Creating Controversy for its own Sake (AA.com redesign fiasco)(soserio.us)
soserio.us
Creating Controversy for its own Sake (AA.com redesign fiasco)
http://soserio.us/creating-controversy/
16 comments
In that case, I don't understand why we are celebrating the soul-crushing mediocrity of these Fortune 500 companies. If anything Mr. X's letter made AA look pretty good, and I fail to see what super-secret strategic plans he was airing either. Companies are run by people, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to make rational decisions that treat their employees with dignity.
Dustin might be brash, but he is pointing out obvious problems. It makes no sense to bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer.
Dustin might be brash, but he is pointing out obvious problems. It makes no sense to bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer.
Dustin might be brash, but he is pointing out obvious problems. It makes no sense to bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer.
If you're trying to get something useful done, the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position.
If you're trying to draw attention to yourself at the cost of others, ranting publicly is a fine strategy. To quote the original article: Fire your entire design team, if you have one. Hire an outside design firm ... as quickly as possible. Your in-house team is obviously incapable of building a good experience.
It's this brazen self-promotion and a lack of maturity and decorum that causes individuals to "bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer".
If you're trying to get something useful done, the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position.
If you're trying to draw attention to yourself at the cost of others, ranting publicly is a fine strategy. To quote the original article: Fire your entire design team, if you have one. Hire an outside design firm ... as quickly as possible. Your in-house team is obviously incapable of building a good experience.
It's this brazen self-promotion and a lack of maturity and decorum that causes individuals to "bash him for being 21 and not having yet been turned into a so serious, cynical corporate designer".
the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position.
Correct. However, he’s not really trying to convince AA to change their strategy. He’s trying to convince us that AA’s strategy is dumb. Because user interface design is important, and its not ok to foul it up.
If the best way to do that is by brashly pointing out AA’s mistakes, so be it. I tip my hat to Dustin for fighting the good fight.
Correct. However, he’s not really trying to convince AA to change their strategy. He’s trying to convince us that AA’s strategy is dumb. Because user interface design is important, and its not ok to foul it up.
If the best way to do that is by brashly pointing out AA’s mistakes, so be it. I tip my hat to Dustin for fighting the good fight.
the point isn't to be right, but rather, to convince others of your position
He’s trying to convince us that AA’s strategy is dumb
From the article,
Unsolicited designs, if they’re going to be done at all, should be communicated with class, humility, and a ton of research.
He’s trying to convince us that AA’s strategy is dumb
From the article,
Unsolicited designs, if they’re going to be done at all, should be communicated with class, humility, and a ton of research.
> In that case, I don't understand why we are celebrating the soul-crushing mediocrity of these Fortune 500 companies.
I think that bears repeating.
I think that bears repeating.
It bears repeating several times. This is more about a clash of cultures than anything else.
Right, and yet, even with tens of comments here, triggered by Dustin's posts, about how utterly crappy AA's experience is, we shouldn't criticize AA because that's just how big companies are. JetBlue is concerned with all the same factors you listed, and they're great. His posts resulted in a lot people vocalizing their poor experiences with AA. That's what's important, regardless of how he expressed it. I'd say that the harsh way he delivered his message really helped people in expressing their opinions.
HN seems a lot softer than I expected.
HN seems a lot softer than I expected.
Softer? Ha, you're mischaracterizing this reaction. We got to be assholes towards American Airlines three times in a row, and now we get to insult the other side. Expect more insulting of AA in the future, too.
Though that's tongue-in-cheek, there's a serious cause behind it, which is that we have a community big enough and smart enough to argue both sides. Depending on the source of the article we're commenting on, one side is always louder than others. So on Steve Jobs Is Best CEO, we get more pro-Apple, and on Apple Censored Me, we get more anti-Apple. Smart people on both sides, but each one focusing on a different story.
So there're people here who hate AA's site and there're people who think Dustin is pretending a wisdom he doesn't have, and both those people get a place to place their beliefs. I think that's healthy for the community. It lets lurkers see both sides of the discussion. I fear when we become like r/politics on Reddit, where only one side dominates.
Though that's tongue-in-cheek, there's a serious cause behind it, which is that we have a community big enough and smart enough to argue both sides. Depending on the source of the article we're commenting on, one side is always louder than others. So on Steve Jobs Is Best CEO, we get more pro-Apple, and on Apple Censored Me, we get more anti-Apple. Smart people on both sides, but each one focusing on a different story.
So there're people here who hate AA's site and there're people who think Dustin is pretending a wisdom he doesn't have, and both those people get a place to place their beliefs. I think that's healthy for the community. It lets lurkers see both sides of the discussion. I fear when we become like r/politics on Reddit, where only one side dominates.
Yeah, I get that. People here are just taking cheap shots based on their belief that because Dustin hasn't worked at a big company, his opinion and demand for a better product are invalid.
I wonder if people would have said the same had it been a 50yr. old expressing his frustrations just as aggressively.
The argument that you need to know about big company to understand why their products are the way they are is a stupid one. I'm sure the majority of AA customers are a lot less knowledgeable than Dustin about these types of things. I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment. But in reality, they're a customer. Their opinion matters just as much.
Also, for the highest voted comment here to open up with "Dustin is an ass" shows that this is far from civilized and intelligent conversation. He's not being judged on the merits of his work, but rather on a personal level. That's low.
You idiot. :P
I wonder if people would have said the same had it been a 50yr. old expressing his frustrations just as aggressively.
The argument that you need to know about big company to understand why their products are the way they are is a stupid one. I'm sure the majority of AA customers are a lot less knowledgeable than Dustin about these types of things. I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment. But in reality, they're a customer. Their opinion matters just as much.
Also, for the highest voted comment here to open up with "Dustin is an ass" shows that this is far from civilized and intelligent conversation. He's not being judged on the merits of his work, but rather on a personal level. That's low.
You idiot. :P
"He's not being judged on the merits of his work, but rather on a personal level."
To be honest IMHO he made it about himself. By being self-aggrandizing in the original post he distracted from the real usability issues that he found with AA.com and instead made it a vitriolic rant devoid of civility or understanding. Yes, this thread is very much about "Dustin is an ass", and rightfully so - the first blog post is long over, and now we get to address the aftermath of Dustin's tactlessness. It's entirely valid to, at this point, point out how the lack of civility and the hostile tone contributed to solving no problems at all - it's a lesson we can all take home.
"I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment."
But that's not what Dustin said. As a designer he claimed that AA could do a complete make-over with a trivial amount of effort, and that the fact that it hasn't been done already points to massive incompetence within the company. He then called for the mass firing of everyone responsible for the website within AA.
It's one thing to claim (whether as designer or user) that AA's website sucks, and that there are specific problems with it, etc etc. It's quite another to claim (as a professional designer) that this means incompetence, or that doing it right is trivially easy, or that your redesign has covered all the main bases. The former is legitimate complaint or criticism, the latter is arrogant and severely lacking in perspective.
As a user you don't need to understand why products are the way they are. As a designer, though, you better damn well understand it.
"People here are just taking cheap shots based on their belief that because Dustin hasn't worked at a big company, his opinion and demand for a better product are invalid."
