“Shit from the fucking Mac App Store, ‘designed’ by people who think they get interface design.”
That’s the byline for Read the fucking HIG, a blog that pretends to expose apps in the Mac App Store which violate Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. Let’s talk about what it really is: a anonymous coward’s collection of flippant, vulgar, and vicious rants directed at the result of other people’s hard work.
Designers want to assert that they’re more than just window dressers. The design community is full of cries that clients don’t understand our UI designs are carefully crafted user experiences built by caring professionals who rely on their experience, taste, guidelines, research, and testing to champion the user.
But here we have a blog by someone who seems to care about good design making juvenile comments about how ugly these apps are—based only on screenshots. That’s right, “Read the fucking HIG” doesn’t even bother to download and use the apps (well, unless they’re free). A screenshot in the App Store is all that’s needed to determine what is utter shit unworthy of the Mac App Store, really, of existing at all.
This kind of drive-by critique is sadly common. Missing are constructive commentary and suggestions for how the designer can make their app better. All the poster can muster is a knee-jerk reaction to the superficial aesthetics and a couple of f-bombs. Done! It adds nothing to the conversation and dimishes the value of design. How can we expect our clients or users to respect the care we put into design if we don’t respect it ourselves? Instead of considering what went into the design, we point at laugh at someone’s “terrible design”, retweet and reblog then go on with our superior existence.
“Where the heck were you when the page was blank?”
The above quote by legendary copywriter, Paul Butterworth, was cited frequently during critique sessions when I was in school. Looking at the end product it’s impossible to know the journey that the designer took, to appreciate what went into it. You don’t know about the constraints, the compromises, or external forces that shaped the design before you. Certainly the end user is not going to be privy to those details either, but as a designer critquing the work of another designer you should know there is more to it. No one is trying to make shitty software. They’re doing the best they can with the constraints they’re given and the talent they have. Not everyone is a maestro. Maybe these folks are just beginners. Is that how we welcome them into the fold? The point is, they’re making something. That’s awesome.
Hiding behind your Twitter avatar and telling the world how terrible everything is is pretty easy. It’s even funny sometimes. Putting yourself on the line and making something original is really hard work. Which one do you want to be. Which one deserves our respect and attention?
JD
on 11 Jan 11Wholeheartedly agree.
D
on 11 Jan 111. You’ve now given the RtFHIG blog more exposure and traffic than they ever likely would’ve gotten on their own.
2. Like so much of the web, if you don’t like it, just don’t read it. Seriously.
Josh B.
on 11 Jan 11I agree with the larger point, but I look at Read the Fucking HIG as a (maybe mis-directed) advocate for the end user, not as self-absorbed UI designer smugness. I mean, have you seen some of those apps? Won’t someone think of the USERS?!
Michael
on 11 Jan 11Well said. Let alone the question of whether we need another lame niche comedy tumblr angling for a lame book deal.
Greg Hoy
on 11 Jan 11I tune these idiots out. Or I try to. Kind of like people who complain about Howard Stern and still listen to him.
Peter Meng
on 11 Jan 11HURRAY! Well stated.
Nick Campbell
on 11 Jan 11Well put, Jason.
I constantly find that most haters are full of ideas yet have low creative output.
Ryan Coughlin
on 11 Jan 11I feel as though being a Mac app the designers have more pressure to create “mac” style design. You see the clean button with a crisp inset and a slight grain texture. Then you come across a app icon or app design that looks like it doesn’t meet the “mac” style guideline and everyone tends to freak out. Out of the norm.
Just a quick angle i took from reading this.
adrian
on 11 Jan 11D: That’s a very common piece of advice. But don’t you think sometimes when something on the web upsets you or which you disagree with, it’s worth sharing your thoughts about it? Sharing & blogging are pretty much staples of the internet; not all of it has to be positive. At least in Jason’s case it’s constructive.
Philip Athans
on 11 Jan 11Hear hear! Your sentiments extend to all would-be critics who haunt the internet creating nothing but hot air. It’s always harder but always more fulfilling to actually put yourself out there than it is to sit back and throw crap at people who are braver and more dedicated than you.
PREACH IT BROTHER!
SlowX
on 11 Jan 11This even extends beyond the web and design into the real world and life, although many people are just walking version of that blog.
“Where the heck were you when the page was blank?” Good quote, especially as I’m about to go un-blank some pages.
Anonymous Coward
on 11 Jan 11Articulated very well. Thank you.
Mike Rundle
on 11 Jan 11Totally agree. So glad someone wrote this.
James Strocel
on 11 Jan 11Great Post. RtFHIG is a site I will never frequent, and I’m glad you’ve flagged it for my avoidance. I see thousands of posts about how much terrible design is out there, but not so much as a peep about what good design is. How will clients know what they want if all people talk about is bad design?
Mark Catley
on 11 Jan 11Ooo, Ooo, it sounds exactly what a lot of slashdot posts degrade into. Good fun (or not)!
Dave R
on 11 Jan 11100% agree. Well done.
Adam Behringer
on 11 Jan 11I haven’t seen the blog in question and don’t plan on reading it, but I agree with the larger point. There are three types of people:
1) People who create things 2) People who use things 3) People who criticize things
Like you said, which one do you want to be?
Tom Dolan
on 11 Jan 11Unless you do it hilariously, like this:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart
Michael M
on 11 Jan 11My biggest complaint about “Read the fucking HIG” is that it provides neither meaningful insight nor quality humor. Its attempts at both are lame and unsatisfying.
