Readers with up-to-date Twitter skills will recognize the classic Willem Defoe meme. I have been doing web apps for a long time, and it seems everybody is an expert in UI and UX – both! They have, as Jamie puts it, a “flair” for web design. Genius-level stuff, like green CTA buttons because green means go.
What will it look like? I don’t care.
On a recent gig, the first thing I did was replace hi-fi mockups with Balsamiq. The product team had been killing themselves to do mocks in Figma, and failing, and then wrangling with the UI developers well into each sprint. There’s a good reason why Balsamiq uses scratchy lines and a comic font, which the crew understood instantly.
Is this what it’s going to look like? No! What will it look like? I don’t care! Well, I do care, but I studiously avoid having an opinion about web design because I respect the professional competence of my UI/UX team. I have a habit of saying “I don’t care,” when what I really mean is: I don’t want to interfere in a decision better made by actual experts.
We know exactly what the page will do, from business analysis and functional design. We also know roughly what it will look like, from the style guide. But, what will it look like, exactly? I am content to wait and see, and BTW we’re agile and we’re AB testing – so it will change, anyway.
Brah, where’s your queuing service?
Everybody thinks they’re an expert because UI/UX is the presentation layer. It’s (seemingly) just visual. People think, hey, my socks match my pants, so I can play too. Oddly, no one ever offers advice on how to do the data layer, or what message bus to use.
Virag Consulting 