I ripped into Dustin pretty hard when his redesign was first posted here - I didn't know his age nor his experience in the industry at the time. I don't get the feeling that if he was a scarred veteran of the industry that he'd get it any easier. Arrogant, smug bullshit is arrogant, smug bullshit no matter how old or experienced you are.
To be honest IMHO he made it about himself. By being self-aggrandizing in the original post he distracted from the real usability issues that he found with AA.com and instead made it a vitriolic rant devoid of civility or understanding. Yes, this thread is very much about "Dustin is an ass", and rightfully so - the first blog post is long over, and now we get to address the aftermath of Dustin's tactlessness. It's entirely valid to, at this point, point out how the lack of civility and the hostile tone contributed to solving no problems at all - it's a lesson we can all take home.
"I guess that makes them more ignorant, which, by people's argument here, should mean they are in a lesser place to express their disappointment."
But that's not what Dustin said. As a designer he claimed that AA could do a complete make-over with a trivial amount of effort, and that the fact that it hasn't been done already points to massive incompetence within the company. He then called for the mass firing of everyone responsible for the website within AA.
It's one thing to claim (whether as designer or user) that AA's website sucks, and that there are specific problems with it, etc etc. It's quite another to claim (as a professional designer) that this means incompetence, or that doing it right is trivially easy, or that your redesign has covered all the main bases. The former is legitimate complaint or criticism, the latter is arrogant and severely lacking in perspective.
As a user you don't need to understand why products are the way they are. As a designer, though, you better damn well understand it.
"People here are just taking cheap shots based on their belief that because Dustin hasn't worked at a big company, his opinion and demand for a better product are invalid."
I ripped into Dustin pretty hard when his redesign was first posted here - I didn't know his age nor his experience in the industry at the time. I don't get the feeling that if he was a scarred veteran of the industry that he'd get it any easier. Arrogant, smug bullshit is arrogant, smug bullshit no matter how old or experienced you are.
I think, actually, that part of the reaction has to do not with Dustin's age but with Dustin himself. The guy's got an irritating ego that's built up a mild dislike in me. He does good work but not great work, and gets disproportionate praise for what he does. This whole series struck me as smug, but not wrong enough that I felt good criticizing him for it. I know I'm not the only person who felt that way.
On a low and ugly level, this thread validates those feelings. So I feel better about my wariness and feel more able to talk about it. Is that what the thread should be? Probably not. But that's what's happening and I also don't necesarily think that's a bad thing. Dustin's been asking to be smacked down for half a year, now, and it would have been in poor taste to smack him down in a thread that wasn't specifically critical of him. So arguably it's a little bit better that it's happening here in a more cathartic way, rather than coming in a thread that doesn't warrant such a response.
Not the most mature approach, but we're not the most mature community. Nothing wrong with that. You can be smart and educated and still feel the occasional need to be catty. As long as it's not too frequent, I view it as a healthy release.
On a low and ugly level, this thread validates those feelings. So I feel better about my wariness and feel more able to talk about it. Is that what the thread should be? Probably not. But that's what's happening and I also don't necesarily think that's a bad thing. Dustin's been asking to be smacked down for half a year, now, and it would have been in poor taste to smack him down in a thread that wasn't specifically critical of him. So arguably it's a little bit better that it's happening here in a more cathartic way, rather than coming in a thread that doesn't warrant such a response.
Not the most mature approach, but we're not the most mature community. Nothing wrong with that. You can be smart and educated and still feel the occasional need to be catty. As long as it's not too frequent, I view it as a healthy release.
Wade,
After reading this original blog post you wrote, I think it's a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The only difference is Ford intervened to stop a PR disaster and AA fanned the flames. I know you're well intentioned, but there's no need to resort to name calling.
http://voltagecreative.com/blog/2008/12/pr-disaster-ford-sui...
After reading this original blog post you wrote, I think it's a bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The only difference is Ford intervened to stop a PR disaster and AA fanned the flames. I know you're well intentioned, but there's no need to resort to name calling.
http://voltagecreative.com/blog/2008/12/pr-disaster-ford-sui...
I claimed no superiority over Dustin Curtis in action or demeanor. And I'll stand behind that article I wrote about Ford. It's ludicrous for a company to sue their own fan base. And the second it was found out that was not the case, I started working with both Ford and Scott Monty to get their side of the story out within minutes. (Read the linked article for context.)
Yes, let's please keep in mind the idea that you'd be comfortable saying what you're writing in your comments directly to someone's face.
I am. I was actually assuming that Dustin would read that when I wrote it. (He's posted here before in response to linked articles.) It's OK if he knows I think his writing style makes him look like an ass. I suspect he won't care or more likely already knows it, he's not dumb. Most people that have been publishing anything online that's even remotely well read gets a thick skin or gives up fast.
Hubris? Hubris is a loaded term that is purely subjective. He's one of the most talented designers I know, and he deserves to speak strongly. Humility doesn't need to enter here.
A humble designer is one who affects no change indeed.
Designers should be less humble. When engineers or business guys or management or anyone makes a product lousier, they should get up and shout, and raise hell.
Apple wins because the guy who cares the most about user experience happens to run the show. And last I checked, humble wasn’t really a word you could use to describe him.
A humble designer is one who affects no change indeed.
Designers should be less humble. When engineers or business guys or management or anyone makes a product lousier, they should get up and shout, and raise hell.
Apple wins because the guy who cares the most about user experience happens to run the show. And last I checked, humble wasn’t really a word you could use to describe him.
And when Steve Jobs was 30, he was kicked out of his company because it turned out he was an asshole before he actually knew what he was doing. He almost ruined Apple, remember? And people hated him because he talked about things he didn't actually understand.
Twelve years later, he'd matured enough to know what he was doing, and then came back in and blew us all away. But Jobs was a stupid kid too, and arguably he'd have had an easier time in the eighties if he'd known ahead of time just how ignorant he was.
He's talented if you think knowing big fonts are pretty is talent. He's got a good eye for design, absolutely, but I've never seen him design anything with any complexity, and that's where things get tricky. If I'm designing rinky-dinky gadgets and HTML pages I can make them look good too. But the whole point of this post is that when you're designing major things, dumping a bucket of white paint on everything isn't enough.
I think you ought to know that most, Garry, seeing as Posterous is the posterchild (ahem) of web sites that work brilliantly but aren't at all comely. It's hard to make complex things beautiful.
Twelve years later, he'd matured enough to know what he was doing, and then came back in and blew us all away. But Jobs was a stupid kid too, and arguably he'd have had an easier time in the eighties if he'd known ahead of time just how ignorant he was.
He's talented if you think knowing big fonts are pretty is talent. He's got a good eye for design, absolutely, but I've never seen him design anything with any complexity, and that's where things get tricky. If I'm designing rinky-dinky gadgets and HTML pages I can make them look good too. But the whole point of this post is that when you're designing major things, dumping a bucket of white paint on everything isn't enough.
I think you ought to know that most, Garry, seeing as Posterous is the posterchild (ahem) of web sites that work brilliantly but aren't at all comely. It's hard to make complex things beautiful.