Ryan Swarts
on 11 Jan 11Couldn’t agree more. It’s this negativity and cynicism that makes the design and advertising world really ugly at times. Constructive criticism is one thing. Hating on people is something else altogether.
Berserk
on 11 Jan 11And this is the epitome of constructive commentary :).
Jon B
on 11 Jan 11superiour = superior.
NOW I will go on thinking I am superior at everything, just had to make fun of your SPELLING! HA!
just kidding. I run across this all too much working with teams of coders, designers, compositors, motion graphics, etc. Everyone involved in design and other media have this God-complex that they’re the best designers out there.
People don’t seem to realize that what they say about other peoples work, is what other people are saying about their work.
Wiley
on 11 Jan 11Sorry, I think it’s pretty funny. He saves his wrath for some pretty deserving targets, it’s not like he’s quibbling over someone using comic sans.
Mark
on 11 Jan 11I won’t lie, I did went to their site, and said holy shit wtf are these developers thinking. This article makes a lot of valid points to the nature of designers and developers, where we just complain about the problem and not offer our own suggestions of how to fix these problems. It’s one thing to use these as examples of where designs are painful, but to not give any direction or feedback of how to solve these points is just counter productive.
Jon Moss
on 11 Jan 11I was always told, praise in public, criticise in private.
Isaiah
on 11 Jan 11I agree with your premise. It’s not nice. Mean people suck.
But it’s also a good laugh, in the tradition of any good roast—vulgar, brutal, and hilarious. That’s why I laughed. That’s why everyone did. Funny doesn’t have to follow the rules, it has to break them.
And to be honest, I don’t mind if my app is next. I have my flaws. It’s good to be the butt of a joke occasionally. It keeps you humble.
What I find more disturbing and painful is the trend that everyone, no matter their background, now believes themselves to be a UI expert, that everyone is now aghast at Arial, mortified by jaggies, and criticizing every out of place pixel.
I would rather be the butt of a joke than killed by 1000 tiny arrows of armchair UI designers.
Isaiah
Anonymous Coward
on 11 Jan 11Shitting on other people’s work and businesses is a 37Signals press strategy.
MJ
on 11 Jan 11I agree that it is unfortunate that there are people out there who criticize other’s work in a mean manner, but what do you expect to accomplish with this post? You’ve just given the author more exposure, making things “worse”. I can imagine him/her opening up analytics for their site and being rewarded by the levels of traffic they are now getting. There’s also a bit of irony going on.
Liam
on 11 Jan 11Thank you for this article. There is a place for criticism, there is a place for mockery, but the lack of accountability that the internet provides tends to jack up the vitriol and the hate to unbearable levels.
Dustin Curtis
on 11 Jan 11Damn!!! I,ve been ratted out! Now I,m gonna have to find another way to waste my time.
Scott Berkun
on 11 Jan 11I’m pretty sure the quote “Where were you when the page was blank?” was originally attributed to Truman Capote, and was apparently said by him to film director John Houston, when they worked together on the screenplay for the 1953 film, Beat The Devil.
The web failed to verify this esoteric nugget, but there it is.
Brent
on 11 Jan 11I’m fine with someone hating on a design if they specifically state why it sucks and then provide an alternate solution, much like Dustin Curtis’ critique of the American Airlines website.
HP
on 11 Jan 11Tell me, which is more fun to read: a well constructed essay pointing out the flaws and how best to fix them, citing examples OR a flippant, hastily typed paragraph with a few f-bombs?
Not which is more HELPFUL, but which is more FUN. RTFHIG hits on valid points, but in the end, I think it’s just about blowing off steam. Don’t get so bogged down in how the message is delivered.
Eric
on 11 Jan 11It is called criticism. And criticism is a fact of life. Suck it up, Jason. I whole heartedly applaud the RTFHIG guy. More people need to be told the stuff they make is crap instead of being coddled. You can’t get better without knowing you are doing something wrong. Plus the site is damn funny.
TheCosmonaut
on 11 Jan 11/agreed
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I think public criticism should be done respectfully.
JZ
on 11 Jan 11@Tom Dolan – Can’t argue with you. The Oatmeal is often hilarious. And you know what? They’re satire isn’t aimed at real people and real work. If you commit those offenses, you know who you are.
@Scott Berkun – I’m not certain of the attribution either. But the quote is something to live by.
Steven Fisher
on 11 Jan 11Wow, you’ve gone somewhere I never thought 37signals would go: Politically correct to the point of paralysis.
If the work is shit, it not only can be shit on it deserves to be shit on. If you want critique and suggestions, you pay for it. You don’t get something for nothing.
Are you going to offer free redesigns on all of those apps? Then I suggest you shut up about it.
If my work is there next, great. I’ll look seriously at what gets to the blog, and see when I can get around to making it better. Because even if I think that it’s good, there’ll be a way to make it better.
Ryan
on 11 Jan 1137signals made their name shitting on Java, Twitter, and in fact the entire canon of conventional business wisdom, and now says you shouldn’t “shit all over other people?”
That makes my day!
In other news, Facebook issued a blog post saying privacy is undervalued; Google published a manifesto against ad-supported business models; and Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos issued a joint op-ed warning of the dangers of private sector censorship.
