This might work for web design. In my experience, it doesn't work well for UI design.
The first law of UI design is that you will fuck up most of the time. Most of your ideas are going to be bad bad bad. If you think that every mock comes out of your workstation smelling like roses, then you're either deluding yourself or you're just knocking out something incredibly derivative. To be a good UI designer you have to say no all the time, and to all of your ideas.
So here's the problem. Static image mocks only paint about 60% of the picture when you're talking about modern (especially touch-based) interfaces. Static mocks don't give you enough information to accurately cull your ideas. Sometimes you need to build the damn thing, so you can touch it and move it and realize well damn, that wasn't such a great idea after all (or oh, this part really needs to be changed or the final, magical yeah, that's not too bad).
All of the best and most innovative UI designers that I've met have been able to build interactive mocks of their designs. Now - don't ask how they did it. It's spaghetti code that will curl your hair, frequently written using some arcane technology that might not even be supported anymore. But it works just well enough that they can use it to iterate on their ideas.
Now, you can split this job into two people. One a "designer" and one an "interactive mock engineer". In theory, it could work, but in practice I've found that it becomes hard for the designer to detect the flaws in the design. I'm not sure why. But the final product doesn't change as much. It doesn't evolve as much. It's rarely as good as it should be.
The following quote didn't really fit with my post, but I like it too much not to share it. Take heart! Your limitations are not as strong as might believe.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
It's a wonderful quote, because it also says that before coding you might want to learn cognitive psychology, social psychology, gestalt theory, marketing, copywriting, information architecture, usability, economy, statistics, science of materials, architecture and so on and on. :)
There's not just "design" and "code" out there, the design field is way more deep than that, so that quote might translate well to a designer that can't code, but studied in depth social psychology, urban architecture and team cooperation techniques. :)
Comments
This might work for web design. In my experience, it doesn't work well for UI design.
The first law of UI design is that you will fuck up most of the time. Most of your ideas are going to be bad bad bad. If you think that every mock comes out of your workstation smelling like roses, then you're either deluding yourself or you're just knocking out something incredibly derivative. To be a good UI designer you have to say no all the time, and to all of your ideas.
So here's the problem. Static image mocks only paint about 60% of the picture when you're talking about modern (especially touch-based) interfaces. Static mocks don't give you enough information to accurately cull your ideas. Sometimes you need to build the damn thing, so you can touch it and move it and realize well damn, that wasn't such a great idea after all (or oh, this part really needs to be changed or the final, magical yeah, that's not too bad).
All of the best and most innovative UI designers that I've met have been able to build interactive mocks of their designs. Now - don't ask how they did it. It's spaghetti code that will curl your hair, frequently written using some arcane technology that might not even be supported anymore. But it works just well enough that they can use it to iterate on their ideas.
Now, you can split this job into two people. One a "designer" and one an "interactive mock engineer". In theory, it could work, but in practice I've found that it becomes hard for the designer to detect the flaws in the design. I'm not sure why. But the final product doesn't change as much. It doesn't evolve as much. It's rarely as good as it should be.
The following quote didn't really fit with my post, but I like it too much not to share it. Take heart! Your limitations are not as strong as might believe.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
It's a wonderful quote, because it also says that before coding you might want to learn cognitive psychology, social psychology, gestalt theory, marketing, copywriting, information architecture, usability, economy, statistics, science of materials, architecture and so on and on. :)
There's not just "design" and "code" out there, the design field is way more deep than that, so that quote might translate well to a designer that can't code, but studied in depth social psychology, urban architecture and team cooperation techniques. :)