Jobs isn't a designer. That's why Apple hires people like Ives. The best visionaries/CEOs aren't good at everything -- they're good at critiquing others' work and letting the experts do what they do best.
I absolutely agree. But my point was that saying being an asshole is okay because Steve Jobs was an asshole is a bit lopsided. Jobs was an asshole when he was ignorant, too, but he was still ignorant. Similarly, Dustin might be an ass, but that doesn't give his words an instant mandate.
As a designer, I've never found arrogance a good strategy to get people to agree with the reasons for my design.
Design, contrary to popular belief, is not that subjective - there are reasons and explanations for design decisions. Presenting them with arrogance without regard for another person's opinion is not a good way to get consensus. If you are talking to a business person, it is the designer's job to frame the decisions in a context that makes sense to them. Same with an engineer. Defend your decisions, but also know when you're wrong.
Apple wins because they hire great designers. The designers do 10 pixel perfect mock ups, then narrow it down to 3, and then defend and refine the best one. Do you really think the iPhone design was pushed forward by one arrogant designer who had no regard for the opinions of others on the team? It took years to get it to where it is today.
Is Dustin talented? Sure. But I know dozens of designers who could have produced the AA.com comp he did - it's easy to design without constraints.
Design, contrary to popular belief, is not that subjective - there are reasons and explanations for design decisions. Presenting them with arrogance without regard for another person's opinion is not a good way to get consensus. If you are talking to a business person, it is the designer's job to frame the decisions in a context that makes sense to them. Same with an engineer. Defend your decisions, but also know when you're wrong.
Apple wins because they hire great designers. The designers do 10 pixel perfect mock ups, then narrow it down to 3, and then defend and refine the best one. Do you really think the iPhone design was pushed forward by one arrogant designer who had no regard for the opinions of others on the team? It took years to get it to where it is today.
Is Dustin talented? Sure. But I know dozens of designers who could have produced the AA.com comp he did - it's easy to design without constraints.
It goes deeper than the pixel. In fact, I could care less about visual design. I think that's an over-emphasized aspect of design.
It goes to philosophy. Anyone can make pretty things, but it takes a damn intransigent defiance to do whatever it takes to make great experiences.
I mean experience design. And experience design isn't about making everyone happy. It's about firing people when they get in your way, and breaking down fiefdoms that make products crap.
A thousand people all compromising will result in a product or service that dies the death of a thousand paper cuts. This is starting to sound Ayn Randian, but sadly this may be an important aspect to the creation of great things.
There's a reason why it takes a single auteur to craft a masterpiece, whether a movie, a website, or the experience of flying. Too many cooks DO spoil the broth. And it takes a person with the authority to cut things to one's vision to make great consumer experiences a reality.
What people call Dustin's hubris and arrogance is merely his gall to point out the things that someone in control should do. It's something that is not exercised enough, and I think rather than cut down someone who aspires to the best, perhaps we should look to see what really sucks in our lives and focus on ways to make it better.
It goes to philosophy. Anyone can make pretty things, but it takes a damn intransigent defiance to do whatever it takes to make great experiences.
I mean experience design. And experience design isn't about making everyone happy. It's about firing people when they get in your way, and breaking down fiefdoms that make products crap.
A thousand people all compromising will result in a product or service that dies the death of a thousand paper cuts. This is starting to sound Ayn Randian, but sadly this may be an important aspect to the creation of great things.
There's a reason why it takes a single auteur to craft a masterpiece, whether a movie, a website, or the experience of flying. Too many cooks DO spoil the broth. And it takes a person with the authority to cut things to one's vision to make great consumer experiences a reality.
What people call Dustin's hubris and arrogance is merely his gall to point out the things that someone in control should do. It's something that is not exercised enough, and I think rather than cut down someone who aspires to the best, perhaps we should look to see what really sucks in our lives and focus on ways to make it better.
Please don't talk about what you know nothing about. I'm in college in part for film. It takes hundreds of people to make a good movie. I'm not just talking about technique: Citizen Kane wouldn't have been Citizen Kane if Welles hadn't had a dozen brilliant minds helping him and influencing his style. Similarly: The best web sites on the Internet are designed by multiple people.
It does sound Randian. Like Rand, you're ignoring the sheer enormity of what it takes to make a masterpiece.
It does sound Randian. Like Rand, you're ignoring the sheer enormity of what it takes to make a masterpiece.
Fair enough -- look, the counter point to this is that films constantly get absolutely destroyed by producers. And those are the decisions that matter -- how the movie ends, what gets cut and what stays, etc.
I think again you're getting hung up on the little things -- I'm not talking about how you need great grips and cinematographers and editors, and I'm not talking about how you need pixel perfect comps by 10 visual designers. All of that is micro.
An auteur has final cut, and if even one of those 100 people screw up, then the auteur says fix it or its not ready.
I think again you're getting hung up on the little things -- I'm not talking about how you need great grips and cinematographers and editors, and I'm not talking about how you need pixel perfect comps by 10 visual designers. All of that is micro.
An auteur has final cut, and if even one of those 100 people screw up, then the auteur says fix it or its not ready.
But you're conflating two different roles. Actually, the point you're making works perfectly to disprove what Dustin wrote.
The producer is not an artistic role, he's a business one. Most producers are a lot smarter than you'd give them credit for, but they ignore their artistic sensibilities and focus on the bottom line. Before you get to them, you have lots of brilliant collaboration: Directors and writers and cinematographers and directors of photography and sound editors and actors, of course actors, all dance together and form really incredible things in tandem. Very rarely is a single voice dictating. Even in the case of the great auteurs there's collaboration: See how David Lynch works in tandem with Angelo Badalamenti on most of his projects. So that all works perfectly, right till you hit the business people.
Dustin's writing from the assumption that making a web site is all about the design. He's treating web sites like you're treating film. And, like you, he's assuming that the reason AA's web site sucks is that the artists are terrible at their jobs, and he's railing blindly at them, when in fact the people in charge aren't tasteless so much as they don't care about taste as much as the artists do.
I actually wrote an off-the-cuff post about this a little while ago regarding the music industry, how problems in perception start because we don't realize just how much more important business is than art for most companies/people: http://marinich.tumblr.com/post/200996589/talentless
The producer is not an artistic role, he's a business one. Most producers are a lot smarter than you'd give them credit for, but they ignore their artistic sensibilities and focus on the bottom line. Before you get to them, you have lots of brilliant collaboration: Directors and writers and cinematographers and directors of photography and sound editors and actors, of course actors, all dance together and form really incredible things in tandem. Very rarely is a single voice dictating. Even in the case of the great auteurs there's collaboration: See how David Lynch works in tandem with Angelo Badalamenti on most of his projects. So that all works perfectly, right till you hit the business people.
Dustin's writing from the assumption that making a web site is all about the design. He's treating web sites like you're treating film. And, like you, he's assuming that the reason AA's web site sucks is that the artists are terrible at their jobs, and he's railing blindly at them, when in fact the people in charge aren't tasteless so much as they don't care about taste as much as the artists do.
