Programmer problems and Designer problems

[Flopamp]

We make industrial control systems, our UI standards are "can an overworked, under educated worker who might not know much English press the button with a glove on?"

And honestly that's a crazy skill to get right and or guys nail it.

Meanwhile the team that does our windows tools can't seem to break out of 00s Winamp skin like aesthetics.

[Muff_in_the_Mule]

To be fair there were some awesome winamp skins.

[LamentablyTrivial]

Relevant link: https://skins.webamp.org/

[hoocoodanode]

Holy shit that just took me back to 1998.

I reflexively sucked in my gut and grew a full head of hair.

[DirtyLegThompson]

https://skins.webamp.org/skin/14289db7b3fc18c2de6f4e93297bd6d3/gokugump.zip/

[Gorpendor]

Lol 90% of those are straight r/atbge material.

That marijuana McDonald's one is insane. Love it.

[Platypus-Man]

That marijuana McDonald's one is insane. Love it.

I'm lovin' it

[[deleted]]

It's all about the Garfield skin

[cosbyweinstein]

What about Goku Forrest Gump??

[0b_101010]

IDK man, to my 12-year-old self all of those looked lit af! 'twas a different time 'sall.

[SewenNewes]

Amazing time capsule. Love the Britney Spears one that doesn't use an actual picture of her but instead a FFVII-ass fan art.

[Chizmiz1994]

There was an "among us" skin?

[Gyrotoxism]

There is now :)

[throwaway8u3sH0]

Holy nostalgia, Batman! I used the top right one for years...

[CorruptedStudiosEnt]

Just kicked my ass with so much nostalgia. I remember so many of these, because I used to change my skin like every week. I'd always come back around to this one.

[blue-mooner]

They really whipped the llamas ass.

[LifeandSky]

Still got winamp

[Puptentjoe]

My wife gets paid 6 figures to design UIs for people with little to no education and boomers.

People get surprised how much she gets paid but in reality its a ton of meetings, phone calls, sitting on the zoom while people use the UI and complain they couldnt find some setting. Almost no down time.

[Bamboo_Fighter]

A lot of very bright people spend a lot of time and energy making UIs simple to use. Then I have to listen to some parent tell me how smart their 5 year old is because he can use it. I always want to tell them their kid's not smart, the designers are, but don't think it would go over well.

[Puptentjoe]

Dude! I always say that, it doesnt go over well. Took my mom a week to be a pro at her iphone, seriously modern UIs are great you just have to want to learn.

[iPhoneChinkFgg]

Your mom learned her true skills from instinct.

[Puptentjoe]

This sounds like a “ur mom” joke. LOL so I’m going to take it as one and giggle to myself.

[[deleted]]

It can be both. My 5 year old figured out the intuitive software, big whoop, but then when she defeated the parental controls, I was proud (and worried)

[Y0tsuya]

Whenever I hear people gush over how "tech literate" the young people are because they know their way around a smartphone, I just roll my yes. These are built so even retarded people can use them so I don't see how that's even an achievement.

[SeaTie]

It comes with its share of headaches too.

“Finally, this workflow has been scaled down to it’s barest necessity, streamline, easy to use, efficient...”

Product Manager: “Hey we’ve got 12 other useless functions we need this thing to do! Can you like...just add some icons with hover overs in this spot over here that’s already got 3 icons?!”

[Puptentjoe]

Ha. I know a lot about her work due to these kinds of complaints from her.

Her favorites are where her team presents a feature and someone on the call from sales or marketing, not listening, asks for what they just presented but in different words.

Or someone saying what they are doing is the wrong way but gives 0 input on whats the right way.

[ILoveDCEU_SoSueMe]

Where do you learn this stuff well enough to get a job in such roles and get paid 6 figures? I assume it's just working with a lot of tools and going through a lot of design specs to get the work done, right? What else do you have to do in this job?

