Sound advice so far. I would add, get the engineers to spend time designing the back end architecture up front. Design before you code. The same goes for UI, don't start writing UI until you have it all drawn up and vetted with your USERS (different than customers). You don't have to do this yourself, look for a techwriter, QA person that can communicate and has a little artistic talent and draft them into the role of UI designer if you must. Don't get fancy (unless you have to), paper prototypes can be vetted with users and have almost zero cost to change.
MS might have issues. 1. Vista will be used largely on new 64bit systems, MS probably planned this for an itanium based 64 bit and is now rewritting lots of it for AMD 64 bit. 2. MS has been loosing many of thier best and brightest to startups, they don't pay particularyly well and the days of becoming a stock zillionaire are largely over 3. When I go to tech conferences I'm seeing more early adopter types using macs (say 10% instead of 3-5% 3 years ago). This is very bad for MS they actually need to come out with something superior to the mac, and their initial threat of breaking legacy sw with vista is going to have to change.
Ok, I've never met a developer that is a designer. While that doesn't mean that they don't exist, my evidence suggests they are at least very rare. You could make an argument that everyone is a designer (a la Victor Papanek), just as you could that anyone that can string together a sentence is a writer, but I don't agree with that. Are you working somewhere where you regularly see a plurality of these developer-designers.
As for lumping "all designers are visual designers" They're not? I'm sure I'm missing textual and audio designers (and all the excellent UI design they do), but interaction designers, fashion designers, interior designers, industrial designers, graphic designers, and architects are all visual designers in that what they're producing is usually conceptualized first in a sketch and it's initial impact is visual.
"slap on a new UI"...for a dialog... sure. Slap on a new UI for a designer, or for your core UI... resistance. Any interesting, non trivial UI involves custom code (that's where you have the most potential to make real gains for most users). Anything that's standard fare (anything you could find a component for in a UI designer) can certainly be refactored without too much trouble, but when you start working on custom designer\selection components refactoring involves changing some basic assumptions that were made at the beginging of earlier sprints.
It's not about a UI "looking like shit", those things are relatively easy to fix (totally standard and acceptable within the scope of XP). It's assumptions about "this should have a menu and toolbar". With users finding the menu's difficult too remember (from what I've read the important parts of UI are learnability, efficiency, memorability, error prevention, and asthetics) because they've grown too large over the last couple releases (which I would hope a good designer would spot ahead of time and suggest a more scalable solution).
XP allows the code to be of higher quality, and it ensures that the UI will not be horrible. XP won't help create an innovative-intuitive UI that users will enjoy using. Developers are really good at something most people can't do at all, writing software(writing instructions for a non human that only understands explicit-logical- written instructions). Developers are not designers. By the time an XP team has a first version of thier UI together they've already begun locking themselves into a way of doing things. There is a resistance to change existing UI code (last time I checked UI was pretty hard to refactor). When users write thier stories for an XP team they don't include tacit information. A 'good' designer is skilled at turning tacit information into explicit information. A 'good' designer will also go through UI sketches with users (paper prototyping, iterative development) to find out what they want before anything is commited to code (commiting things to code is expensive).
Re:So, after he sells them...
on
Pixar For Sale?
·
· Score: 1
pixar employees (for the most part) don't have Stock Options. Jobs outright owns a huge chunk of the company. (as told in "the second coming of steve jobs")
However the long-term payout is 1. heavily weighted towards hitting the Royal flush 2. assumes you play perfectly
also there are no machines of more than.25 that are full pay anywhere to the best of my knowledge. Apparently there were some at the Reserve (in Henderson) but they were removed after a bunch of professionals came in and cost the casino tens of thousands in the firs week.
However, picking staticy laundry out of the dryer would be hard. Turning it right side out would be problematic too.
The practical and exciting extrapolation of this machine is automated sewing. Imagine going into a shop, having your body scanned and having any clothing you wanted mailed to you, and having it all fit perfectly (I could order my pair of pants, two shirts, underwear and socks each year off the internet ahhh). (and we won't have to enslave women in third world countries to do it).
