Posted by Stuart Montgomery at 11:54 pm
Panel: Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer
3/13
Tue
- Panel
- Nick Bradbury, FeedDemon
- John Gruber, DaringFireball
- Shaun Inman, Mint and Shaun Inman Design
- Michael Lopp, Senior Engineering Mgr. at Apple
- The Developer
- Several shifts lately
- There is a blurring and evolving relationship betwen developer and designer
- In the start-up world, there is a level playing field for mindshare and bits
- It’s a small world and easier for startups to get into the game
- Independent developers are building for the users, not for the business
- “Independend developers are designing for themselves” -Shaun Inman
- All the successful “indie” products have been made by problems the developers faced or filling a gap they saw
- All the products they’ve made have been products they themselves wanted
- New Product Cycle
- Gruber: Always starts on paper
- Inman: Start by learning, defining the problem first
- Bradbury: Designs the product twice. Codes it roughly first, then throws away and codes it again, learning from the first time
- Involving the Community
- Bradbury: Blogs about new product features all the time to find what the users are realistically wanting
- Lessons from working in larger companies
- Bradbury: Found there to be some filter in large companies, communication with the customer got lost along the way
- Inman: Keep my thoughts in my own head and don’t work so well communicating product ideas to peers
- How do you work at home?
- Bradbury: Found a room in house that’s cut off to focus in
- Gruber: Close the door if you can’t be interrupted
- Inman: Separate offices in home
- Gruber (quoting Walt Disney): “I want to make money not just to make money; I want to make money so that I can make more pictures”
- How do you compete with larger companies’ competitive products?
- Bradbury: You can move much faster as a small company. You can respond to customer desires very quickly without worrying about complex patents and other issues.
- Q: When you’re designing a new product do you start with the UI or have an idea of what it will look like?
- All say yes, mostly
- Gruber: Think of the wireframe model of the UI and think less of the colors and icons
