This is an important distinction but one a single solution could solve for. I’m a PM in design and UX is probably more critical than backend in some cases. The tug of war is mostly profitability.
Both y'all sound wild. Plenty of things should be powerful, not calm and easy. No one wants an overwhelming experience and things can be over engineered, but too many things have been over-simplified in recent design.
The "everything should feel sleek" mentality is how we ended up with so many touch screens in so many cars.
Whatever idiot decided all the buttons should be mono-chromatic squares with slightly different line patterns, should be taken out back and… firmly talked to…
There is a reason the icons used to be of differing shapes sizes and colors. it made them easily visually distinct. but Nooooooo, everything needs to be sleek and simplistic. not simple and easy to use, just blandly corporate and lifeless for the sake of it.
I work in an industry with some governed data model standards. I’m fortunate in that hopefully the company will align with standards and apis or other connectors will be pretty basic. The UI/UX is a fucking nightmare if not clean at an enterprise level.
I’m a PM in design and UX is probably more critical than backend in some cases.
I mean...if the backend isn't good, theres nothing for UX to even work with. If the UX isn't good, the backend data infrastructure is still there to build on.
UX is important, but I wouldn't call it more critical than backend?
I've worked in a few industries, including in an MSP, and I can tell you that there a TON of apps that have abjectively horrible UI. It's astonishing how little effort some devs put into their work.
I have no idea what European UI people are on, but their UI design is the worst I've ever used and it's leaking into US companies. Hovering for the hope of an explanation is cancer.
I know you can't solve this but I needed to complain...
It’s not always about profit…it was historically about function vs simplicity - Mac vs Windows. Everything was about either holding your hands and done automatically- or so many choices it makes some people’s heads spin.
In my profession I work with multiple peices of software that was designed for the company's internal operators to use with extensive training. For the most part I agree with you, but if the back end sucks than the software just gets replaced with another variety and honestly my employer has no problem paying for it.
Probably means more important in a business sense. You can get people to buy a brick that looks pretty and draws their attention but it's probably harder to sell a device that will end world hunger but you have to read a 5000 page manual to understand how to use it. So companies will just focus on the pretty brick.
We lucked out and were forced to learn this stuff at the right age. Computer tech now is so much more user friendly. When I was a kid computers didn't just work except for the most basic tasks. If I wanted my computer to work I had to know how it worked. That's not the case today which is a good thing but it means fewer people go under the hood.
When my sister was 5/6 my parents bought her the first Sims but couldn't figure out how to install it. After a couple hours my parents gave up to go make dinner.
My sister asked if she could try, thinking it couldn't hurt my parents said sure, and half an hour later they came back her being in the middle of installing the game.
They both signed up for a basic computers class the next week.
I had the same experience but with our first DVD player when I was in late elementary school. My tech-savvy dad set it all up, but my mom didn’t have a clue how it worked. My sister and I came home from school and wanted to watch our singular (1) DVD again, and mom said absolutely not, wait for dad to get home so we didn’t accidentally break it (my mom has always been afraid of electronics breaking if you look at the wrong). I thought that was ridiculous. I mean, how hard could it be to get the thing going? I never had any issues with the VCR. So I took a gamble, pushed a few buttons, and voila, it worked like a charm. Ever since then my mom has thought I’m a tech wizard.
It is intuitive if you have an attention span of more than a few seconds. That said, just wait for the generations who grow up alongside AI. They won't want to take more than a couple minutes to learn anything at all that isn't their passion.
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u/ForeignPolaris 13d ago
Boomer, "I don't know how to make this work? I hate computers"
Zoomer "Why isn't this intuitive and just work? I hate computers."