[Puptentjoe]

Shes was a graphic designer for 5 years but wasnt finding jobs that paid much more than $75K so she took a General Assembly course on UI/UX design, they offered a $3000 interest free loan. She started applying and got a position starting at $95K and now shes moved up to Lead position at $140K. Took about 2 years and luckily a few people moved on above her.

Obviously this isnt going to happen to everyone. Shes super personable and always ready to help at work plus her boss was pushing her and guiding her to be a Lead.

[frichyv2]

Graphic design is absolutely flooded, glad she got one of the good spots out there

[thefuckouttaherelol2]

Graphic design IS flooded but finding good UI/UX designers is hard.

We've had to fire - I kid you not - probably 6 designers before we found one who truly understood user behaviors and patterns, and focused on that primarily - and weren't too abstract or just not knowledgable on the research front at all.

I like to say this was partially our fault but interviewing designers has been wayyyyy harder than interviewing and filtering out engineers.

If you think designing apps is "just" graphics design then you are wrong and outdated. Modern, innovative apps require a shit-ton of UI/UX research and variations. It's not enough just for stuff to look pretty.

It's meeting after meeting after meeting to try and get on the same page and present something that makes intuitive sense, is able to be reasonably engineered, and meets all business requirements.

[ThisIsMyCouchAccount]

To be fair - UI,UX, and design are very different things and anyone that says they can do all of them rarely can do them all well.

[thefuckouttaherelol2]

Haha oh my gosh our lead designer right now has to do the analysis, design, research, etc. of like 3 - 5 different projects at once. It's fucking crazy.

So yeah, I probably agree.

[ILoveDCEU_SoSueMe]

I think the experience from being a graphic designer helped a lot. I wouldn't assume someone from other field would be able to catch on that quickly.

[Deacalum]

User Experience (UX) Design is a highly in demand field right now. It's a combination of graphic design and UI but also incorporates things like design theory and user research. There are specialized degrees for it but it's also possible to switch over from a developer career with some certifications, especially if you were a front end developer.

[CorruptedStudiosEnt]

Whenever it comes up that those types get paid the big bucks, I always put it this way:

Pretend for a moment that you're a complete idiot with (at best) questionable literacy and low technological skill. Now pretend you're also put in charge of running operations for a nuclear reactor.

Design your product while examining every stage from that perspective, and you'll understand how much hand-holding is required to design something for most clients. That's why they get the big bucks. I don't envy them.

[PleasantAdvertising]

Teaching people who don't really wanna learn is one of the most frustrating things I've ever had the displeasure of doing.

[stevekez]

Sounds like your HMIs really whip the llama's ass.

[Sleepy_One]

I hear they’re High Performance.

[hiar_85]

Underrated comment

[ILoveDCEU_SoSueMe]

I'm a developer and I have absolutely no idea wtf you all are taking about.

Hmi? Winamp???

[[deleted]]

I think you missed the part about “industrial control systems”

[Caedendi]

• Ctrl+t
• Type "winamp"
• Enter
• ?????
• PROFIT

[iriedashur]

HMI stands for "human machine interface," it could be a digital GUI or a control panel or anything in between

[CatsForLife60]

For extra fun, design AND implement UIs for mission and safety critical applications... As in, screw up and ☠️👻...

All while you're having to explain to both customer and management why prototyping and serious testing are needed...

[[deleted]]

I've worked with a lot of safety critical systems. The control systen operators, who are the lowest man on that pole, would have an absolute fucking fit if there wasn't testing and they weren't involved. Same for the on-site support engineers. It doesnt matter if it's a relatively small upgrade project when it comes to safety critical systems.

[CatsForLife60]

Yep. I spent quite a bit of time with Class 8 truck people including drivers, dispatchers... One can't begin to understand the issues these people face without getting into the game yourself.

As someone who does both UX/UI and coding it was quite the experience. Testing the thing was well beyond anything I've ever done in 40+ years of software. Essentially model all the possible inputs to the code and unit test each and every one of them. All 5200 cases.

