What is your experience with UI and UX designers?

IBM
0E0E0E

Go to company page IBM

0E0E0E
Nov 24, 2019 27 Comments

FYI: Survey is heavily biased 😂 - this is my experience within my own specific team. Obviously it’s a great thing if survey turns out many people work with good designers!

I think I work with some of the worst UX and UI software designers. They’re slow, always ask questions that have nothing to do with the project (their go to is always “who is our user?” when it already is established in the parent portfolio of projects), slow down technical meetings, and most are just plain dumb.

Most just shift around buttons and colors... and they’re already defined in the design system. Oh, and without any user research or data to back up their claims. It’s usually “oh this is part of design thinking” “our users would want this” (like the 3 people who use it).

Their work always come out looking like crap. When the design is made and anyone complains about lack of improvement from metrics, their response is completely non-sensical (“oh this is off by a pixel”).

Some questions and statements I had to deal with...
1. What is a URL?
2. We need to redesign Google and Facebook SSO pages to match our visuals because we believe in branding.
3. Can we make everything load instantly?
4. What do you mean we should filter out user numbers for just sign-ins apart from users who actually interact with the product? Aren’t they the same?
5. I just don’t know why it’s so hard for you to change this page when it’s so easy for me to move the boxes around in Sketch.


Is this just exclusive to me or do others have similar experiences?

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TOP 27 Comments
  • Being someone who has been on both sides, ie. Ux design & front end dev, I would say I agree to some of your thoughts and disagree with rest. If IBM has designers who don't know what's a URL, then either your recruiters are compete idiots or your are exaggerating. But I do agree a lot of designers get too focused on trivial things and lose the big picture. 'design thinking' is thrown around like the universal answer to anything ux. Having said that, I have worked with designers who understand technology and they are far more effective than the ones coming out of fine arts or user research background. However, your frustration is little over the top. You sure you don't have any prejudices?
    Nov 24, 2019 4
    • IBM
      FN2188

      Go to company page IBM

      FN2188
      Ex-IBM designers have gone on to Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and more. (I don’t know any who’ve gone to Apple but do know some who’ve come from Apple.)

      They aren’t suddenly better designers a month later just because they work somewhere else now.
      Jan 13, 2020
    • New / Design
      al007

      New Design

      BIO
      New guy looking to solve user experience issues through academic knowledge and limited life experience.Open to getting hired. Willing to relocate anywhere.
      al007
      Well, UX designers write 6 page paragraphs because (they don't want to). As a UX designer, trust me, nobody wants to write an entire best selling book for every design project. This mentality has been caused by the stupid hiring process and requirements by hiring managers and recruiters who want to see your entire process from how you got to point Z from point A through stories like those seen in children's story books so that they can understand our mind and thinking process lol yet saying they got very less time to review portfolios and resumes. Design is atleast.. I feel is abstract and we try to relate different things to mould into a workable product but for the sake of getting a job , unfortunately, we need to write " This amazing product idea occured as a result of design thinking . It was concieved while exiting the bathroom one day and we began to sketch out the layouts.Conducted user research, Pictured the ideal user,Prototyped various versions, User tested it with millions of users( mostly few friends) based on various hypotheses( 1 or 2) and [this resulted in a $10M profit margin for xyz company --> the only lines that companies actually want to see in any work and squirt in excitement about] all thanks to our design thinking which we aren't still sure about till this day. I'm sure this is not just for designers, this can be said for developers as well in other ways.
      Mar 20, 2020
  • Square
    hwFoV1

    Go to company page Square

    hwFoV1
    Sounds like an IBM problem. Not exactly known for good software design.
    Nov 24, 2019 1
  • I’ve heard some horror stories from other companies. One involved the designer in a meeting with primary stakeholders, “why’s it so hard to just add a button here?”

    Engineer - “the button is easy, but if you want the button to actually do something, that’s difficult”.

    I’ve only worked with good designers. One even taught himself the basics of front end development just to better understand the product. He knew CSS better than most of the SWE. The rest at least understood the difficulties in development and asked for input from SWE when designing new features.
    Nov 24, 2019 2
    • IBM
      0E0E0E

      Go to company page IBM

      0E0E0E
      OP
      I’ve worked with a designer similar to yours. He can basically handle any front-end code, light dev-ops, was good at handling anything Linux related, and even some backend long as it’s Java or Node. Loves to polish all the front-end (especially animations) to the tee when we didn’t have time or resources. He left for FB 😂
      Nov 24, 2019
    • Yeah, my guy left for Google. 😂
      Nov 24, 2019
  • IBM / Ops
    kooky

    Go to company page IBM Ops

    kooky
    I can vouch for the ibm designer problem. I’ve worked with good ones, but a lot of the recruitment from IBM Design is low low bar standards. It’s basically design school. Then they brainwash them to thinking they are the backbone of the whole company and you have to just listen and do as they say because “design thinking” and they are experts. I can vouch for that we have a lot of idiots that dont know their medium not have data to back up their decisions. It’s all “I’ll know it when it comes to me” BS.
    Nov 24, 2019 0
  • New
    movement

    New

    movement
    Sounds like the hiring bar and talent recruitment is pretty low at IBM. Which doesn’t surprise me working at IBM is probably company 99 on a designer’s list of first choice companies.
    Nov 24, 2019 2
    • IBM / Design
      Nfkg20

      Go to company page IBM Design

      Nfkg20
      Lately the bar has been extremely low. With poorly skilled managers and designers managing hiring for next wave of designers, it’s going to get worse.
      Nov 24, 2019
    • IBM
      0E0E0E

      Go to company page IBM

      0E0E0E
      OP
      Are you a designer in Austin, TX Nfkg20?
      Nov 24, 2019