Why are UX designers overpaid?
Serious question. I don't get how they're paid close or at the same level as a SWE or PM.
Really good UX design might look really easy, but the more simple and intuitive something is, it was probably really hard getting it there. Try designing something basic without looking at an existing pattern. A payment flow, editing a payment method, password recovery, etc. This shit looks simple but it gets fucked up all the time because someone assumed it was easy. And great UX shares a lot with great PM. Truly valuable UX designers think like PM’s.
True. I’ve known many exceptional ones, but far more useless ones.
You’ve gotta be referring to my comment right? Because Google has mostly fantastic UX. And Yes, Oracle’s UX sucks and their new fleet of visual designers won’t fix it.
Some Google products have horrible UX as well. I’ve noticed lately we are creating work arounds to significant UX issues because the infrastructure is too old. Trying to fix the issues are costly in time and ENG resources, so the same problems exist but with sub optimal solutions. In these cases, UX usually gets blamed but ENG and PM are equally, if not more so responsible.
First of all, UX designers =! Graphic designers. If you think this way then hell yeah, they’re overpaid. I think it depends on personal experience. I feel this way about PMs. Most of them don’t even know how to apply agile to their teams... and i don’t get how they get the same / higher salary as UX Designers.
Wait you can't understand why ux designers are paid like SWEs but you understand why PMs are???
ENG + PM + UX are a triumvirate... like the Deathly Hallows (ENG is “Invisibility Cloak” rarely seen in the wild, PM is “Sorcerers Stone” always bringing shit back back to life, and UX is “Elder Wand” fighting for the best design). If you believe this, it makes sense the three are paid relatively equally.
Ask a designer at G, I'm sure they can educate you Also no customer will ever evaluate you on your back end or algo, they will evaluate you on your UX.
I think the frustration comes from the fact that software without design is ugly and unpleasant, but at least it does something. Meanwhile design without software is just a useless picture. It makes sense that engineers think their part of the equation is fundamentally more important and expect to be paid more as a result.
I actually agree with OP, at least in some instances. I listened to a design SVP talk about comparing paint chips yesterday, meanwhile 33% of our customers can’t figure out how to launch important services. There are lots of dumbfuck designers who think cool shit rules the roost and that all should genuflect before it. Plenty of them regard engineers as interchangeable code-writing resources. Obnoxious. That said. You know how annoying it is when a designer makes decisions without respect for how a system actually works, waves their hands while saying “machine learning” and asking that you “just” make a button do something functionally absurd? Well, that’s what designers think when you start building something with enormous power and implications for a user without thinking about how that user will actually interact with the damn thing, and how it might affect them. “Buttons have implications.” Designers should know the technical demands and constraints of their proposed input mechanisms and flows, and developers should think about their consequences for the person clicking them.
Supply and demand. There's almost never anything special about how rates come about unless there's a scheme in place.