Almost universally the worst designs come from designers.<p>Example: only someone who fetishized design would make a keyboard the didn't work just so it could be a mm thinner.<p>The best designs come from those who interview, research, and test with a broad and representative sample of real users.
> The best designs come from those who interview, research, and test with a broad and representative sample of real users.<p>So … designers?
One would presume they are making a clear distinction between people who design for design's sake, and those whose design is a <i>result</i> of interviews, research, and testing.
How do you know Apple has not interviewed a broad and representative sample of real users and found that their #1 desire in a laptop is thinner and lighter than what is currently available?<p>I would bet that is what real users have been asking for, for decades now. They aren't asking for swappable batteries or headphone jacks.
>How do you know Apple has not interviewed a broad and representative sample of real users and found that their #1 desire in a laptop is thinner and lighter than what is currently available?<p>>I would bet that is what real users have been asking for, for decades now. They aren't asking for swappable batteries or headphone jacks.<p>Well isn't it telling that Apple hasn't focused on <i>thinner and lighter than what is currently available</i> for 5 years now?<p>Their actions seem to indicate that they heard this desire loud and clear, and that this caused a single-minded focus that lost the plot on the overall <i>functionality</i> part of the role of design. And then they heard lound and clear from users that "thinner than what came before" was <i>not</i> the end-all-and-be-all. They also rolled back other victims of the "as thin and liught as possible" chase, such as SD cards and HDMI ports.<p>The claim here is that they could have <i>anticipated</i> that if they weren't driven overly by the aesthetic bragging-rights side of the design team vs the functional side. It's not hard to anticipate everyday reliability causing more blowback than relatively-rare battery-replacement capabilities. They probably had a very good idea of how many replacement batteries were sold, after all. (And for the record: headphone jacks are still there.)
yeah but the best designs also come from designers
all the enterprise was missing, all along, was taste
I've always been a fan of Paul Graham's essay, "Taste for Makers". It's arguably more relevant today than when he wrote it in 2002.<p><a href="https://paulgraham.com/taste.html" rel="nofollow">https://paulgraham.com/taste.html</a>
I appreciate this perspective. Currently reading "On Writing" and would argue that Stephen King's perspective would be pretty similar to what's laid out here: surround yourself with good influences and your work gets better, and dissect why something is good (or bad).<p>Another point which may apply is to purposefully engage with work you don't like, because if you can figure out why it sucks, it'll help you make work that doesn't suck!
Articles like these are trite bullshit. Loads of great talent across the greater world of art that goes unrecognized. Nobody would call it good taste because hardly anyone can recognize it as such.<p>Taste doesn’t matter when slop puts food on the table.<p>Write the article you’d rather write: how to make money. That’s the main slant here of wanting to have differentiation. “Taste” was a marketing tool by Jobs telling people what they wanted to hear. This is why it’s called people management. You calibrate output based on input. If someone is receptive to being complimented, you give them a compliment while taking their money.<p>Don’t beat around the bush.
people say taste is the differentiator but I hate that because taste is personal, whereas culture is communal<p>taste without curation <i>for</i> the community, with an eye to what is culturally edifying, is just consumerism