This post mostly looks at the app through a UI perspective, but wasn't it the case that the backend was causing problems? I'm obviously not arguing that the UI/UX was great, and as an exercise in...
This post mostly looks at the app through a UI perspective, but wasn't it the case that the backend was causing problems? I'm obviously not arguing that the UI/UX was great, and as an exercise in design this post isn't bad (although not particularly enlightening), but overall I'm not sure what the point here is other than to drive home that the app had issues. This kind of feels like saying "I redesigned the infamous Ford Pinto" but all you've really done is give it a new paint job.
To be clear, I don't necessarily think this is a bad article, but it certainly has a bit of a misleading hook (imo).
It's actually fairly emblematic of a big problem with the intersection of technology and party politics. Namely that none of the investors know anything about how anything works and it's just open...
There is no point except that it was a pretty big newsmaker for a couple days. It briefly entered the zeitgeist and now everyone with a tangential connection to appmaking, politics and UI design feel the need to comment on it. Attention on the internet is maximized by latching onto these outrage of the week stories. I'm sure more non-UI design people have read this piece by Mr. Malewicz than anything else he has ever written.
It's actually fairly emblematic of a big problem with the intersection of technology and party politics. Namely that none of the investors know anything about how anything works and it's just open season on throwing good money after bad ideas or people who can't execute on some pretty basic things. See here and here.
It is pretty easy to stitch together a sexy powerpoint and regurgitate buzzwords to old rich people who will take everything you say at face value as long as you're affiliated or recommended by someone they trust. It's all so mysterious to them that it's basically like hiring the services of an alchemist. They have no clue what's doable or what a competent shop would even look like and there are no standards bodies to hold people accountable because these companies all spring up and then disappear like mushrooms so nothing is ever around long enough to get a reputation.
It's still up in the air what the actual problem was. From my experience the biggest issue was probably getting a bunch of people in places where the cellular reception/backhaul was overloaded or...
This post mostly looks at the app through a UI perspective, but wasn't it the case that the backend was causing problems?
It's still up in the air what the actual problem was. From my experience the biggest issue was probably getting a bunch of people in places where the cellular reception/backhaul was overloaded or dodgy to install an app and register accounts with no prior training all on the day of. So it's probably not the 'backend,' I'd be amazed if they weren't just running all that on S3 or something anyway. It's probably more the usability fails with on boarding people into it. We ask know how much of a pain identity and access management is under the best of circumstances.
He makes a valid point: If the app developer can't manage a decent UI despite the (likely) inflated price for the work, it's a sign something might be off. However might is the operative word....
He makes a valid point: If the app developer can't manage a decent UI despite the (likely) inflated price for the work, it's a sign something might be off.
However might is the operative word. Digital tech history is full of ugly UIs on top of killer products that became dominant in their market.
I think the app fiasco points to a more interesting point: tech illiteracy. 20 years ago it was completely understandable, everything was moving fast, no one really knew where it was going, and the largest part of the population hadn't grown up with the kind of tech that's ubiquitous now.
Today not having a basic understanding of modern digital technology is growing ever closer to being comparable with not being able to read.
If the person/people in a group or organization with the responsibility for liaising with a 3rd party on development don't understand tech, it's essentially just a roll of the dice in terms of whether or not they end up with a passably good product.
You could compare it to hiring a ghostwriter in a language you don't speak. You have zero ability to judge their competence in advance.
And that's of course where you need to make the quality call: before the project starts, not after it's finished based on how pretty the UI is.
I've seen so many organizations with no one on staff that understands software, or social media, or the internet at large, hiring out projects that involve all of the above and more often than not ending up with a mess as a result.
In fact it happens so often that I've come to the conclusion that there's a cottage industry of professionals and firms whose primary proficiency is in knowing how to make a pitch that sounds good to middle management types without tech backgrounds. They know that even when they deliver a cobbled together spaghetti monster, for 10 times what anyone who knows better would call a fair price, no one in the room is going to know the difference. And when there are problems, well that's just more billable hours.
There's a reason that modern internet companies rule the world a little more every year... they understand digital tech. For better or worse, tech is a core part of modern business. There are vanishingly few businesses whose success doesn't depend on tech. In that sense almost all companies are tech companies.
Which I think is the most important takeaway from any of the various tech based fiascos in government and elsewhere: If you don't have people who can translate the tech world for you, fix that before you do anything else.
Ugh, the code and design of that site is AWFUL. I stopped reading halfway to adblock this sidebar that kept fading in and out over and over and distracting me from reading, only to find the code...
Ugh, the code and design of that site is AWFUL. I stopped reading halfway to adblock this sidebar that kept fading in and out over and over and distracting me from reading, only to find the code is minified so far as to be obfuscated: https://i.imgur.com/oLwCB1V.png
I think it's a medium.com thing, but for whatever reason the page renders a blank rectangle for the first five seconds before using a javascript fade effect to show the article. Luckily it works with js turned off. When I turned off js it loaded in 1.2 seconds versus 7.4 seconds with javascript enabled. Pretty bad for a 400mbit connection and an i7 processor.
