Square’s front door to customers is a smartphone application. Square has to provide the simplest experience possible, Mr. Dorsey believes, because, along with good design, it will evoke trust and confidence in a new financial institution that lives in a smartphone.
Yet another example that strategic differentiation begins with design.
“Doing work on a house doesn’t make you an architect. Splashing paint on a canvas doesn’t make you a painter. Taking a picture with a phone doesn’t make you a photographer. I have some pretty decent dance moves, but I would never call myself a dancer. That would insult the true dancers out there they make it an art. We live in a world of hobbyists and the majority of our peers are hobbyists parading as professionals. They are not designers.”
Web design is product design. Drawing a picture of the product is not designing the product. Web design is experience design. Drawing a picture of on-screen content or mechanism behaviors is not designing the experience. The functioning html/css (and sometimes JavaScript) is the design.
“Do I need to know how to code?” is a question that comes up with sure-fire consistency in design circles. I’ve seen it asked by so many, from uncertain design students in classrooms worried about their chances of landing a job, to seasoned professionals at conferences seeing their pool of print projects slowly evaporate.
The question is being asked with even greater frequency as of late, because Adobe has launched their product Muse, which promises designers the ability to “create unique websites without writing code.”
So, if a designer wants to work on the web, should they take the time to learn this dastardly “code” or instead rely on software like Muse?
Read MoreI’ve heard a lot of people lately asking for specific types of designers. They want “Android Designers” or “Blog Designers” or “OSX Designers.” This is stupid.
Hire Good Designers (via sid05)