I actually wrote an off-the-cuff post about this a little while ago regarding the music industry, how problems in perception start because we don't realize just how much more important business is than art for most companies/people: http://marinich.tumblr.com/post/200996589/talentless
I actually agree with you there -- the people in charge don't care about taste. But I think one aspect is that experience is the product. And the people in charge should care. They should care a lot, and it's why Virgin and Jetblue and Southwest eat AA's lunch.
The website is only one aspect of a panoply of experiential factors that the management of AA should care about. It is their product. It's their reason for being. But they don't care.
And I think for Dustin, that is the problem he's calling attention to.
The website is only one aspect of a panoply of experiential factors that the management of AA should care about. It is their product. It's their reason for being. But they don't care.
And I think for Dustin, that is the problem he's calling attention to.
That's why I'm sort of conflicted about this argument. On the one hand, I think AA's web site is a shitty mess. On the other, I don't know enough about AA to know that their web site's what's bringing them down, and I wouldn't be surprised if their current site was somehow very effective. Look how many people go to see Michael Bay films. People like bad things. This might be an instance of a bad thing that lots of people for whatever reason use.
The other side of the problem was also illustrated here, which was that Dustin provided a very shallow analysis at first, and that analysis hasn't gotten much deeper. His take on things moved from "the designers know nothing" to "the CEO knows nothing". I suspect he knows even less about business than he does about design. It further irks me that at no point in this conflict has he said "I'm sorry that I said some stupid things; let me rephrase myself." Instead it's "This guy makes some good points but I'm still in the right." It's as smug and insincere as his shallow article designs that get so lauded.
(At that, I think I'm gonna bow out of this argument, at least for tonight. The snippy emails Dustin sent me in response to one of my comments is making me look only at the flaws in his logic, so I don't think I'm being as bipartisan as I'd like to be. Because I won't be able to edit this in the morning, I'm sorry if I came across as a dick in this discussion; I really enjoyed having this debate.)
The other side of the problem was also illustrated here, which was that Dustin provided a very shallow analysis at first, and that analysis hasn't gotten much deeper. His take on things moved from "the designers know nothing" to "the CEO knows nothing". I suspect he knows even less about business than he does about design. It further irks me that at no point in this conflict has he said "I'm sorry that I said some stupid things; let me rephrase myself." Instead it's "This guy makes some good points but I'm still in the right." It's as smug and insincere as his shallow article designs that get so lauded.
(At that, I think I'm gonna bow out of this argument, at least for tonight. The snippy emails Dustin sent me in response to one of my comments is making me look only at the flaws in his logic, so I don't think I'm being as bipartisan as I'd like to be. Because I won't be able to edit this in the morning, I'm sorry if I came across as a dick in this discussion; I really enjoyed having this debate.)
Are you arguing that because one person made it, Primer is the greatest film of all time? If not, my point still stands, that people can work together and still create great art.
Except that wasn't your point... you said lots of people were required to make a great film, which is much stronger than lots of people can make one.
I'm simply pointing out an easy counterexample to It takes hundreds of people to make a good movie.
It doesn't have to be that way.
It doesn't have to be that way.
I'm sorry if what I said didn't come out right. I was responding to Garry's suggestion that a masterpiece had to be the product of a single auteur's mind, which is an unfortunately common assumption. I thought the same about Citizen Kane, for instance, until about a month ago. After all, Welles wrote/directed/starred, right? But he worked with some brilliant people who had skills he simply did not have, without which Citizen Kane could not have been as good as it was.
Keroac wrote On The Road in a single take, but that doesn't mean most books aren't the result of people collaborating, and it doesn't make On The Road any better an artistic accomplishment.
If you want to liken Curtis to Keroac, that's a good comparison. Both make shallow things that appeal to you until your tastes have matured somewhat. I'm not going to say AA is Ulysses, meanwhile, but all of AA's competitors' sites were designed by commitee, too, and it worked great for them.
If you want to liken Curtis to Keroac, that's a good comparison. Both make shallow things that appeal to you until your tastes have matured somewhat. I'm not going to say AA is Ulysses, meanwhile, but all of AA's competitors' sites were designed by commitee, too, and it worked great for them.
Apple has thousands of employees. But it's not design by committee. There's a strong drummer in that company that keeps everyone marching in step, so that the entire company adopts and shares that one person's vision, or at least the general philosophy behind it. That's not to say that the drummer has a vision that goes unaltered by interactions with other smart people, but when their vision changes, it propagates.
That's one way it can go. But can also work where the final vision is a collaborative effort on the part of all the people working on it.
Apple's strategy is actually originally inspired by the Beatles, where five people all contributed and the resulting songs sounded nothing like any one of those people in particular. I'm certain if Steve Jobs designed everything on his own, Apple would be different than it is with a dozen people all working on one thing. And Jonathan Ive says this directly in interviews. He refuses credit for his work, because in his mind it's the entire team working together that's responsible for his final work.
Apple's strategy is actually originally inspired by the Beatles, where five people all contributed and the resulting songs sounded nothing like any one of those people in particular. I'm certain if Steve Jobs designed everything on his own, Apple would be different than it is with a dozen people all working on one thing. And Jonathan Ive says this directly in interviews. He refuses credit for his work, because in his mind it's the entire team working together that's responsible for his final work.
Curious about the bit about strategy inspiration - do you remember where you learned that?
Sure, Jobs isn't designing every little piece - it's more that he serves as the dictator. Because he's very unforgiving in design reviews, I think his subordinates start to think like him.
Dictator usually have advisors, but in history, the dictators who are swayed by lots of advisors with strongly competing interests tend not to do too well.
Sure, Jobs isn't designing every little piece - it's more that he serves as the dictator. Because he's very unforgiving in design reviews, I think his subordinates start to think like him.
Dictator usually have advisors, but in history, the dictators who are swayed by lots of advisors with strongly competing interests tend not to do too well.
Thanks for retrieving that. What he says and does may be slightly different (especially in a TV interview), but pretty good video.
You are equating humility to being an ass-kisser. You can be humble and raise some hell; people will respect you for it. If you're a dick about things, people will soon learn to ignore you.
You can dissent and be humble - the two are not mutually exclusive.
You can dissent and be humble - the two are not mutually exclusive.
In the glory days of Microsoft (circa Windows 95), the company culture was very different than in the Ballmer Administration. There used to be a class called 'Precision Questioning' that was specifically about being very efficient at asking very pointed, very direct questions. To the uninitiated, it came across as incredibly rude and disrespectful.
But it was effective. Things got done fast, and BS was caught immediately, because the questions that got asked were rude, disrespectful, but vitally needed to make the right decisions. It cut through to the truth as quickly as possible.
I think there's something happening here -- being direct and truthful hurts, but to create great things, you have to set aside feelings.
Since Ballmer took over the reigns, Microsoft no longer teaches this course to its managers. Kinder and gentler, he said -- but there's a very real cost to kinder and gentler.
But it was effective. Things got done fast, and BS was caught immediately, because the questions that got asked were rude, disrespectful, but vitally needed to make the right decisions. It cut through to the truth as quickly as possible.
I think there's something happening here -- being direct and truthful hurts, but to create great things, you have to set aside feelings.
Since Ballmer took over the reigns, Microsoft no longer teaches this course to its managers. Kinder and gentler, he said -- but there's a very real cost to kinder and gentler.
