this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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I’d go even father - the private sector isn’t even that good at UX/UI or design
Its main benefit is figuring out the minimum viable product and shipping it at low costs compared to the ideal perfect product from public and open design
The private sector is way better at “we won’t spend anymore time at this. It’s good enough, just deliver the product” than the research sector
Open source projects don't excel at it either, it took GNOME 20 years to stop looking frozen since the 90s. KDE is a toggle and checkmark mess.
Only the users know how to cater themselves, AOSP derivatives, UNIX/Linux rice, seasoned designers copylefting/giving away typefaces and assets, orgs advocating and implementing accessibility options in video games, etc, etc.
Open source projects have trouble getting designers to help, or developers that want to implement the designers vision
My point was that even UI/UX research falls into the same categories mentioned by the other poster - most of the research is being done publicly and the private sector is just implementing it and selling it as cheaply as possible, same as the example of GPS
As you can see from my original comment, I’m no knee-jerk defender of private sector innovation, but I don’t think I agree with this. I love open source software, but the UI is often clunky and unintuitive, like Gimp or LibreOffice. Even when it’s good, it’s often because it mimics the major commercial software.
The heuristic I have is, when the end result benefits from communal information sharing, public is hands down better than private. We have an opioid crisis today because privatized proprietary medical research didn’t receive the same scrutiny from the scientific community as public research. Science and secrecy are incompatible.
But when the end result benefits from a small group of opinionated people getting their way, private can sometimes be better. And good design is more like the latter.
My point was that UI/UX research falls into the same categories as you mentioned. The private sector doesn’t innovate in design any more than it innovates in GPS
Open source has issues with design more because of who contributes to it.
If you want truly horrible UI/UX, look at tools written by hardware companies like their flashing tools or JTAG tools ;)
Ah I see. Insofar as UI/UX research resembles science, and it certainly often does, I agree that it would be better if it was public not private. But as much as I dislike corporations patting themselves on the back, I just don’t think it’s realistic to say they never innovate anything ever in designing a product.
Here’s an example: every part of the first iPhone in 2007 was already invented before its release. None of the core technology was new. But I think it’s hard to deny that Apple innovated in packaging it together in a useful attractive product.