I disagree. It is that simple. If the creator ownes his/her copyright then they can choose to license it soley to a corperation. It means (typically limited liability) corperations don't have the same rights as real people. I'm really sick of seeing people defend corperations as the new monarchy, as if corperate capitalism is the only kind that's ever existed. Corperations are supposed to exist for the PUBLIC good. If they're not doing PUBLIC good they are legal fictions, that real people, in a democracy can make disapear (poof, Company X, your corperate charter is gone, revoked, you no longer exist, sorry you weren't operating responsibly).
I'm sure something like this has already been done. But for a different reason, so that, with the aid of a heads up display. You can put the gun (and not the rest of your body) around a corner to shoot.
The Invisible Hand is bullsh*t. The war costs for the last war haven't been absorbed yet. I believe that a big part of what's keeping the economy down is the fact that we collectively owe about SIX TRILLION dollars (very roughly $20k a piece). Interest on that amount means that we can't afford to maintain/improve our infrastructure (...support the general welfare).
or environmental laws. Eliminate anything that gets in the way of making a profit. UA was in trouble because of (highly paid) management decisions (leveraging itself with too many loans to try and grow fast to attract stockholders).
Median family income is no longer based on one income, more like 1.7 incomes. It also requires 2 cars (instead of one, so that 16k accord is 16k * 2). While the median FAMILY income may have been 54.4k the median income was probably a little more than half that. So wages have been falling like a rock, it's just that more people are working.
a) Infrasound (7-8hz 150+Decibles) is typically used as a NON-LETHAL weapon (for crowd control). However like most non-lethal weapons it can kill. Thus it is illegal throughout the US (AFAIK). b) untill recently Infrasound was very indiscriminate (anyone in earshot could be effected, and there is no "bullet proof" vest for the police to wear). Which made it hard to use. However HyperSonic Sound (http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html) is working on a device for the US military that will have (very) directional capability. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/soni c_bullet020716.html) In a city region against terrorist, a weapon like this could be invaluable. c) I doubt terrorists would want to use this because it's 1) not very portable (yet) it requires a BIG LONG tube to create infrasound. 2) is (usually) non-lethal.
You'll still have to wait a while. And remember that it's really Aluminum oxide, it's not a metal, it's a ceramic. http://www.rense.com/general20/transpare ntalum.htm
You are dead on right. People don't want to pay for usability and reliabilty. If either of those were really important Apple would have crushed MS in the mid eighties. I do however believe that you've missed an important issue which is that users want features important to them. (if you have 20 users they'll each want "just one little feature") adding those (20 little) features makes the product in question a little harder to use (both because it's more complex and because there was less time to work on usability).
In silicon valley (where I was unfortunately born and raised, where my friends and family are) 200k buys a downpayment on a 3 bedroom house. A million dollars buys you a house that would cost 200k anywhere else in the country.
Maslows hierarchy of needs has a lot of things that money can buy as the base. If you're struggling for those things, then the higher levels are not attainable. This is especially gauling for a lot of IT workers because they see that those people making the money are a. not any smarter (I can understand everything you're talking about, but when I try and explain things to you [sales guy, marketing guy, manager] you have a blank look on your face) b. not working harder c. not really any more responsible
I'de go on to extrapolate and say that very few people know what they want to do for thier life in thier late teens and early twenties. School can only give you very basic skills in any area (and you're lucky if you get that). The fact that many people view CS as lucrative shouuld be the idea that's destroyed. Maybey it pays more than some other jobs, but it will force you to live in atypically expensive areas (Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle) and if you breakdown the pay per hour, many of the CS jobs don't pay much better than a being a UPS driver.
Automobiles and haircuts change at a relatively glacial pace in comparison to hardware. A certification could be meaningless in 3 years. I think society will move more and more to a eBay like structure where all busineses will recieve feedback from thier customers (oh, look Fry's has 14% negative reviews, maybey that sale isn't so great). Or, look this 18 year old without a degree has 260 great reviews from people he's done similar work for, while the 32 year old with the PhD in the suit and tie has 20 decent reviews and complaint.
Slashdot Mirror
Sound advice so far. I would add, get the engineers to spend time designing the back end architecture up front. Design before you code. The same goes for UI, don't start writing UI until you have it all drawn up and vetted with your USERS (different than customers). You don't have to do this yourself, look for a techwriter, QA person that can communicate and has a little artistic talent and draft them into the role of UI designer if you must. Don't get fancy (unless you have to), paper prototypes can be vetted with users and have almost zero cost to change.