Detrus
on 11 Jan 11I’ve seen hundreds of apps like this with thoughtless UIs, and I can’t remember a case where you couldn’t tell a horrible UI from a first impression or a screenshot.
A lot of these apps will go nowhere, thanks in large part to the first impression of their UI and this blog might be the best critique they’re going to get, hostile and non-constructive as it may be.
If anything there need to be more blogs like this, because there is a big proportion of terrible iOS, Windows, Mac Desktop apps and no one bothers to tell them where they went wrong. Maybe they don’t tell them seriously enough because these kind of apps keep being made. Public humiliation is worth a try.
m3mnoch
on 11 Jan 11heh. funny.
kettle, meet pot. pot, this is kettle.
m3mnoch.
Steve
on 11 Jan 11Great post and I agree 100%. I saw John Gruber last week raved about Read the F-ing HIG site and after seeing it, I knew why. They are the same- people who produce nothing and just use vulgar language to sh*t on other peoples work. Gruber just copies posts from other people and puts a one-liner in saying how much of an idiot that person is (he calls it claim chowder). This clown with Read the F-ing HIG does the same thing.
Produce nothing but sh*t on everything else.
Excellent post once again!
Charlie Triplett
on 11 Jan 11@Eric Uh, yeah, and this is criticism of RTFHIG guy. So… I applaud your criticism of Jason’s criticism.
As someone who’s now trying to ship an iPhone app though, I do get tired of people who don’t ship anything but snark criticise people who ship. Does RTFHIG ship anything? I dunno. I bet he/she doesn’t ship an OS…
Shipping matters. A good plan today is better than the perfect plan tomorrow ~ Patton.
Eric
on 11 Jan 11A. Men.
Randy Oest
on 11 Jan 11I believe that the issue at hand is the style of discourse. Directly criticizing can be good as long as the criticism provides value. The valueless criticism provided by the site shown in the article is nothing more than sensationalist noise.
Ryan Heath
on 11 Jan 11I completely agree. The recent Mac App Store bashings influenced some of the same thoughts in a post I wrote a few days ago: On Design Criticism.
I keep screenshots of my early designs from when I was just getting started. I look at them several times a year. It reminds me that, although I’m the same as a person, I’ve come a long way as a designer. Doing crappy work is part of getting better.
Andrey
on 11 Jan 11I disagree.
First, this blog is written from a user position, so designer should not take it personally anyway. Maybe designer was forced to produce bad work for some reason, ok.
Second, if application destroys or discloses your data due to a bug, you would not care whether the reason is a some ‘compromise’ or the developer was a beginner. You will just feel bad about it.
Third, constructive criticism is very good if you know and respect the author. Otherwise, with detailed improvements, a lot of ‘designers’ will just apply them exactly as you said without thinking. Their point is getting more money, not advancing their skills. And that would mean that lazy people can get paid and known for your work and have more chances to ruin something else.
Richard
on 11 Jan 11Jason Z. doesn’t get it (unless he wrote his item with tongue firmly in cheek). He should rant about 24/7b next if not.
Sarel
on 11 Jan 11Couldn’t agree more! It’s people like that who gives the IT industry as a whole a bad name.
JD
on 11 Jan 11Jean Sibelius famously said “No statue has ever been put up to a critic.”
Criticism and feedback is important, but this site is just a guy being a douchebag. “Here’s how to make it better…” or even “You should re-evaluate how you did the…” are very different than “then there’s days i just cry. i cry and cry and imagine shooting whoever approved this app into orbit”
One helps and improves the community, the other one makes you an asshole.
Adriana Iordan
on 11 Jan 11what I liked especially in this article – the funny quote: “Where the heck were you when the page was blank?” and the reminder of reading HIG
on the other hand, if you took me to that blog I never stumbled upon so far, I am trying to scan his/her criticism like raw feedback like during an user testing session with a barbarian :)- so you can find some benefit to it.
Nate
on 11 Jan 11Hmm, not sure I entirely understand the criticism of the criticism :) But it’s an interesting topic.
I looked at the site and had never seen it before, and immediately I have ideas on how not to end up on a site like that. Don’t use line breaks in a toolbar, avoid lilac, left or right justify buttons in a toolbar don’t let them float in the center of nothing, etc.
Doesn’t seem totally worthless. Though the guy flavors that useful criticism with some venom.
You guys (as a company) have offered some criticism too over the years of designs without spreading ideas on how to fix them or without all the knowledge of what went into them.
Stuff like:
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/bad_faucet_design.php
or even earlier today
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2731-there-are-nearly-40-different-wireless-plans
I’m sure ooodles of money and time went into those plan decisions from AT&T.
But you are definitely right that you guys don’t pour on the venom or vulgarity when criticizing these things, but you still are criticizing them without being there for the blank page as well, right?
All this being said, I’m trying to work really hard at not criticizing now.
I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I speak? I will laud mine enemies and they will become friends; I will encourage my friends and they will become brothers. Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite on my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs.
-The Greatest Secret in the World by Og Mandino
Patrick
on 11 Jan 11Really? Maybe you should consult with 37signals’ number one shitter:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/21603
ryan
on 11 Jan 11But if they hate him, whah do they lisshen? (said in Paul Giamatti)
Scott
on 11 Jan 11I had not heard of that blog before. Reviewing it, his criticisms of the apps he spotlights are well earned, they are extremely poor, in particular the hideous and nonsensical hybrid iOS/MacOS nightmare. A touch interface with giant buttons and elements does not make sense to use in a mouse driven system.