Microsoft's success (and failure in many areas) extends beyond communication styles. In part, Microsoft developed a "we know best" culture that fails to see both opportunities and hazards. Being so inwardly focused creates a low sense of urgency. Obviously AA and other large corps face the same problem.
Still, it is possible have direct/pointed discussions and maintain humility. Take Zappos for example. Two of Zappos core values are 9.Be Passionate and Determined and 10.Be Humble. The two are not in conflict with each other. They've done well, as has Chick-fil-A - another large company that esteems humility.
Still, it is possible have direct/pointed discussions and maintain humility. Take Zappos for example. Two of Zappos core values are 9.Be Passionate and Determined and 10.Be Humble. The two are not in conflict with each other. They've done well, as has Chick-fil-A - another large company that esteems humility.
I agree, direct and pointed questions do come across as rude and people need to learn to deal with them. "Why should I trust what your saying when your last recommendation cost me $100,000.00" sounds rude, but its just direct.
However, if you add "you stupid idiot" to the end, then you've increased the rudeness without increasing precision. This is how a lot of the original post came off.
However, if you add "you stupid idiot" to the end, then you've increased the rudeness without increasing precision. This is how a lot of the original post came off.
[deleted]
Hubris was the best I could come up with. Dustin himself describes it as vitriolic below, which is better fit I think.
i have heard bad things about dustin curtis from friends of mine.. i find it ironic that he's criticizing the moral scruples of others when he has several of his own.
And now you're doing so publicly without actually bringing up any facts? Poor form.
it's personal, i'm not going into detail. he ripped someone off, and if he wanted to fix it he could. but he chooses not to, and criticizes others for their behaviors. i just find that to be pretty hypocritical.
I'm not saying you don't have a reason to be angry at the guy, I'm just saying that an opaque comment questioning somebody's character in a public forum is not appropriate.
the reason i brought it up here was because he has ignored e-mails in the past. why would he respond to one of my e-mails if he ignored someone else's?
he is responding to mine now, and if he makes things right (which he says he is trying to do now), it will have turned out to be a big misunderstanding and i will gladly take back my negative opinion towards him.
he is responding to mine now, and if he makes things right (which he says he is trying to do now), it will have turned out to be a big misunderstanding and i will gladly take back my negative opinion towards him.
I think it adds an appropriate flavoring to the original comment. He's not just starting a thread on the original, which would have been dickish. He added onto the criticism here of Dustin by saying that he'd heard a bad story, and thought Dustin's calling somebody incompetent was ironic considering the story he'd heard.
Perhaps I have a biased viewpoint, though, because I was told a similar story that's been flavoring my outlook on this. It's not a story I'd say in public, because it's not mine to tell, but I've been having similar thoughts about Dustin through this mess, and I appreciate that they were stated. I also understand the need to be opaque when it's not your public drama. It's worth throwing in the sentiment if it's relevant, and in this case it is. Perhaps it wasn't inserted very subtly, but it deserves to be here.
Perhaps I have a biased viewpoint, though, because I was told a similar story that's been flavoring my outlook on this. It's not a story I'd say in public, because it's not mine to tell, but I've been having similar thoughts about Dustin through this mess, and I appreciate that they were stated. I also understand the need to be opaque when it's not your public drama. It's worth throwing in the sentiment if it's relevant, and in this case it is. Perhaps it wasn't inserted very subtly, but it deserves to be here.
Criticizing Dustin for an incident regarding which you have not sought his side is very poor form. Similarly, criticizing his argument ad hominem highlights only your own bias without refuting or examining any of his points.
To quote John Stewart Mill here, "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."
To quote John Stewart Mill here, "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion."
Hey, please email me: [email protected] .
jmtame's email is in his profile.
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jmtame
(no need to keep making public statements...)
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jmtame
(no need to keep making public statements...)
I think its perfectly acceptable to make a public statement when you have been publicly accused of ripping people off
I think people should upvote jmtame. He probably wouldn't have gotten any response from Dustin Curtis unless he leveraged the threat of public embarrassment. Similarly, whenever I see a bemmu thread, I point out that he owes me $20, because the only way to bring him out of the woodwork is through social shaming.
to follow up with all of this: this whole thing got sorted out shortly after bringing it up. seems like it was a misunderstanding on both sides. cheers!
I agree with a lot of the points in this article. Yes, my original letter to AA was, admittedly, a bit vitriolic. But I don't apologize for that, nor do I regret it. I'm a designer and an entrepreneur. I'm passionate about great user experiences. I think fighting for great user experiences from companies is a good thing. What is passion if you don't fight for what you love?
We're on the cusp of a changing society. Customer experience is becoming, in a very literal way, the brand of a company. And when I come across companies so clueless that they won't spend 50k to hire a design firm to design their online identity/experience, I can't help but wonder what kind of negative effect that has on the evolution of the internet and on customer experience design as an industry.
Fixing AA.com would be [strike]ridiculously[/strike] relatively cheap and simple, especially if it was just a new skin based on the logic they already have built (even though there are serious flaws there as well). Yet the company has not done this. It hasn't even hinted at this, and it fired the one guy who seemed to care about it in the organization. This is a management problem, not a design problem. When I mention this, and when I call out the CEO specifically, people call me arrogant, young, naive, and stupid. But I honestly believe the fault for a failing like this, a failing so visceral that it affects the image of the entire company in the eyes of its customers, rests solely in lap of the CEO.
American Airlines is no doubt a terrible company, and not just from a design perspective. The culture there is broken, the "business" is failing (it loses billions of dollars a year), and the majority of customers hate the experience. Something is wrong. Bringing attention to it, I think, can't possibly be a bad thing.
We're on the cusp of a changing society. Customer experience is becoming, in a very literal way, the brand of a company. And when I come across companies so clueless that they won't spend 50k to hire a design firm to design their online identity/experience, I can't help but wonder what kind of negative effect that has on the evolution of the internet and on customer experience design as an industry.
Fixing AA.com would be [strike]ridiculously[/strike] relatively cheap and simple, especially if it was just a new skin based on the logic they already have built (even though there are serious flaws there as well). Yet the company has not done this. It hasn't even hinted at this, and it fired the one guy who seemed to care about it in the organization. This is a management problem, not a design problem. When I mention this, and when I call out the CEO specifically, people call me arrogant, young, naive, and stupid. But I honestly believe the fault for a failing like this, a failing so visceral that it affects the image of the entire company in the eyes of its customers, rests solely in lap of the CEO.
American Airlines is no doubt a terrible company, and not just from a design perspective. The culture there is broken, the "business" is failing (it loses billions of dollars a year), and the majority of customers hate the experience. Something is wrong. Bringing attention to it, I think, can't possibly be a bad thing.
Fighting for great user experiences is one thing - what you did was not that. You called out the entirety of AA's online design department, called them names, and then proceeded to be smug and use the opportunity to be self-aggrandizing.
If you really just wanted to fight what you thought was a terrible user experience, you would've brought up a list of usability concerns and optionally some remedies. You would not have called them names, you would not have called for mass firings, nor would you have gone into insane hyperbole.
