Artists cannot design interfaces.

[MikeH]

Here's my interpretation of FB's contention:
Given two otherwise identical designers, the one with "stronger artistic abilities" is better.

Not exactly a controversial contention.

It's not controversial if you are comparing 2 identical designers, one of whom is stronger at one thing. No brainer.

Asher's contention is: Given 2 otherwise identical designers the HCI expert is better than the one with "stronger artistic abilities".

Not exactly a controversial contention.

Ideally you want someone good at HCI, and good at the artistic side. They are few and far between.

[chequita guevara]

Asher and Frosty Boy are both right and wrong. Both are wildly overstating their cases.

Good graphic design should be good UI, period. The design should enhance, not dominate. Where design gets in the way of function, it ceases to be good design.

Design is not art. Design by artists is generally pretty, but it often isn't good design. Very often, it's bad design. On the flip side, UI written by engineers is often just as bad.

Google and Craiglist didn't succeed because of ugliness. They succeeded because their usefulness overcame their ugliness. Angie's List has become hugely successful, and it has a very simple, but nonetheless attractive design.

I also want to know where "artists" get paid more than engineers, cuz I want to move there. Web designers get twice what graphic designers get paid, and web programmers get paid twice what web designers get paid.

[Sirotnikov]

Yes, artists should've designed terminal shells.

Actually, I read a very interesting article about an attempt that was made to teach old people with no computer knowledge, how to work with a terminal shell.

And it was a raving success!

All the old people got the hang of the unix shell in a short time and very quickly became well versed in it, learning to write scripts and what not.

Most of them had troubles however adjusting to various windowed GUIs because it relied on using various mental associations which they simply didn't have and found counter intuitive.

So in terminal shells that's 1:0 in favor of engineers and usability, over pretty colors.

[Sirotnikov]

Thanks Asher, it's good to know.
But I hope you don't think you have convinced me you're right. My argument still stands, if you still remember what it was. In fact, no one has barely even addressed it in this entire thread, kind of sidetracked into artists vs programmers, which was not my argument.

you suck at losing