Yes, he could be more polite in expressing his views, but the idea is clearly that the UIs are so bad they send him into a blind rage. I agree with this, those apps, aggravate me as well, as they should any competent UI designer.
Jordan Gray
on 11 Jan 11Like so much of the web, if you don’t like it, just don’t read it. Seriously.
Anonymous
on 11 Jan 11I’ve worked with a person like that before and even though the criticism was never directed at me, it just wore me down. The acerbic nature of the endless comments about other’s work trumped anything good coming out of them. I will not hire, work, or befriend anyone that takes that approach towards life.
Foo
on 11 Jan 11you guys at 37signals are notorious for shitting on other’s work (and acting all high & mighty), so don’t throw rocks:
http://www.google.com/search?q=37signals+svn+bad+OR+design+OR+wrong#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=site:37signals.com+svn+bad+design&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=f8c543763bd11e57
Edgardo
on 11 Jan 11This thing made me remember this guy:
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/
A bunch of complaints (with some of them I agree BTW) but not one single line of code contributed.
tomelders
on 11 Jan 11I think it’s amusing, and in all fairness, there’s a lot of horrors on that site/
Shane Stevens
on 11 Jan 11Ahem, brother! :)
whatsthebeef
on 11 Jan 11I concluded it was misplaced insecurity about their value so when the unconstructive critisism occurs now I ignore it, much like I will this guy.
Anonymous Coward
on 11 Jan 11Criticizing is fine. Shitting is not. Saying 40 wireless plans are a lot of plans is not shitting, it’s criticizing (mildly, I might add). Saying someone’s work is shit and looks like ass is an entirely different level. If you can’t tell the difference, think harder.
Joel Smith
on 11 Jan 11Let me preface my comment by saying this is not an endorsement of this blog, but the design community has a responsibility to hold people accountable that continue to pollute the Web with such bad design. In that sense, it calls attention to big a problem.
On the other hand, I feel this blog does have a mean, bullying spirit that I do not condone. I think it’s disrespectful blatantly attacking the work someone obviously invested hours and hours into creating.
To creator of Read the fucking HIG: In your infinite wisdom of UI design and Apple’s HIG… I challenge you to provide some value to these guys who obviously need the direction. The design community is looking at you right now, hopefully you’ll step up.
GeeIWonder
on 11 Jan 11Just to play devil’s advocate here:
HIG’s design critique is all the things you accuse it of being, but at least it IS a NEW opinion.
A post that reads or amounts to ‘100% agree’ contributes even less to the discussion. These abound, on here and elsewhere, and are arguably at least as harmful to the furthering of theory and practice.
Would’ve been interesting to see that tackled alongside this.
If you’re going to take this ‘design’ thing seriously then the design ought to be separate from the egos you’re boosting/downing. Comments without content are all equally worthless.
David Andersen
on 11 Jan 11Are only new and unique opinions of value? Agreement with another opinion is harmful? Otherwise I 100% agree.
MikeR
on 11 Jan 11So as a developer who is writing an app right now, what is a good place to get constructive design feedback?
(before it appears on websites like Jason linked to)
Thomas Verrier
on 11 Jan 11Bravo!
Alex
on 11 Jan 11RtFHIG is a useful site for people who know how to exercise rational thinking. The guy has emotional reactions to certain UI designs, we as designers need to take that on board and think about what causes those emotional reactions.
If a screenshot isn’t enough evidence upon which to hang someone for bad UI design, what is? A screenshot shows you exactly what you’re going to be dealing with. If a screenshot isn’t useful for judging whether you’d like to use an app or not, why do we have screenshots?
I challenge you, Joel Smith, to either come up with better criticism of the critic. Your rant here is no more meaningful than his rant there. Present some of the UI disasters that RtFHIG presents and provide your constructive criticism: show him how it’s supposed to be done, and do it without losing your cool or using phrases such as, “where do we even begin to fix this unmitigated disaster of a UI” :)
Start with those paid-for apps which replace command-line tools such as “chmod” (which functionality already exists in the Finder’s “Show Info” window). Or anything that uses lilac.
Jeff Putz
on 11 Jan 11Come on, this is at least a little funny coming from the 37signals blog, isn’t it? You guys might be nice about it, but you’ve made a business of telling us how everyone else does hard work the wrong way.
I’m not saying the linked site is good, positive or even worth looking at (it’s really not)... I’m just not sure I’d give you a free pass when it comes to being a source of criticism, polite or not.
strangeplaces
on 11 Jan 11Fantastic site! Thanks for turning me on to it. Simply HILARIOUS :) btw, he’s doing a lot of people a favor too
props to you all
Tom G
on 11 Jan 11If you’re hell bent to be an asshole, its better to shit all over somebody’s work in an obscure blog than the app store’s review section. Better yet, why not simply contact the author through their support channel.
I completely agree with the spirit of your post – be part of a solution – not an asshole spewing shit all over somebody.
A big part of eBay’s success was its rating system for sellers. Unfortunately, customers rarely provide feedback for apps in the app store unless they are unhappy. Satisfied users generally don’t bother. This skews the validity of the customer reviews to the negative side and encourages false amazing reviews.
Tom G
on 11 Jan 11OK, I looked at the site. Some of its pretty funny and you’ve got to admit that some of these programs are really screaming for “constructive criticism”.
