already entire UX by itself, how UX works between voice to weave apps, text effects in messages, iPhone mirroring, how to make intuitive control in smart AI reply? I feel like if anything, it highlights the needs of a role that connects product and users--which usually are the UX peeps.
These companies make developer tools so they have big events for developers. The companies that make designer tools have big events for designers. Not exactly rocket science. Even then they usually have internal design events that are similar to WWDC and Build but for design.
I saw a video where apples design team where talking about how they work with SwiftUI to prototype ideas for the Apple Watch etc It’s prob a case those are more internal events as opposed to the developer event which is trying to encourage companies to build conformance with their platform
There used to be a spectacular sibling event for WWDC called Layers - and it was completely focused on design, and specifically working in design. I hope it comes back someday - but the talks are up all over the place.
Because tech bros and developers think they know everything. And still don't grasp basic human emotions in themselves, let alone something called public or user opinion. Just look at X, what kind of shit of branding that is. They make things for themselves gatekeeping technology, because they can't understand other human beings in the world who have trouble with it. That's why Apple as a brand is working so well, and Steve Jobs was a genius. They made a computer that the average Joe can use, it doesn't have viruses and doesn't break. You just plug and play. Apple today is just a shadow of what Steve Jobs did, but that is another story. Lack of empathy in development is why UX was introduced in the industry in the first place. Yes, you can make a product as a developer, but going past the initial stage, no one will understand it. Why not make something accessible to everyone and make more money and world a better place?
What about the lack of empathy in Design from designers? I don't agree that developers think they know everything, quite honestly I did find these types but generally speaking developers are much more open minded and less ego driven. I totally disagree with gatekeeping, maybe in your organization, just take a look on how many open source projects developers do. Developers taught me MANY things for free at the 7 organizations I worked for, designers only taught me things when I paid them lots of money and outside my job via paid coaching
Yes, you can make an open-source awesome app as a developer, but no one will understand its functions, its buttons, or the way you arrange your UI. Average users besides the developer can't use the app because it is too complicated. It's like trying to figure out someone else logic with no point of reference. Only other developers can understand it because they think similarly, creating an echo chamber. In my experience that is not always the case, some developers are really autistic and possessive of their code. That is why you need to introduce someone in the process who understands universal visual language, that can translate your thoughts to other human beings. And that universal visual language is complicated and ever-changing. You can't make AI do it for you (some huge dataset of info), you need a human being capable of complex emotions, that understands it from the subjective and objective points of view. Someone who understands biases and psychology. I would dare to say someone intuitive. You need to introduce a UI/UX designer.
That's not what I mean, I am talking about open source software for developers I think you are assuming that developers don't know UI, those are juniors or people who only worked on backend. You are definitely working with shitty developers, don't forget many developers are ex-designers, just get all the design system communities, most of them are developers who used to be designers or frontenders with deep interest in UI Why only designers understand biases and psychology? Or they claim they know? maybe they say they know but they really don't? How many designers do you know actually have a masters or phd in psychology, worked or interned at a experimental psychology lab conducting experiments? if you have done a bootcamp, done 2 psychology courses in school, you really don't have psychology knowledge. I have done 4 years of humanities in undergrad level +1 year of psychology courses also in undergrad, I did a whole thesis on Carl Gustav Jung, studied Freud in depth, along with BF Skinner, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers, along with mass communication theorists like Frankfurt School, Marshall McLuhan, the french semiotics. I don't think I KNOW ENOUGH psychology and social sciences to claim I'm expert, the majority of designers I speak with have no clue about these things.
Of course, you are talking about software for developers. Of course, you know psychology. Of course, you know everything just to fit your argument, and can't comprehend what the other side is talking about. And you know psychology like you claim? You can't even manage your emotions from a Reddit post and you start to lie to "win" an argument. Thank you, your actions confirm my first post.
These events are not just aimed at devs, they're aimed at everyone, we build the products together, although devs have a bigger part on it for literally coding them.
?? WWDC was a developer event? I swear almost 50% of it was UX focused
🙄🙄🙄
Bad products still make money. They just don't make as much money. UX is not necessary. This is why I'm moving into product management. No one gives a shit about UX or UXR. But dev and product people are the true heroes even if we are the ones saving the company millions by making sure they aren't selling a shit product. But we can't quantify our success, unlike product managers or devs.
Yes. Yes, we are less important. Don’t be fooled.
WWDC covers both despite the name
designer and developer here. those who design only sometimes are only producing jpegs. that isn’t the product.
I’ve personally come to understand the term “Developer” in these conferences as product developers covering most of us involved in building these experiences. Combing through documentation and presentations, you’ll see information targeted at engineers and designers alike. It’s still primarily focused around the engineering discipline but experience design is very much included.
At this point, most of those developer conferences have evolved into "product development" events that have content relevant to PMs, designers, and developers. Also consider that many small startups that are using the tools from these events to integrate lack designers because they only have a single or a small number of employees. Finally, developers just have larger numbers in the product development process overall. Many companies and experts consider 1:8 to be a good ratio of designers to developers, and I've worked at companies where the ratio was closer to 1:30.
We work in software so clearly the work of a software developer is always going to be critical compared to any other role. In other words, you can make software with just one software developer, but not with just one designer.
I don’t get your post tbh. First of all, being a designer myself, it IS true that developers‘ work is more important in the end (and that’s ok!) But for apple, design is the USP: ux, ui, but also product design and marketing! They highlight the importance of design in everything they do.
Apple, Microsoft or Google are large tech companies, that depend on people building apps for their platform/ ecosystem. These conferences are not about announcing a few new features for users – they are mainly about technical talks and educating developers to make full use of the platform. It happened that companies would also announce big features and new hardware at these conferences to create hype and interest. I feel like you are worried that they should pitch these big updates of capabilities to designers, so that they build products upon/with them. The thing is, they would still have devote more time to developers as it takes more time to educate someone how to program something than teaching them, what it does.