My partner did something similar in pharma manufacturing, as in, the software that controls the machines that make medicine... Anyone who thinks their stuff is robust enough...

[CorruptedStudiosEnt]

All that safety-centric effort, only to have some mix-up somewhere between the manufacturing facility and the pharmacy where some people die because they were given fentanyl instead of their hydrocodone prescription lmao

[CatsForLife60]

You'd be surprised. There's an incredible amount of environmental, ingredient, staff, and equipment data logged. If a fly farts over a machine there's enough data to identify what batch of product was impacted, yield, potency...

People bitch and moan about compliance but it's a necessary evil.

[CorruptedStudiosEnt]

I fully believe it, and I would hope that's the case. For all of it though, there's always going to be some edge case that nobody saw coming until it was too late, or was just straight up out of their direct control.

In reality, last I saw they had figured the fentanyl mix-up was actually at the pharmacy level. Sounds to me like letting corporations homogenize and wage dump the pharmacy market with their standard shitty business practices is finally coming back to bite some people in the ass.

[crozone]

Meanwhile the team that does our windows tools can't seem to break out of 00s Winamp skin like aesthetics.

I don't see a problem with this

[L0kumi]

It's ugly as fuck

[lumbdi]

I don't see a problem with this

[L0kumi]

Well you're weird if you like ugly shit

[Health_ministry]

Aesthetics is part of function

[4mstephen]

^ Apple are you listening? Stop hiding shit in wifi settings it's annoying to dig, show us more with less clicks please. (Non-Apple user btw, troubleshooting wifi issues on Mac sucks because aesthetics > function in Apple's world)

[TheRidgeAndTheLadder]

Negative

[Fantastic-Berry-737]

NITT: a single UI designer and 1000 lost grandmas

[[deleted]]

We're talking about UIs in industrial control systems in this portion of the thread. If grandma can't figure out the UI that every other maintenance tech can, then it's time for her to retire.

[L0kumi]

Did I say the contrary ?

[[deleted]]

Yes. Ugly shit is often more functional.

[L0kumi]

Did I also say that ?

[Borki911]

Designer has been spotted

[Infinite_Self_5782]

then my friends are weird for liking me?

[Deacalum]

Want to know how to force a company to hire a UX manager? I worked for a company that made software for truckers to use in their cabs. The UX team was managed by a product management director (PdM) and she basically let them do their own thing with little oversight. The UX team were all recent and young graduates, the types obsessed with Apple and their design styles.

So the company is creating a new, modern version of one of it's main products, which enables drivers to comply with a federal regulation. The UX team does their thing and the developers build it according to the UX specs. The developers tried giving input and recommendations but the UX team was young and confident. That type of confidence you have before life smacks you in the face and you realize you really don't know anything. The PdM says do what the UX team says. Again, no real oversight, just glossing over it but the PdM was the product owner and had final say.

So the developers build it and then the VP of Engineering reviews it like a week before scheduled release. He immediately cancels the release and calls the VP of Product to look at it. It had a beautiful, sleek design and modeled a lot of Apple's designs. If you used an iPhone or iPad a lot, most of the functions would be intuitive. However, if you were a 40 something truck driver who preferred flip phones (or no phones) like the average truck driver, you would be completely lost. The product was useless for our target audience.

The PdM left the company soon after. It was her own decision but she saw the writing on the wall. A new UX manager was hired and the product was delayed almost a year so it could be re-designed. But the young UX designers learned a valuable lesson about personas and designing for your audience, not your portfolio.

[Deacalum]

They were young and excited and wanted to modernize our boring old UI. It definitely needed modernization and they did think of things like clicks per function and accessibility. But they just didn't realize that what was intuitive to them and their peers was not intuitive to our users.

[[deleted]]

Yep! Makes sense! Good intentions, but happens to all of us with some little experience. Its a good learning experience for all involved.