There is something to be said for having a place for this kind of venting. Think of this site as the Internet’s toilet for pissed off people.
Richard
on 11 Jan 11Andrey gets it.
molecule
on 12 Jan 11http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2
karen parker
on 12 Jan 11It’s obvious you’ve never been through an MFA group critique.
Or had a professor walk up to your work with a sharpie permanent marker and circle the areas he likes and hates on the painting you just spent 40 hours on.
Or had a drawing instructor walk down the line of drawings, pulling the ones he doesn’t like off the wall, stepping on them and pronouncing them “crap”.
MFA students: What does not kill you, makes you stronger.
woe
on 12 Jan 11Nerd rage
David Kadavy
on 12 Jan 11The advent of desktop publishing made design more affordable for businesses. More affordable design brought an influx of design graduates. When these design graduates see the work that is published by the masses, they have a violent reaction. They feel threatened that “regular people” are trying their hand at design.
Eventually, more people will know how to design, just as more people eventually learned how to read and write after the invention of printing.
For now, we have to listen to a rant from time to time.
Lucas Rockwell
on 12 Jan 11I agree, and this is the same logic that (like him or not) Ralph Nader uses when he says, “Never second-guess a jury right out of the box.” You don’t know what they heard in the trial, nor the instructions they were given by the judge. And the same goes for the background on how an app was developed.
Joel Smith
on 12 Jan 11@Alex, I get your point, but, honestly, I’m not the guy running the site. It’s on him whether or not he chooses to step up and actually cause some change, rather than picking a scab.
The overarching point here is that the context of the site is serving a greater purpose for the design community (yay), but the content and execution is mean spirited (no yay).
jojomonkey
on 12 Jan 11@D
you’re right. even this blog is crap. if you don’t like it move on.
UI/UX people are such wankers anyway. Like the damn French – justifying their amazing existence. STFU.
The Hun
on 12 Jan 11how about anyone who wants to make a website runs it by you first? because you’re obviously the ultimate authority on what people can and can’t say
David Brannan
on 12 Jan 11Why are forcefully expressing yourself through four-letter words? Can you not think of other more colorful and appropriate adjectives?
Joe
on 12 Jan 11Someone doing something lame got slagged off on the internet. The person doing the slagging wasn’t particularly eloquent.
SOMEONE ALERT THE MEDIA THIS IS GOING TO BE BIGGER THAN WIKILEAKS
Peelman
on 12 Jan 11What I find even more funny than rtfhig, is a bunch of designers patting each other on the backs consoling each other, because I’m sure NONE of you have made a bad UI. Ever. Everything you guys have ever designed has been phenomenal and beyond criticism of all forms. It’s like some kind of emo forum here. “Nobody understands! Those people spent WEEKS working on that UI!”
It’s the Internet, nobody said criticism has to be constructive. And nobody said you have to have 7 published UIs before you can point out flaws in somebody’s logic. Is there anybody here who thinks Adobe’s UI teams do not deserve a collective kick in the nuts? But since we don’t work there we’re not allowed to comment I guess. I hope you guys don’t break an arm patting each other on the back, or a leg when you finally decide to come down off your horses.
Bruce
on 12 Jan 11They are complaining about HIG violations while violating common language, style, and type conventions. If standards are so important then why can’t they nail punctuation, capitalization, and basic grammar?
Aaron
on 12 Jan 11Good points. The overwhelming negativity and cynicism of the Web is getting out of control. I blame the virtual anonymity of the medium. We all should try harder.
nucleus
on 12 Jan 11@molecule
Nice one!
37signals == hypocrites
Missy's little crybaby
on 12 Jan 11I unsubscribed from your RSS feed a fee months ago because you didn’t have anything to say except BUY OUR PRODUCT!
That was a mistake, thanks for the pointer to Read the fucking HIG. !
MC
on 12 Jan 11I love the passion JZ, but you need a spellchecker buddy!
Dave Child
on 12 Jan 11So what? That is all entirely irrelevant to whether the end product is user-friendly. A designer might have had to forge their own computer parts in the fires of Mount Doom, but that doesn’t mean that criticism cannot be levied or is any less valid.
Though I do agree that criticising stuff without using it is just taking cheap shots.
Ian
on 12 Jan 11Seriously? This post is shitting on the website and the person.
This blog is famous for shitting on design and business convention. It’s the biggest reason most people come here.
Super hypocritical IMHO.
I have shipped iphone / ipad apps, and web apps. Criticism is part of the game. I appreciate it even if it’s in a rather negative tone. I forces me to look from users perspective.
I look at that blog, and I agree with most of the stuff he says, and I bet many users feel the same, especially when a UI is so jacked up that you can’t even figure out how to use some of apps.
Ben
on 12 Jan 11boo fucking hoo.
1. If you can’t take criticism, you shouldn’t be selling things. Hell, you shouldn’t even be making things.
2. Vulgar? Some would say “shit” is a vulgar word. Some would say Friar’s Club Roasts are vulgar. Some would say most of the greatest art ever produced was vulgar. I say “vulgar” is vulgar.
3. I bet a lot more goes into that blog than you realize. Stop shitting on his work man!!
Paul
on 12 Jan 11This is recursive. By writing this blog post, you did exactly what you are complaining about!
With your logic we can say: This guy made a shitty blog with the capacity, talent and knowledge he had. YOU are just pissing on his blog. Do something possitive with your time instead.