MS might have issues.
1. Vista will be used largely on new 64bit systems, MS probably planned this for an itanium based 64 bit and is now rewritting lots of it for AMD 64 bit.
2. MS has been loosing many of thier best and brightest to startups, they don't pay particularyly well and the days of becoming a stock zillionaire are largely over
3. When I go to tech conferences I'm seeing more early adopter types using macs (say 10% instead of 3-5% 3 years ago). This is very bad for MS they actually need to come out with something superior to the mac, and their initial threat of breaking legacy sw with vista is going to have to change.
Ok, I've never met a developer that is a designer. While that doesn't mean that they don't exist, my evidence suggests they are at least very rare. You could make an argument that everyone is a designer (a la Victor Papanek), just as you could that anyone that can string together a sentence is a writer, but I don't agree with that. Are you working somewhere where you regularly see a plurality of these developer-designers.
... sure. Slap on a new UI for a designer, or for your core UI ... resistance. Any interesting, non trivial UI involves custom code (that's where you have the most potential to make real gains for most users). Anything that's standard fare (anything you could find a component for in a UI designer) can certainly be refactored without too much trouble, but when you start working on custom designer\selection components refactoring involves changing some basic assumptions that were made at the beginging of earlier sprints.
As for lumping "all designers are visual designers" They're not? I'm sure I'm missing textual and audio designers (and all the excellent UI design they do), but interaction designers, fashion designers, interior designers, industrial designers, graphic designers, and architects are all visual designers in that what they're producing is usually conceptualized first in a sketch and it's initial impact is visual.
"slap on a new UI"...for a dialog
It's not about a UI "looking like shit", those things are relatively easy to fix (totally standard and acceptable within the scope of XP). It's assumptions about "this should have a menu and toolbar". With users finding the menu's difficult too remember (from what I've read the important parts of UI are learnability, efficiency, memorability, error prevention, and asthetics) because they've grown too large over the last couple releases (which I would hope a good designer would spot ahead of time and suggest a more scalable solution).
XP allows the code to be of higher quality, and it ensures that the UI will not be horrible. XP won't help create an innovative-intuitive UI that users will enjoy using.
Developers are really good at something most people can't do at all, writing software(writing instructions for a non human that only understands explicit-logical- written instructions). Developers are not designers.
By the time an XP team has a first version of thier UI together they've already begun locking themselves into a way of doing things. There is a resistance to change existing UI code (last time I checked UI was pretty hard to refactor).
When users write thier stories for an XP team they don't include tacit information. A 'good' designer is skilled at turning tacit information into explicit information. A 'good' designer will also go through UI sketches with users (paper prototyping, iterative development) to find out what they want before anything is commited to code (commiting things to code is expensive).
pixar employees (for the most part) don't have Stock Options. Jobs outright owns a huge chunk of the company. (as told in "the second coming of steve jobs")
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thankyou thankyou you are a humanitarian of the highest order.
However the long-term payout is
.25 that are full pay anywhere to the best of my knowledge. Apparently there were some at the Reserve (in Henderson) but they were removed after a bunch of professionals came in and cost the casino tens of thousands in the firs week.
1. heavily weighted towards hitting the Royal flush
2. assumes you play perfectly
also there are no machines of more than
However, picking staticy laundry out of the dryer would be hard. Turning it right side out would be problematic too.
The practical and exciting extrapolation of this machine is automated sewing. Imagine going into a shop, having your body scanned and having any clothing you wanted mailed to you, and having it all fit perfectly (I could order my pair of pants, two shirts, underwear and socks each year off the internet ahhh). (and we won't have to enslave women in third world countries to do it).
oops, you appear to be correct. My apologies
because he's the only one that's right
I disagree. It is that simple. If the creator ownes his/her copyright then they can choose to license it soley to a corperation. It means (typically limited liability) corperations don't have the same rights as real people.