It's full of crudely stretched images covered in compression artifacts, things are being styled inline with !important tags. You've got pages full of text rendered as images that don't match the style or typography of the rest of the article and can't be accessed via screen readers etc.
I hate to pick on front-end UX people, but seriously, if you're going to claim you know so much better than others because you're such an experienced designer, and that any site that's poorly designed is a sign of bigger problems etc, you really want to get your own site nailed down first.
Judging a book by its cover may be hurtful, but with digital products its 9/10 times right.
Indeed. What I judged from this site is it's written by a preachy blowhard who knows nothing about the web while preaching it to others. I can't take this seriously. While it might have been a good article, it lost all credibility by its own standards. Doctor, heal thyself.
This post mostly looks at the app through a UI perspective, but wasn't it the case that the backend was causing problems? I'm obviously not arguing that the UI/UX was great, and as an exercise in design this post isn't bad (although not particularly enlightening), but overall I'm not sure what the point here is other than to drive home that the app had issues. This kind of feels like saying "I redesigned the infamous Ford Pinto" but all you've really done is give it a new paint job.
To be clear, I don't necessarily think this is a bad article, but it certainly has a bit of a misleading hook (imo).
It's actually fairly emblematic of a big problem with the intersection of technology and party politics. Namely that none of the investors know anything about how anything works and it's just open season on throwing good money after bad ideas or people who can't execute on some pretty basic things. See here and here.
It is pretty easy to stitch together a sexy powerpoint and regurgitate buzzwords to old rich people who will take everything you say at face value as long as you're affiliated or recommended by someone they trust. It's all so mysterious to them that it's basically like hiring the services of an alchemist. They have no clue what's doable or what a competent shop would even look like and there are no standards bodies to hold people accountable because these companies all spring up and then disappear like mushrooms so nothing is ever around long enough to get a reputation.
It's still up in the air what the actual problem was. From my experience the biggest issue was probably getting a bunch of people in places where the cellular reception/backhaul was overloaded or dodgy to install an app and register accounts with no prior training all on the day of. So it's probably not the 'backend,' I'd be amazed if they weren't just running all that on S3 or something anyway. It's probably more the usability fails with on boarding people into it. We ask know how much of a pain identity and access management is under the best of circumstances.
He makes a valid point: If the app developer can't manage a decent UI despite the (likely) inflated price for the work, it's a sign something might be off.
However might is the operative word. Digital tech history is full of ugly UIs on top of killer products that became dominant in their market.
I think the app fiasco points to a more interesting point: tech illiteracy. 20 years ago it was completely understandable, everything was moving fast, no one really knew where it was going, and the largest part of the population hadn't grown up with the kind of tech that's ubiquitous now.
Today not having a basic understanding of modern digital technology is growing ever closer to being comparable with not being able to read.
If the person/people in a group or organization with the responsibility for liaising with a 3rd party on development don't understand tech, it's essentially just a roll of the dice in terms of whether or not they end up with a passably good product.
You could compare it to hiring a ghostwriter in a language you don't speak. You have zero ability to judge their competence in advance.
And that's of course where you need to make the quality call: before the project starts, not after it's finished based on how pretty the UI is.
I've seen so many organizations with no one on staff that understands software, or social media, or the internet at large, hiring out projects that involve all of the above and more often than not ending up with a mess as a result.
In fact it happens so often that I've come to the conclusion that there's a cottage industry of professionals and firms whose primary proficiency is in knowing how to make a pitch that sounds good to middle management types without tech backgrounds. They know that even when they deliver a cobbled together spaghetti monster, for 10 times what anyone who knows better would call a fair price, no one in the room is going to know the difference. And when there are problems, well that's just more billable hours.
There's a reason that modern internet companies rule the world a little more every year... they understand digital tech. For better or worse, tech is a core part of modern business. There are vanishingly few businesses whose success doesn't depend on tech. In that sense almost all companies are tech companies.
Which I think is the most important takeaway from any of the various tech based fiascos in government and elsewhere: If you don't have people who can translate the tech world for you, fix that before you do anything else.
Ugh, the code and design of that site is AWFUL. I stopped reading halfway to adblock this sidebar that kept fading in and out over and over and distracting me from reading, only to find the code is minified so far as to be obfuscated: https://i.imgur.com/oLwCB1V.png
I think it's a medium.com thing, but for whatever reason the page renders a blank rectangle for the first five seconds before using a javascript fade effect to show the article. Luckily it works with js turned off. When I turned off js it loaded in 1.2 seconds versus 7.4 seconds with javascript enabled. Pretty bad for a 400mbit connection and an i7 processor.
It's full of crudely stretched images covered in compression artifacts, things are being styled inline with !important tags. You've got pages full of text rendered as images that don't match the style or typography of the rest of the article and can't be accessed via screen readers etc.
I hate to pick on front-end UX people, but seriously, if you're going to claim you know so much better than others because you're such an experienced designer, and that any site that's poorly designed is a sign of bigger problems etc, you really want to get your own site nailed down first.
Indeed. What I judged from this site is it's written by a preachy blowhard who knows nothing about the web while preaching it to others. I can't take this seriously. While it might have been a good article, it lost all credibility by its own standards. Doctor, heal thyself.