Tonny
on 12 Jan 11Wasn’t Apple the company that valued UI more than anything else for all time of it’s existence? Well, in time of good system 6 and 7, this worked great, but afterwards the whole thing got labeled MacOS and no new version was same as previous, so there came MacOS8, MacOS9, MacOS X – theree new ways of looking at things. During MacOs X era, there came many new small changes, that changed the overall look of the system. That tumbler blog could be only a way to tell Apple, that they themselves seem very funny today – producing slightly better version of windows and changing the rules so often, that most are unable to catch. While the UI consistency was one of the biggest pros of old apple, it is very sad, that it transformed into only: “Everything has to be candy”
JP
on 12 Jan 11Thanks for pointing out that blog! I love looking at bad design, particularly those “small ad” local newspapers. You know, the ones full of 2×3 inch ads for hair salons and yoga classes… center aligned monstrosities with no white-space and a strange tendency to use Comic Sans and/or Papyrus with a touch of Times New Roman (for super-seriousness).
This joys stems from the same place that makes me drive through slums “just to have a look around”. To see how the other half design.
Does it help a designer’s eye to see to worst of the worst? Does it remind us just how bad it can get? Or is it nothing more than high and mighty Schadenfreude… or simply a masochistic reminder of where we once were as budding designers?
Dunno.
(BTW, I’m not really a designer but I play one at work.)
Bret
on 12 Jan 11This reminds me of a whole class of web sites that serve to mock others. www.peopleofwalmart.com, whitetrashrepairs.com, and so on, which show photos of things they think are hilarious (and so do I, most days).
Then there’s the one this most resembles, and which is a favorite of my wife: www.cakewrecks.com. Photos of badly decorated cakes with pretty funny commentary which is rarely aimed at the poor schlubs who perpetrated the decorations.
Here’s the difference: Not only is the cake wrecks site different in its tone - not angry, not insulting to the creators of these travesties - it also does one key thing that this site doesn’t do. It shows some amazingly successful creations as well. So there’s some sense of balance and you can walk away from reading the latest post chuckling to yourself and often being amazed by what others have created—good and bad.
I suspect that kind of approach will last much longer.
Nathan Demick
on 12 Jan 11Read this via RSS, and had to come comment. Great post. It’s really sad that our culture doesn’t commend people for creating, but instead berates them. Constructive criticism is one thing; mindless bashing is useful to no one.
Provocatively Anonymous
on 12 Jan 11You, if anyone, should be very aware of what the world wide web is. It is a pretty wide collection of information. Some you might like, some you might not. I understand you don’t think this kind of criticism is funny but I don’t understand your reaction. Try ignoring it. By reacting the way you did you have given this person plenty of attention. Is that what you wanted?
Jake Whiton
on 12 Jan 11I agree 100% with JZ. I also agree that bad design needs to be helped out. Maybe just not in the way that Read the fucking HIG does it.
Chad Jaggers
on 12 Jan 11I agree that this type of vulgarity when talking about someone’s work is not needed. I have no problem with someone like The Oatmeal pointing out overall problems within the web design industry.
One thing this person could do is try to make their designs better by creating mock-ups of how he/she thinks it would be better. 37 Signals used to do this in the old days. I remember they would design a page to be better. That was actually constructive, and not destructive.
I agree with JZ.
PCalcao
on 12 Jan 11Awesome article. Reminded me of the wise words of Jay O’Callahan: “We have to leave it to the ignorant and the stupid to just point out flaws!”
Someone
on 12 Jan 11you got taken, don’t you know he’s just seeking web traffic through negative publicity. wow, grow up kids.
Tom
on 12 Jan 11Writing this was a bad idea. Way to give “them” more traffic. I have never heard of “them” before, until you wrote this. Don’t sink down to a Fox News level and start bashing other people on the web. You’ll turn into one of “them” someday… and it looks like 37 signals is on the way…
Nick Dunn
on 12 Jan 11I think the author of the SVN blog post has missed the point. Read the blog in the same spirit as http://www.whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com or http://www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com. Understand that the Read The Fucking HIG website author has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, and you too can read his musings and cry laughing just as I do.
The Read The Fucking HIG blog is a stream of conscious. Analysing the grammar, language and sheer crassness of the content is like over-analysing a funny joke and demanding that it is no longer funny.
Jay Schumacher
on 12 Jan 11For those spouting cries of “hypocrisy”... This was not posted by “37signals”. This was posted by JZ. Through the years, DHH, JF, etc. have repeatedly said that they don’t all agree or have the same philosophies – they are all different people, imagine that! This blog, while occasionally about their products or announcements, is far more of a personal expression forum than a company one. Why is it so unallowable that different people working for 37s could have different viewpoints? That isn’t hypocrisy. How about you just post what you do or don’t agree with or speak your own views in relation to the topic?
Anonymous Coward
on 12 Jan 11Pot calling the kettle. Pretty funny that the RTFHIG website has a seriously lacking and uninspired design. Maybe it should be torn apart on yet another site.
Danny
on 12 Jan 11I dunno. I think his blog’s kinda funny.
Brandon
on 13 Jan 11Some of those applications look absolutely horrible. Comic sans and neon-purple buttons, and you’re defending such crap as “hard work”?
I’m sorry, but there’s a reason the HIG exists, and when apps break it, they seem to go all out. Most of those designs have terrible UI and should be called out.
It’s obvious that the author of the blog is doing it tongue-in-cheek with a bit of truth added.