In this new age of online communication we as a society really need to find ways of remaining civil without seeing each others' faces.
Working for one of the largest sites on the internet, I know first hand how difficult to get even a single usability feature pushed through - for good reason. A wholesale redesign would take a supreme amount of coordination, dedication, and effort, from multiple teams of people. It is anything but "cheap and simple", and your continuous insistence of this falsehood shows how little real experience you have in large-scale web dev.
Failing to appreciate the complexities of an enterprise-scale website makes you inexperienced and perhaps ignorant.
Failing to admit that there are complexities to an enterprise-scale website that you aren't aware of is being smug and arrogant.
If you really just wanted to fight what you thought was a terrible user experience, you would've brought up a list of usability concerns and optionally some remedies. You would not have called them names, you would not have called for mass firings, nor would you have gone into insane hyperbole.
In this new age of online communication we as a society really need to find ways of remaining civil without seeing each others' faces.
Working for one of the largest sites on the internet, I know first hand how difficult to get even a single usability feature pushed through - for good reason. A wholesale redesign would take a supreme amount of coordination, dedication, and effort, from multiple teams of people. It is anything but "cheap and simple", and your continuous insistence of this falsehood shows how little real experience you have in large-scale web dev.
Failing to appreciate the complexities of an enterprise-scale website makes you inexperienced and perhaps ignorant.
Failing to admit that there are complexities to an enterprise-scale website that you aren't aware of is being smug and arrogant.
Dustin,
It is always easy to say that things are easy to fix on an outsider's perspective. In reality, it isn't. I have worked for a big company before and changing things, even the obvious ones, are often difficult.
You may not like the user experience of the site but it is possible that conversion is still high.
There is definitely management problem based on their finances. Redesigning their site may not be in their top priority now.
It is always easy to say that things are easy to fix on an outsider's perspective. In reality, it isn't. I have worked for a big company before and changing things, even the obvious ones, are often difficult.
You may not like the user experience of the site but it is possible that conversion is still high.
There is definitely management problem based on their finances. Redesigning their site may not be in their top priority now.
> It is always easy to say that things are easy to fix on an outsider's perspective. In reality, it isn't. I have worked for a big company before and changing things, even the obvious ones, are often difficult.
Let's call a spade a spade here though. In a lot of these large companies the barriers are artificial. Especially when your redesign will 'encroach' on someone's little fiefdom that they've cultivated over the years. I've heard stories of people that were left to their own devices (even in a small company) and when it became a dictate that he/she had to open up to others in the company they quit rather than give up their little 'kingdom.'
These barriers are not there to protect the company in any way, shape, or form. They are there due to petty politicking and stuff that should best be left on the 3rd grade schoolyard. Sure we have to deal with them if we are going to exist in 'corporate culture' but they don't need to be there. This happens in large companies because at some point it becomes harder to control/eliminate, not because it's a necessary part of being a large company.
Let's call a spade a spade here though. In a lot of these large companies the barriers are artificial. Especially when your redesign will 'encroach' on someone's little fiefdom that they've cultivated over the years. I've heard stories of people that were left to their own devices (even in a small company) and when it became a dictate that he/she had to open up to others in the company they quit rather than give up their little 'kingdom.'
These barriers are not there to protect the company in any way, shape, or form. They are there due to petty politicking and stuff that should best be left on the 3rd grade schoolyard. Sure we have to deal with them if we are going to exist in 'corporate culture' but they don't need to be there. This happens in large companies because at some point it becomes harder to control/eliminate, not because it's a necessary part of being a large company.
Maybe they are artificial but they are still there. It doesn't really change anything.
Like the parent poster, I too have worked in a large company. I was hired mainly to re-develop the intranet (it looked like it was designed in 1995). When I resigned 9 months later I still hadn't done any work on it. Now I had access to the files. I could have just changed it myself but there would have been an uproar and I probably would have been fired. In fact, just making minor changes such as cleaning up the CSS got me in trouble because other people used Dreamweaver to edit some pages and my changes made things look different in Dreamweaver.
I imagine the people responsible for the AA website are in a similar boat. They have access to change things but there are these barriers - artificial or not.
Now I've worked at some different sized companies and I've realised that is the way things were supposed to be at that company. This company handled people's pensions and needed to be conservative. The systems in place were DESIGNED to slow things down to make sure that everything was done right.
Startups have their own speed of work and large companies have a much slower pace. There are reasons for both.
Like the parent poster, I too have worked in a large company. I was hired mainly to re-develop the intranet (it looked like it was designed in 1995). When I resigned 9 months later I still hadn't done any work on it. Now I had access to the files. I could have just changed it myself but there would have been an uproar and I probably would have been fired. In fact, just making minor changes such as cleaning up the CSS got me in trouble because other people used Dreamweaver to edit some pages and my changes made things look different in Dreamweaver.
I imagine the people responsible for the AA website are in a similar boat. They have access to change things but there are these barriers - artificial or not.
Now I've worked at some different sized companies and I've realised that is the way things were supposed to be at that company. This company handled people's pensions and needed to be conservative. The systems in place were DESIGNED to slow things down to make sure that everything was done right.
Startups have their own speed of work and large companies have a much slower pace. There are reasons for both.
As optimistic as you are, saying that politics and self-promotion inside large companies is stupid, you have to remember the environment.
By definition, a large company has LOTS of people, and lots of people involved in a project like changing a website design. They all have their own goals, their own direction and ways to do their job correctly. They won't always line up. The developers want to do whatever makes their work easier, while the ops people want to be sure the servers are stable. The graphics guys want to go with a stunning new design, but the marketing people want to put up a banner with their newest trips to europe.
There are lots of cross-cutting concerns. Everybody can do their job perfectly, and without malice, and still have lots of friction in a change.
It's not all about "big egos want their feifdoms"
By definition, a large company has LOTS of people, and lots of people involved in a project like changing a website design. They all have their own goals, their own direction and ways to do their job correctly. They won't always line up. The developers want to do whatever makes their work easier, while the ops people want to be sure the servers are stable. The graphics guys want to go with a stunning new design, but the marketing people want to put up a banner with their newest trips to europe.
There are lots of cross-cutting concerns. Everybody can do their job perfectly, and without malice, and still have lots of friction in a change.
It's not all about "big egos want their feifdoms"
[deleted]
> But I don't apologize for that, nor do I regret it.
Okay. I respect this tremendously, but...
> When I mention this, and when I call out the CEO specifically, people call me arrogant, young, naive, and stupid.
...then you've got to be ready for this. You're going to get it your whole life if you keep acting the way you're acting. It upsets people. They think you're acting out of your place, and you haven't put in your hours and earned your stripes and who the hell does this kid think he is? I went through a similar thing when I was younger and went into business.
Here's one of my favorite quotes, it's by Bertrand Russel:
"Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves."
Okay, so step 1 - you've got to be willing to accept that you're going to provoke reactions like this if you keep acting as you've been acting, questioning authority and the way things are in a very confrontational way. And when people confront you, they won't fight fair and fight your arguments, they'll pull anything out of the hat they can to discredit you or get under your skin. It's going to happen more often rather than less as you go forwards.