I'm really sick of seeing people defend corperations as the new monarchy, as if corperate capitalism is the only kind that's ever existed. Corperations are supposed to exist for the PUBLIC good. If they're not doing PUBLIC good they are legal fictions, that real people, in a democracy can make disapear (poof, Company X, your corperate charter is gone, revoked, you no longer exist, sorry you weren't operating responsibly).
I'm sure something like this has already been done. But for a different reason, so that, with the aid of a heads up display. You can put the gun (and not the rest of your body) around a corner to shoot.
The Invisible Hand is bullsh*t. The war costs for the last war haven't been absorbed yet. I believe that a big part of what's keeping the economy down is the fact that we collectively owe about SIX TRILLION dollars (very roughly $20k a piece). Interest on that amount means that we can't afford to maintain/improve our infrastructure (...support the general welfare).
or environmental laws. Eliminate anything that gets in the way of making a profit. UA was in trouble because of (highly paid) management decisions (leveraging itself with too many loans to try and grow fast to attract stockholders).
Actually the Union did not go on strike, the workers were locked out of the dock. The Port Authority locked the workers out.
_ Ta lks_Continue_-_700_Workers_Locked_Out.html
http://beta.kpix.com/news/local/2002/09/30/Port
Median family income is no longer based on one income, more like 1.7 incomes. It also requires 2 cars (instead of one, so that 16k accord is 16k * 2). While the median FAMILY income may have been 54.4k the median income was probably a little more than half that. So wages have been falling like a rock, it's just that more people are working.
Thank you. Mod parent up. Real information off slashdot, imagine that.
a) Infrasound (7-8hz 150+Decibles) is typically used as a NON-LETHAL weapon (for crowd control). However like most non-lethal weapons it can kill. Thus it is illegal throughout the US (AFAIK).i c_bullet020716.html)
b) untill recently Infrasound was very indiscriminate (anyone in earshot could be effected, and there is no "bullet proof" vest for the police to wear). Which made it hard to use. However HyperSonic Sound (http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html) is working on a device for the US military that will have (very) directional capability. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/son
In a city region against terrorist, a weapon like this could be invaluable.
c) I doubt terrorists would want to use this because it's
1) not very portable (yet) it requires a BIG LONG tube to create infrasound.
2) is (usually) non-lethal.
If there was something like this
www.skytran.net
in LA you wouldn't need a car. The car is as replaceble as the horse and buggy
You'll still have to wait a while. And remember that it's really Aluminum oxide, it's not a metal, it's a ceramic.e ntalum.htm
http://www.rense.com/general20/transpar
You are dead on right. People don't want to pay for usability and reliabilty. If either of those were really important Apple would have crushed MS in the mid eighties. I do however believe that you've missed an important issue which is that users want features important to them. (if you have 20 users they'll each want "just one little feature") adding those (20 little) features makes the product in question a little harder to use (both because it's more complex and because there was less time to work on usability).
In silicon valley (where I was unfortunately born and raised, where my friends and family are) 200k buys a downpayment on a 3 bedroom house. A million dollars buys you a house that would cost 200k anywhere else in the country.
Maslows hierarchy of needs has a lot of things that money can buy as the base. If you're struggling for those things, then the higher levels are not attainable. This is especially gauling for a lot of IT workers because they see that those people making the money are
a. not any smarter (I can understand everything you're talking about, but when I try and explain things to you [sales guy, marketing guy, manager] you have a blank look on your face)
b. not working harder
c. not really any more responsible
I'de go on to extrapolate and say that very few people know what they want to do for thier life in thier late teens and early twenties. School can only give you very basic skills in any area (and you're lucky if you get that). The fact that many people view CS as lucrative shouuld be the idea that's destroyed. Maybey it pays more than some other jobs, but it will force you to live in atypically expensive areas (Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle) and if you breakdown the pay per hour, many of the CS jobs don't pay much better than a being a UPS driver.
Automobiles and haircuts change at a relatively glacial pace in comparison to hardware. A certification could be meaningless in 3 years. I think society will move more and more to a eBay like structure where all busineses will recieve feedback from thier customers (oh, look Fry's has 14% negative reviews, maybey that sale isn't so great). Or, look this 18 year old without a degree has 260 great reviews from people he's done similar work for, while the 32 year old with the PhD in the suit and tie has 20 decent reviews and complaint.