I would say that this blog post seems just like a sleazy attempt on Jason’s part to make himself look superior.
All in all, RTFHIG is humor-based. It may even be poorly designed on purpose ironically. If you think the guy is 100% serious, you’re totally missing the point. Go find a sense of humor before writing another damn useless article.
Brandon
on 13 Jan 11For a second, I thought this whiny post was written by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. Maybe you should see if he’ll hire you to write for his worthless blog.
Anon
on 13 Jan 11You Mad!
Ronald
on 13 Jan 11I’m more shocked 37signals decides to publish a flame post on a blatantly flaming blog than of the actual content. If anything I find RtfHIG funny. A little like http://cwora.com
Also just because Steve Jobs once said “What have you done that’s so great?” doesn’t mean sheeps should follow.
Lighten up. Majority of people ought to be smart enough to differentiate a real critique and a blatant rant.
Copper Fax
on 13 Jan 11I like the way the anonymous RtfHIG design guru shits on not only clumsily designed UI’s, but also perfectly acceptable if uninspiring layouts. I only hope that absolutely everything this vapid shit claps their eyes on really pains their highly evolved design sensibilities.
John Young
on 13 Jan 11Let’s stop saying ###t. It is not cool.
Vic
on 13 Jan 11Guys, it’s a joke. It’s for fun, no offense, cool down.
Joshua Emmons
on 13 Jan 11Can’t help but think you have this backwards. The blog decries apps that don’t put any work into design—apps for which the “value of design” is essentially zero. By doing so it’s actually calling out and championing the value added by design.
It’s as if you were to say Rotten Tomatoes diminishes the value of movies by being critical of the bad ones. Its nonsensical.
Now, maybe you don’t like the style or the form in which Read the Fucking HIG frames its criticisms. That’s cool. But you do realize that by posting a blog shitting all over another blog because it shits all over things…
If that’s your problem then congratulations! You’re now officially a part of it.
Anonnons
on 13 Jan 11There’s nothing wrong with judging an app ugly just by a screenshot. Thats exactly what countless potential customers on the Mac App Store are doing every day.
Frankly, even if an app has a large feature set, if its main window was shaped like a circle and had the sort of colors that bring to mind a bad acid trip, no sane person is going to buy that shit.
Dogs
on 13 Jan 11Sorry to interrupt the circle jerk but RTFHIG only really criticises shovelware applications where the developers don’t know anything about Mac UI conventions and are just looking for an easy buck.
They deserve all the abuse they’re getting.
Dogs
on 13 Jan 11Also http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2
hypocritical much?
Vic
on 13 Jan 11Haha! So you have a sense of humor yourself!
This is enormous!
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2
...nooo this is bad, how dare you critic the hard worker who took pride in designing this hardware.
Come on. (@Dogs great finding, thanks for sharing – the author of this blog lost any bit of respect and credibility, instantly)
chris
on 13 Jan 11I had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to post a comment. This is bad design. Are you going to get angry at me for simple, obviously correct statement because I didn’t supply an email address or something? How exactly do you know this guy doesn’t work for apple? How do you know he never worked on the HIG himself?
The world needs more criticism. Period. The alternative is scary as hell and I’d rather have too much than not enough.
Kim
on 13 Jan 11Criticism is not necessarily bad, and sometimes—more often than not—with design, less is more. Seeing “what not to do” is sometimes as effective (if not more effective) than seeing examples of good design. Personally, I find RtFHIG and Adobe UI Gripes hilarious, and sometimes edifying.
Slippy Douglas
on 13 Jan 11@Greg Hoy: You’re talking about the idiots that write “Signal vs. Noise”, right?
Slippy Douglas
on 13 Jan 11@Ian: There’s really no need to be “IMHO” in the presence of the 37geniuses. A more accurate designator would likely be something like “ISPO” (In Sane Public Opinion).
maxi
on 13 Jan 11This article is so pompous and hypocritical it’s shocking. RTFHIG is the funniest and most astute thing I’ve seen for a while. It’s pointing out a lot of things that are clearly beyond your feeble understanding. The central, crippling irony of the situation is that Apple, with their much-vaunted ‘approval’ system to ensure ‘quality’, is actually foisting a ton of shit upon its users that is not only useless, but borderline scam material – for example the feeble, pointless apps that record audio from an input when you can do it just as well in Quicktime or Garageband, installed free with the OS, and a whole lot more powerful than this App Store garbage. It’s like selling you a pair of scissors to cut the lawn when you already have a pretty reasonable lawnmower.
On top of this, there’s a plethora of pointless apps that look like a poor port from the iphone, or the ugly bastard child of twitter and facebook regurgitated through skype 5.0. It beggars belief. The site is an incredible resource for UI designers who want to learn how NOT to design an interface. The great thing about it not having a point-by-point breakdown of everything that is wrong is that it makes you think for yourself. The site has subtlety, unlike this awful article. The dissenting voice of RTFHIG, if anything, needs to be heard more loudly.
For shame, Jason Z. For. Shame.
Slippy Douglas
on 13 Jan 11@Ryan: Wow! I hadn’t heard about the Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon news stories until now, but that’s amazing!
Man, the only way this day could get better is if Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon all independently announced they’re dropping PHP, Java/Python, Objective-C, and Java/C/C++/C#/Perl/Python (respectively) and porting all their products to Ruby on Rails. Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, I can’t wait for the press conference (starring DHH, of course)!