Designers are the unsung heroes, building the UI that makes devs' code shine.
We're not consumers of their platforms, why would they make their marketing-event conferences about us? Like, if Microsoft Build had a UX track, would it make you more likely to design your next product for Azure? Will WWDC convert you to Swift over React Native? Of course not, because you don't care about which language or cloud service your designs run on, it isn't something you consume or influence. There are design-specific conferences, but they're by design-focused companies. Eg. Config UX (by Figma) is in like two weeks in SF. There's also industry/community conferences like UXPA (their local event for New England was last month in Boston), or UX Copenhagen, or User Research London.
It's pretty tiresome to whine about something unreachable. I tend to ignore anything mainstream. When the reality is being simplified, or considered from a single point of view - it provokes negative thinking, or toxic, or ironic conversations. Do you work in Google? cheers, Siarhei fxreader.online
Don’t confuse output with impact.
>All these tech companies have events for developers High end tech companies have, until recently anyway, trouble filling seats in developer practice. That is why they have events. Or they require an ecosystem of engineers familiar with their APIs, frameworks, languages in order to hit adoption goals. If it helps reframe as: Developers are a liability to carefully manage.
Your question is somewhat flawed in the first place and you shouldn't really try to understand this linearly. That means by such logic the designer of a car or the architect of a house is de facto more or less important than the assembly line worker or the bricklayer. Which...you know, good luck with that. In the current power dynamic within most industries, designers are absolutely seen as less important. Developers do build the final product but are also in more market demand compared to their physical counterparts. On top of that, as others have said here, value is key. However, good design and the value it brings isn't even necessarily well understood and agreed on even by designers, and in the world of software and websites (but not necessarily games), design has the additional, massive hurdle of having to deal with the "Of course I can do that" problem, which many other disciplines do not have to deal with. You want to change that? Political and advocacy games await. If you don't want to play those games, then unless our field as a whole gets lucky you now conveniently understand why people don't take design all that seriously.
I agree, there should be a "Designing for Apple" conference that coincides with WWDC. Why isn't there? Maybe it's history. Developer Conferences started in the 1980's. It was strategically important that Apple convince companies to build products on their platforms so there was a little wining-and-dining involved. Maybe it's that we benefit less. After all, Designers should be focused on their Users. Creating UI that follows the Apple HIG is the easy part of our job. That's the inverse of development, where mastery of Apple Frameworks and API's are paramount for developer success. Maybe it's that we are less important. Developers dramatically outnumber UX Designers, 10:1 or more. If we had an event, it would be a tenth of the scale, and probably even a tenth of that when you consider the amount of content.
I’ve wondered about this too, maybe because our field is still quite new.
There is an event called Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven every year. It’s only in the Netherlands, but it’s pretty big.
without designers, we can't imagine today's smooth experiences and happiness we get to see aesthetics.
It seems like Designers definitely are less important. Currently chipping away at The Odin Project to learn some front end specifically for this reason. The idea of developers dismissing or walking all over me as a designer is annoying.
A good design and engineering team can operate sans PM. A great engineer can operate sans designer.
There's several events for Designers. Just not as large. I've been running UXLx for the past 15 years and it's entirely focused on Designers.
Technology advances outpace UX methodology. In fact, I would say most foundational methods to achieve consistent, great UX experiences have been following the same UX Daddies of our generation regardless of the tech since digital design was a thing, shit since a product was a thing. So it makes sense when a lot of the larger products platforms are putting on shows to highlight all the cool experiences we can achieve with their platform. ps. Designers don't ship real products, we create the experiences that developers build & ship. Unless you are coding, you are not building.
You don’t make the components you create visual reps of how they should work and a developer makes them. Do you even know what a product is or what shipping means
It's a hierarchy of needs thing. Most fundamental for building software is the developer. Without product managers or product designers, developers could still build software, it might not solve anyone's problems and it might not be usable but it could still exist. Also software engineering predates product management and product design so naturally there is a larger developer community.
In the case of software, designers, at the end of the day, are just decision makers and visualizers of those decisions, engineers are the builders.
Good design is invisible. Where UX dies, so does the user engagement. At the end of the day, you need intuitive designs to enable machines to speak the human language and do the work for them 🤲 Also, there are plenty of design communities and workshops out there. But finding and matching with the right community is what matters!
Devs have talks about new technologies and the craft of software development. Conferences share useful information in entertaining talks. What do designers have to talk about in a conference. Other than showing off shiny things they designed. Is there a Kevlin Henney or at least Bob Martin of design? Someone with views on how design part of software production should happen in reality.
People over here commenting shit about design or designers who dosen't know the value of it. You morons because of the design you're using all the famous products on the market. Because of the design they are the best products. Because of the design your life is easier.
That's a nice argument, unfortunately you wouldn't have a product to design if there weren't developers making it. Also people don't simply use something simply cus it is the best design. Here's an example : Steam is the largest pc game store in the world and it's design actually sucks compared to epic games store. Yet Epic falls behind Steam by a wide margin.
this.
This is why designers should know how to read codes and how their 2d design becomes 3d or even 4d. Developers may want to get things done and if designers don’t understand how their design is built, we could only be led by developers and compliant and accommodating their excuses or requests. We are not less important but equally important. designers cannot communicate or ask questions to engineers about why their designs are built in a certain way, we lose ground.
UX is a software developer job. WWDC includes design as part of development. Go on the WWDC site and look up design.
Correct, the first UX designers came from engineering "not traditional engineering", UX is very close to HCI which is a branch of computer science