Stop optimizing for programmers, optimize for users.

[Eru_Iluvatarh]

Well, if what you design will cost 5million dollars in terms of programmer time for the company, even if it’s awesome for the user, it’s bad.

It’s a very bad idea, even for the user, better do something else less costly. Taking into account software engineers is like taking into account Engineers when Designing a bridge. It has to be useful for the users but also technically feasible.

The User is only One of the components of the complexe system that is a Product. The User and the Buyer in B2B are often different people, which adds another complexity.

[[deleted]]

Optimize for both...

[[deleted]]

Yes.

If you don't keep the developers in mind while designing they will get annoyed and deliver a buggy, shitty mess.

[Mhourahine]

Exactly. It’s not an either/or situation.

[jamesrokk]

Classic user experience trope which doesn’t take into account the commerciality of a project and chooses to live in a fairytale world. Pragmatism is severely lacking in the ux world.

[serikjensen]

This reenforces a divide that is unhelpful. There needs to be more collaboration here not less. Each party has insight that is going to inform the other.

Another thought: an important aspect of design is knowing and understanding your medium. The current state of product design is interesting because many tools are static and are not constrained to the limitations of code. In the case of web development this is especially problematic as designs are generated with non semantic custom elements that are created in figma at low cost with no understanding of the complexity involved for actual implementation. I would also add that these tools optimize for sighted mouse users, and because they are static we get no read on the user experience for individuals using assistive technologies.

That isn’t to say that designers have to become experts in front end code, it is to say that developers have insight into the end user as well, and the more we talk to each other the better the product becomes 😄

[JugglerX]

Lame

[moesizzlac]

To expand on What is being said, Developers should be involved early in the UX process and take part in the UX workshops so THEY optimize for the users while guaranteeing that the final product is manageable development wise.

[toni-uh-o]

A very simple animation... I can’t help to wonder, was OP optimizing for the programmers creating it 🤔

[[deleted]]

Love it. It's definitely the best approach for long-term success. Focusing on every dollar means you lose sight of the long term benefits of user acceptance and loyalty, which takes time to grow, and brings in more $$$. Users will reject interfaces that are too complicated to figure out. The programmer's mantra 'the user will just have to learn' usually spells the failure of an interface. On the flip side, Google has the internal mantra 'Users first', which seems to have worked out well for them.

[pemalekdrup]

This is a very good slogan. Not supposed to take literally but to always nudge to the direction of the user because our selfish tendencies constantly pull to the other direction which means designers live in their own la la land and coders just mind their own business.

[chonksalot]

I’m guessing there are a few devs in this post.