mini shelter meet

[Jay Vaughan]

> Engineers are not good interface designers. Unfortunately, with small
> companies (which are favoured by Jay, or so I seem to remember ;)) you
> usually don't have the budget to hire a human interface professional.
>

This is a load of crap.  I'm so sick of hearing this old stereotyping  
saw being used to hammer nails.  Software Engineers who sit down to  
engineer a decent GUI quite often do a superlative job.  The problem  
is that interface is not considered an engineering task, its all  
supposed to 'only be done by creatives' or some other such dogma.   
That is to say, this "engineers are not good interface designers"  
dogma is self-fulfilling.  The more it is perpetuated, the more it  
becomes true.

When its done properly, there is a lot of engineering involved, and  
by that I mean:

;- To plan, manage, and put through by skillful acts or contrivance;  
maneuver.

I'll grant you that its quite possible to engineer a crappy  
interface; absolutely, however, good user interface design requires a  
great deal of determinism that is not typically to be found in your  
average programmer.  I would encourage everyone I know to think  
outside the realms of the rules seen to be in play and dissuade  
themselves of dogma that doesn't actually solve any problem, and that  
is also not an accurate and fair representation of the scene.   
Engineers can so do good interface design; it is a social problem,  
and in that light, anyone intending to do a good job in this  
situation needs to stop thinking anti-socially.

;
--
Jay Vaughan