So if you can accept it, and keep on going, you can do some things. So I support you as someone who dropped out of high school and went into business quite young, and got called all sorts of nasty things too, and I admire you character. With that said:
> Fixing AA.com would be ridiculously cheap and simple...
This is where you go wrong. No, it probably wouldn't. You can get all the mileage you're currently getting, and a lot more credibility by changing that statement to, "Hell, maybe there'd be a lot of bureaucracy to cut through to fix AA.com and it'd cost some coin, but it's possible and it needs to be done." --> Lots more credibility. Doesn't lose much bite.
When in doubt, fake the modesty. You'll get much more mileage out of life. Later you might learn that some things are more complicated than they initially appear, but you're going to get better mileage anyway if you sympathize with the difficulties people are likely to face trying to make change. And if you're a little extra nice and sympathetic, and it really would be cheap and easy, then your suggestions sound even more palatable.
So - I'm with you, and keep on trucking man. Maybe add a touch of sympathizing with difficulties people face (guess/fake it if you can't see any potential difficulties) and your critique is much more likely to be received well.
Okay. I respect this tremendously, but...
> When I mention this, and when I call out the CEO specifically, people call me arrogant, young, naive, and stupid.
...then you've got to be ready for this. You're going to get it your whole life if you keep acting the way you're acting. It upsets people. They think you're acting out of your place, and you haven't put in your hours and earned your stripes and who the hell does this kid think he is? I went through a similar thing when I was younger and went into business.
Here's one of my favorite quotes, it's by Bertrand Russel:
"Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves."
Okay, so step 1 - you've got to be willing to accept that you're going to provoke reactions like this if you keep acting as you've been acting, questioning authority and the way things are in a very confrontational way. And when people confront you, they won't fight fair and fight your arguments, they'll pull anything out of the hat they can to discredit you or get under your skin. It's going to happen more often rather than less as you go forwards.
So if you can accept it, and keep on going, you can do some things. So I support you as someone who dropped out of high school and went into business quite young, and got called all sorts of nasty things too, and I admire you character. With that said:
> Fixing AA.com would be ridiculously cheap and simple...
This is where you go wrong. No, it probably wouldn't. You can get all the mileage you're currently getting, and a lot more credibility by changing that statement to, "Hell, maybe there'd be a lot of bureaucracy to cut through to fix AA.com and it'd cost some coin, but it's possible and it needs to be done." --> Lots more credibility. Doesn't lose much bite.
When in doubt, fake the modesty. You'll get much more mileage out of life. Later you might learn that some things are more complicated than they initially appear, but you're going to get better mileage anyway if you sympathize with the difficulties people are likely to face trying to make change. And if you're a little extra nice and sympathetic, and it really would be cheap and easy, then your suggestions sound even more palatable.
So - I'm with you, and keep on trucking man. Maybe add a touch of sympathizing with difficulties people face (guess/fake it if you can't see any potential difficulties) and your critique is much more likely to be received well.
I think bringing Bertrand Russel into this is going a bit far. People aren't upset because Dustin's ideas shatter their stagnant world view, but because he presents them as having far more importance than they really do. AA is not doing as badly as it does because its homepage is messy.
It used to be that software was as close as you get to meritocracy. It seems that the web, and especially "web 2.0", changed that. We now have people like Scoble or Arrington who gain their status by pouring their energy not into building great stuff, but into ceaselessly promoting themselves. Many of us see this as crass and pushy.
It used to be that software was as close as you get to meritocracy. It seems that the web, and especially "web 2.0", changed that. We now have people like Scoble or Arrington who gain their status by pouring their energy not into building great stuff, but into ceaselessly promoting themselves. Many of us see this as crass and pushy.
Exactly. No one is mad about his wild unconventionality. He's not even being unconventional. He's just telling AA to make their site look more web2.0-y.
The criticism here is of Dustin's incredible arrogance in calling everyone at AA completely incompetent (which is patently untrue), and in his eagerness to make it a public controversy in order to shine the spotlight on himself. His web site is a virtual shrine to himself. Everyone knows that creating controversy draws public attention. Just check every 37signals talk or blog post. It works. All you have to do is vehemently argue that the experts are morons and that you know better, and people will pay attention. Some people don't appreciate the deliberate use of controversy to gain attention, though. That's the issue at hand.
The criticism here is of Dustin's incredible arrogance in calling everyone at AA completely incompetent (which is patently untrue), and in his eagerness to make it a public controversy in order to shine the spotlight on himself. His web site is a virtual shrine to himself. Everyone knows that creating controversy draws public attention. Just check every 37signals talk or blog post. It works. All you have to do is vehemently argue that the experts are morons and that you know better, and people will pay attention. Some people don't appreciate the deliberate use of controversy to gain attention, though. That's the issue at hand.
AA is not doing as badly as it does because its homepage is messy.
The user’s experience is always more important than you think it is. First impressions are always more important than they should be.
In this case, I genuinely believe that AA will live or die based on the experience their customers have. Fixing their homepage is the start of a systematic change they need to make. However, if they don’t regain their customer-experience focus, I think it will doom them.
The user’s experience is always more important than you think it is. First impressions are always more important than they should be.
In this case, I genuinely believe that AA will live or die based on the experience their customers have. Fixing their homepage is the start of a systematic change they need to make. However, if they don’t regain their customer-experience focus, I think it will doom them.
Fixing their homepage is the start of a systematic change they need to make.
As a guy who flys 10's of thousands of miles a year, I could care less about their homepage. I don't even use it, I usually go to Orbitz.com so I can get as many itinerary and price options as possible.
I'd rather AA offer better seats, or in-flight wifi, or the ability for me to pay an extra $10 to board in the first group when I am not in first class so I don't have to fight for overhead space.
Their website could be a fucking gopher site for all I really care.
As a guy who flys 10's of thousands of miles a year, I could care less about their homepage. I don't even use it, I usually go to Orbitz.com so I can get as many itinerary and price options as possible.
I'd rather AA offer better seats, or in-flight wifi, or the ability for me to pay an extra $10 to board in the first group when I am not in first class so I don't have to fight for overhead space.
Their website could be a fucking gopher site for all I really care.
I agree with lionhearted about earning your stripes. What have you done in the past that should make AA.com take your redesign seriously?
There are a number of web entrepreneurs/hackers that I pay attention to. Some are young, some are old but I know they have paid their dues and earned their stripes.
There are a number of web entrepreneurs/hackers that I pay attention to. Some are young, some are old but I know they have paid their dues and earned their stripes.
I don't think anyone would disagree with you that AA has an awful site, but they seem to be reacting to how you phrased your criticism. If criticism is phrased in the wrong way, people will instinctively go into face-saving mode, and ignore the actual feedback ("Can you believe how arrogant this 21 year old is!"). I know this because I've had self-righteous outbursts due to my passion, but I've learned the hard way that it can sometimes rub people the wrong way and actually hurt your cause.
(PS. I think 37signals did this sort of thing brilliantly: http://37signals.com/better. Reading the copy just makes me feel warm inside and shows good emotional intelligence.)
(PS. I think 37signals did this sort of thing brilliantly: http://37signals.com/better. Reading the copy just makes me feel warm inside and shows good emotional intelligence.)