Slippy Douglas
on 13 Jan 11@maxi: Exactly. “Because if it’s not 37snarky®, it’s just not snarky.”
Timm
on 13 Jan 11Isn’t the advice to actually read the HIG constructive feedback enough? If most developers of the mentioned apps had read the guidelines, their apps would be so much better! Read and comply to the fucking HIG and your app won’t end up on that blog.
Justin D
on 14 Jan 11I’m sorry, but have you seen some of the garbage on the Mac App Store?
Ghost of Jason Past
on 14 Jan 11http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1351-1-who-the-fuck-designs-this-shit-and-2
JF
on 14 Jan 11Good one re: my post from 2008. I’ve tamed down since then. Learned to keep those to myself. There’s a reason why it is the way it is. I may not understand it. Until I do, there’s no good reason to hammer it. I still have some more learning to do, but I’m trying.
Quote from David Past
on 14 Jan 11...the app store is already full of shitty software. There are 200 or 300,000 applications in there. Do you think that they are all creampuffs? That they’re all wonderful pieces of unique, beautiful software? No, they’re not. Tons of them are just shitty crap. So the argument that Apple is doing this to increase the quality of the app store just falls flat when you look at all the junk that’s already in the app store. This is not a carefully selected gallery, this is just a warehouse of shit.
Alan Zeino
on 14 Jan 11This blog post reminds me of the fat Christian do-gooder at my High School – it’s comedy, it’s not real life.
I’d be inclined to agree with you Jason if the applications themselves weren’t so damn terrible.
Also, how is criticism based on a screenshot not valid? Isn’t a screenshot supposed to showcase the best of an application? Arguing that the tumblr’s creator should download every application is naive.
DJ Spiess
on 14 Jan 11Personally I like his site. I’ve been programming for years, but I’m new to the Mac world. I understand good design, but sometimes it’s easy to drink your own koolaid when making apps. I see his site as a learning experience.
I read his site every day because I’m working on my own apps, and I never ever want to be highlighted on his website.
Salaman
on 14 Jan 11I’m sorry, but I’m siding with RTFHIG. He’s judging the app’s UI, not their functionality, and even I have looked at a few apps and thought “man, what the hell was the developer thinking?”. I don’t want to see this kind of poorly designed stuff on an OS that is (well, used to) be beautiful.
DD
on 14 Jan 11This post is stupid. You just shit on this blog.
But, it’s also stupid coming from 37 Signals (who as people have pointed out, used to shit on people’s work all the time and probably still do in private.) You sir, are a nice guy but your positive reinforcer personality doesn’t match the personality of this the SVN blog.
IMO, shitty work should be shit on. And the beauty of the internet is that your comments can have an impact. Haven’t you ever written a negative product review on Amazon or a negative review on Yelp?
Some people are gentle, others are blunt. That will never change. If you don’t like that site, don’t read it.
Will Hoffman
on 15 Jan 11Patrick brought an interesting link http://bigthink.com/ideas/21603
The RtFHIG blog is about the same thing what already happend at the iOS App Store (there are uncountable bad designed and apps with less than little use) now happening in the MAS. The RtFHIG blog should use nicer tone.
I would not be surprised if we have 300,000+ crappy apps for 99ct each for the mac.
The reasons why I migrated from the pc to the mac are all now slowly appearing on the mac too. This makes me sad.
@DHH what do you think about the Mac App Store?
Max Luzuriaga
on 15 Jan 11I disagree completely with this post.
You shouldn’t make excuses for bad design. Some designer had to work long hours, and maybe the client was a pain in the ass. Give yourself a pat on the back. Newsflash: NO ONE CARES. Life is tough. All a user sees is a crappy design.
I do agree that making fun of someone’s terrible design isn’t the polite thing to do, but I’m certainly not going to spend money on a crappy app.
I also think you’re reading too much into rtfHIG. It’s not like the poster made it so he can intentionally crush the dreams of hard-done-by developers. It’s just a silly little site. Besides, if I had something I made on there, sure it would hurt, but in the end, it is my fault.
Ed
on 16 Jan 11Oh dear, someone on the internet is beeing an asshole. What the world has come to
Pieter Jelle
on 16 Jan 11This is why I closed all of our 37signals accounts. This blog is constantly criticizing other people’s work, but starts whining as soon as someone else does it. Why don’t you see the humor in this?
Get real.
Jano
on 17 Jan 11Having fun at the expense of a beginner gets tiring soon. That, or you lack self esteem.
Right, I bet the principles of design pop in your head after watching crap all day.Slippy Douglas
on 18 Jan 11Oh, you mean “don’t shit all over other people’s work” like http://www.flickr.com/groups/signsonsigns/pool/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/friedster/ ?
Zeno Popovici
on 18 Jan 11BTW … Talking about shitty design … who designed your blog navigation?
Can’t really find the home button … that takes me back to your blog’s front page. Oh … wait … it’s hidden in a text paragraph in your blog’s header.
So … to my understanding if I spotted your shitty design, I can’t comment on it or place it on shitty designs.org?
Well it seems that linkbaiting never gets old …
Mike
on 18 Jan 11Well said Jason,
Too often we see these internet bullies and cowards putting out hate content instead of constructive critism that can help people. Random rants like these are appalling and a disgrace. Hopefully this individual’s site is a low traffic site and has done little damage to the integrity of feedback.
This discussion is closed.