why major products implementing non user friendly features?

[Harshana Dias]

I am wondering why even top development team man power companies also implement stupid and non user friendly features? For example im talking here about the top social network recently implemented dump chat? So can you guys think of what the rationality behind implementing such non user freindly feature?

[Pat Farrell]

What's a dump chat?

Usually engineers implement user-hostile features because they are engineers, and it makes perfect sense to them. Sometimes its because engineers don't approach the world the way non-engineers do, so they see the implementation as plenty friendly to anyone. Unsaid is that its really "anyone as smart and computer facile as me". Other times, its because the engineers have no idea what a good user friendly feature is.

Proper UI design is very hard. The vast majority of engineers can not do it. Most engineers don't even recognize it when they use it. You need someone who as natural talent at communications, such as artists or writers. Most engineers don't even appreciate good design when they see it. We're just blind to that part of the world.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Harshana Dias wrote:the top social network recently implemented dump chat

top social network => Facebook
"dump chat" => ???

Don't know what this sentence means.

[Saurabh Pillai]

Recently Facebook introduced video chat and after activating it, chat box just sticks on right hand side(column type) unlike old chat box.I find it very annoying.

[Harshana Dias]

see another major suck thing..cant delete the youtube account ..just shows the Please Wait... and thats it..browser doesnt not redirect..may be a js error. Also once you link with a google account you cant link a another you tube account to it. so whats so user friendly in that. gosh these are massive companies doing kindergarden mistakes

[Bear Bibeault]

Frequently completely on purpose.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

on FB they made changes entirely different and so early , even sometimes good users of it not able to get it... so how a person not having much hand on it, can figure it out?

[Joe San]

Harshana Dias wrote:see another major suck thing..cant delete the youtube account ..just shows the Please Wait... and thats it..browser doesnt not redirect..may be a js error.

It should be an error and definitely not a feature.

[Mark Spritzler]

Yeah, I know what you mean. If you have ever had the misfortune to have to use an Oracle App, Mostly their financial apps, but really anything created using Oracle Forms and Reports are the worst UIs ever created by man. And i am not joking here, the creators of those apps should be ashamed. The problem is that it will never be fixed because after buyers of it realize how crappy it is, they have already spent millions of dollars and feel stuck with it. And Oracle has already made its money on it, so why fix it.

Mark

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Mark Spritzler wrote:anything created using Oracle Forms and Reports are the worst UIs ever created by man.

This.

[Bear Bibeault]

Ernest Friedman-Hill wrote:

Mark Spritzler wrote:anything created using Oracle Forms and Reports are the worst UIs ever created by man.

This.

Very much this.

All our HR stuff is Oracle crap. And calling it crap is an insult to crap.

[Bear Bibeault]

My partner is a web designer -- or used to be -- but has been pushed out of the market. He now gets a contract here and there, but for the most part pure creative designers have been forced out of the work force because the majority of employers don't want designers, they want "designers who can code". Which, for the most part, means coders who can fake it as designers.

Or, as I've seen a lot of too, design is just left to the engineering team.

The results are obvious.

It's like pushing architects out of the building business and letting the carpenters design the buildings.

Wonder why Apple products are so popular? It's one of the few major companies that focuses on design by people that know what they're doing.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Bear Bibeault wrote:
Or, as I've seen a lot of too, design is just left to the engineering team.

Sadly, this has been a recurrent problem on the internal app development teams I lead. We just don't have designers on staff. We end up with apps which are full of solid functionality, but are awkward to use. I don't really have a solution for that.

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

Bear Bibeault wrote:
Wonder why Apple products are so popular? It's one of the few major companies that focuses on design by people that know what they're doing.

I agree. Design is VERY important. I am yet to see a media player that is as easy/intuitive to use as the iPod. Are there any companies that generally make good designs ?
I have notice that coding nerdies tend to make UI user-unfriendly.

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

Ernest Friedman-Hill wrote:
Sadly, this has been a recurrent problem on the internal app development teams I lead. We just don't have designers on staff. We end up with apps which are full of solid functionality, but are awkward to use. I don't really have a solution for that.

Why dont people (esp, top managers) realize this ? Do they avoid employing designers to cut costs ?
How do you know if a person has good sense of design ? Any tests for finding that ?

I hope i am not asking too much -> Did you suggest that good designers be employed ? If so, how were your suggestion received by your company(ies) ?