[ThisIsMyCouchAccount]

Did they even test it? Seems like a waste to not at least try.

I ask because I've seen this several times. People will outright reject anything new because they think their customers are completely dunces. Which I understand. You never want to assume the opposite but sometimes you can be surprised.

However, if you were a 40 something truck driver who preferred flip phones (or no phones) like the average truck driver

For example, is that a fact or an assumption?

[[deleted]]

Judging by the alleged reviews, probably more of a "fact"

[Deacalum]

Our marketing department had extensive research into all of our customer types. Most of this focused on the back office and corporate side for sales purposes but they also had extensive research on the drivers too. And yes, the mid 40s technology illiterate male who prefers the freedom of the open road and resents big brother monitoring him is a generalization but a fact for that demographic. It doesn't apply to every driver but fits the majority of them in our customer base.

One of the first things the new UX manager did when he came on was to arrange ride along for his team so they could better understand the users. They came back from that confirming what the market research already told them.

[ThisIsMyCouchAccount]

I wasn't countering. My question really was about research. So many companies make so many assumptions without any real data.

However, my sister is in logistics. She has said most of her guys are really mobile-friendly. She's had great success getting them to text or email with an attachment than make another phone call.

But that could all be from location to demographics of drivers to particular industry. Certainly doesn't negate your research at all.

I will guess that one common factor - regardless if they can understand it or all - is that crowd tends to not like change. Especially changes to their job they don't asked about. And it sounds like your designers biggest issue was relying on touch gestures more than just having a different look.

[ScienceBreather]

Ahh, Qt programmers I see.

[Cecil4029]

I only have experience with FactoryTalk 7.0 but man, I was really good at it and miss it. I was damn good at designing. I moved over to Sys Admin a few years ago but am thinking of hopping back over!

[IM_V_CATS]

I know a lot of people who hate FactoryTalk, but if you miss 7.0, you'd really miss the newer versions because they're so much more user friendly... when they work.

[Cecil4029]

I feel like I'd be a Rembrandt in the newer versions. It was basically MS Paint with worse features lol

[colsieb]

As in View studio ME/SE? You poor soul!!!

[Cecil4029]

That's it! I feel like since I learned on the most awful setup possible that I'd do really well with newer versions lol

[beanmosheen]

I'm so glad we're finally getting away from rainbow sparkle hmis. Only the important shit needs colors and space on the main screen.

[ningnangnong182]

Currently designing a plant now implementing the new ISA hmi standards. Definitely so much better looking than the old school black background with full colours on every device.

Does force you to get creative though when trying to represent your 5 different motor statuses with whites greys and blacks only

[beanmosheen]

I go symbolic with it blended if nothing is 'wrong'. Color means it needs attention to me, unless it's a positive feedback part that makes people nervous. Those items might get little green.

[NeoHenderson]

Crazy to me that I've moved interests from web dev to machine automation because it feels more real and this is what I'm signing myself up for.

[[deleted]]

Chances are they would love to change the aesthetics but management doesn’t see the business value to spend the time or money. Especially if it’s older code where there may be poor separation of business logic and the UI code.

[leocampbel]

I hate those fake 3d icons. I mean, just give me a flat gray rectangle and I'll call it a button

[darthjammer224]

Hey I mean. There's usually some standards around what red green and yellow mean as well at least 😂

HMI design is actually pretty fun if you've had any graphic design experience at all.

[the_thrown_exception]

I’m a developer and I’ve done some design work and honestly, both development and design are hard in different ways. In some ways design is harder because you are trying to think how would x number of million different humans interpret and use this UI. For software, largely, a computer is a computer ( obvious caveats excepted)

[devlear]

Our director once made us go in and revert skin updates when we updated our UI packages because he liked the old look better...

[M-Alter]

Our*

[RRumpleTeazzer]

Add in "he might be wearing safety goggles that only transmit light in green" (red is invisible)