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Goswami567

: Some practical strategies for the pixel monkey dilemma I saw this question on UXSE but thought it might be interesting to see what the response on graphic design SE compared to stackoverflow

@Goswami567

Posted in: #Designers #Work

I saw this question on UXSE but thought it might be interesting to see what the response on graphic design SE compared to stackoverflow or programming SE:

Just a bit of background though... I originally saw the question posted on UXSE by user, but it seems like the question should be answered by both sides of the fence, so I posted on StackOverflow (with disastrous consequences) because it should have been posted on Programmer SE instead. But I think the problem applies to many professionals involved in teams that collaborate on design and implementation work, hence I tried to post here on Graphic Design SE (also with disastrous consequences).

It would be nice to get some answers because the comments are quite long, or if it is inappropriate as a question then some ideas on where this should belong (please)...

So now onto the question:

A quotation from an interview with a practitioner with a technical background and role:


Developers are all smart people; they don't enjoy their work if
somebody tells them this is what you need to do and this is how you're
going to do it. Nobody wants to feel like a coding monkey.


This is the so called 'coding monkey dilemma'. I am sure many of you who have worked in different types of development teams or work with UX have experienced similar situations in which the role of a visual, graphic designer or similar is somewhat considered a 'threat' to job satisfaction of developers. It seems like in some ways they may be perceived as being 'difficult' to work with due to the lack of understanding about each others' roles in the project.

What approaches (processes, tools, methods, etc.) do you use in your work to overcome the 'pixel monkey dilemma'?

I would also like to read more about this if you know of any references.

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@Sarah814

This is a subjective question, so my answer has to be subjective as well.

To me, the more experience a designer will have, the least concessions he'll be ready to make for other members of a team such a devs. It works the other way: the more involved you are in code/script/dev tools and languages, the less time and care you might have for "good design". I've found that it's very hard to even find a good dev who understands what "design" means/is and why it is important to design "well".
And this works the other way around too.

It all comes down to this: you can be a visually-oriented person/artistically-minded, or scientific-minded person, but hardly both. You can dream of becoming a designer, or a coder, but rarely both.

As a designer, I have a lot of respect for developers and people who code, but I cannot think that one person can keep track with the design world as well as with the developer world and not lessen their talents in one field or the other.

I think balance is key, but at the end of the day, the client is always right ("le client est roi" in French: the client is king). So if a website delivers visually and on the UX level, and if it works the way the users will expect it to work, the website is successful, no matter how the design / dev balance was (or wasn't!) achieved.

To a certain extent, I would say that design is always a little more important than code, because you are reaching your audience through the way it's designed, and designed to function. For me, it explains the importance of design in companies such as Apple: people love devices that look good and GUIs that look good and are intuitive. Code / development has to serve the user's experience.

Some tech companies will also encourage their teams to be more creative .
And you can always go check out awesomely designed websites when you're working, whether you're a designer or a developer...

And then there are some people who claim that you have to be very good at both, and who end up saying things that, I think, sound ignorant or extremely subjective.

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