"I'm passionate about great user experiences. I think fighting for great user experiences from companies is a good thing. What is passion if you don't fight for what you love"
Stray thought, which likely won't matter to you: Mr. X, who used your site and got fired for it, didn't exactly have a great user experience.
Stray thought, which likely won't matter to you: Mr. X, who used your site and got fired for it, didn't exactly have a great user experience.
That's a lot like saying if I purposefully drive off a cliff in my Ford Mustang that Ford gave me a poor user experience because I ended up dead.
Mr. X is going to have a much better job very soon. Don't you worry. This may have ended up being the best decision he ever made.
You don't know that.
Ford likely doesn't have the option of removing you from the driver's seat before you go over the cliff. Webmaster's do have the power to remove content that could do harm to the user's actual life. Most of them don't give a flip and wouldn't waste any of their effort to protect someone who posted something they might regret 10 minutes later but be unable to remove once it's posted. Most of them seem to agree with you: It's your problem, bozo.
I have personally left sites where the owner has such an attitude. One of them is now upping the efforts to strong-arm users into joining and participating. They seem to still not get the concept that honey is better than vinegar.
I have personally left sites where the owner has such an attitude. One of them is now upping the efforts to strong-arm users into joining and participating. They seem to still not get the concept that honey is better than vinegar.
No offense, but dcurtis (at least claims) to have asked Mr X if it was ok to publish the email. Mr X agreed to allow it as long as his name was removed. How is this now dcurtis's fault when Mr X consciously chose to allow the email to be published?
This is something that seems (at least on face value) to be perfectly reasonable. He published something from an 'anonymous source.' When was the last time you heard of a company searching the text of an email through their email system to find the culprit?
I could see this being a boneheaded way to protect an 'anonymous source' for an Apple rumor (seeing how cut-throat Apple is with plugging leaks), but when it comes to some random large corporation... probably not. It's not even like any of the information that he provided could be construed by an outside person as a 'trade secret' either. On top of that, it's impossible for dcurtis to know what type of contracts Mr X has signed with AA or what their wording is (or even what the current enforcement policies are).
This is something that seems (at least on face value) to be perfectly reasonable. He published something from an 'anonymous source.' When was the last time you heard of a company searching the text of an email through their email system to find the culprit?
I could see this being a boneheaded way to protect an 'anonymous source' for an Apple rumor (seeing how cut-throat Apple is with plugging leaks), but when it comes to some random large corporation... probably not. It's not even like any of the information that he provided could be construed by an outside person as a 'trade secret' either. On top of that, it's impossible for dcurtis to know what type of contracts Mr X has signed with AA or what their wording is (or even what the current enforcement policies are).
When was the last time you heard of a company searching the text of an email through their email system to find the culprit?
Anyone who has worked for a large company has heard of this. It probably doesn't make it into the news a lot, but having worked at <Large Company # 123232> we were told many times that your email is constantly being monitored (though they didn't go into the details of how).
Now, I don't know how AA works, but I'm guessing they made this clear upfront. If not, thats a separate issue.
Anyone who has worked for a large company has heard of this. It probably doesn't make it into the news a lot, but having worked at <Large Company # 123232> we were told many times that your email is constantly being monitored (though they didn't go into the details of how).
Now, I don't know how AA works, but I'm guessing they made this clear upfront. If not, thats a separate issue.
> No offense, but dcurtis (at least claims) to have asked Mr X if it was ok to publish the email. Mr X agreed to allow it as long as his name was removed. How is this now dcurtis's fault when Mr X consciously chose to allow the email to be published?
And at that, how is it dcurtis' fault that Mr. X (stupidly) used his company email address? That said, is it possible that dcurtis would have believe Mr. X if it wasn't from an aa.com address? I don't know the answer to that.
And at that, how is it dcurtis' fault that Mr. X (stupidly) used his company email address? That said, is it possible that dcurtis would have believe Mr. X if it wasn't from an aa.com address? I don't know the answer to that.
> That said, is it possible that dcurtis would have believe Mr. X if it wasn't from an aa.com address? I don't know the answer to that.
How does dcurtis's possible skepticism make him culpable for Mr. X's desire to 'reach out' (to the point that he was willing to use his company email to do so)? Mr. X is still the one making the choice to respond to dcurtis. He's still the one that decides the level of risk to his job that he's willing to take in his dealings with dcurtis. I don't see anything here that could be faulted on dcurtis other than his opinions and writing style.
How does dcurtis's possible skepticism make him culpable for Mr. X's desire to 'reach out' (to the point that he was willing to use his company email to do so)? Mr. X is still the one making the choice to respond to dcurtis. He's still the one that decides the level of risk to his job that he's willing to take in his dealings with dcurtis. I don't see anything here that could be faulted on dcurtis other than his opinions and writing style.
I work for a very large company. I am very careful about what I say online that might in some way be about my job or the company I work for. Maybe lots of people routinely get away with talking trash about the place where they work and it never comes back to them. But if the risk is potentially getting fired (and that seems obvious without having any idea what contracts the guy did or didn't sign), then posting it online seems like an act of callous disregard for someone's welfare. If you are the one that gets fired, it doesn't matter if the statistical odds are very small. The consequence was 100% for you, regardless of how many countless others got away with it. It was a plum for the site to have "insider information". That mattered more to the webmaster than the possibility it would harm Mr. X. So he erred on the side of "good site content" and it's justified because Mr. X. said "sure, post it". I wouldn't be comfortable with that.
So, I think you're a really talented designer, I don't entirely disagree with you, and I understand your frustration. However...
Brand development is complex and takes years to develop. All this brand-strategy-through-design is fucking nonsense, stop drinking your own kool-aid. That's why I got out of the advertising industry and into consumer products. I'm sorry but designers are not that critical to a brand, and proclaiming such sounds extremely ego centric and naive.
Furthermore, you're criticizing one of many sales channels and generalizing the entire company based on that. You can buy AA tickets through a variety of websites, retailers, travel agents, etc. -- not solely AA.com. In fact, I don't think I've ever bought an AA ticket on AA.com.
When I read your response to Mr. X's response a few months ago, I was quite surprised that YOU were surprised about all the moving pieces in a big corporation. I think you lack quite a bit of business experience, and snail mailers aren't going to get you there. I caution you to think about your word choice when you say things like clueless and incompetence because you're branding yourself a millennial.
Brand development is complex and takes years to develop. All this brand-strategy-through-design is fucking nonsense, stop drinking your own kool-aid. That's why I got out of the advertising industry and into consumer products. I'm sorry but designers are not that critical to a brand, and proclaiming such sounds extremely ego centric and naive.
Furthermore, you're criticizing one of many sales channels and generalizing the entire company based on that. You can buy AA tickets through a variety of websites, retailers, travel agents, etc. -- not solely AA.com. In fact, I don't think I've ever bought an AA ticket on AA.com.
When I read your response to Mr. X's response a few months ago, I was quite surprised that YOU were surprised about all the moving pieces in a big corporation. I think you lack quite a bit of business experience, and snail mailers aren't going to get you there. I caution you to think about your word choice when you say things like clueless and incompetence because you're branding yourself a millennial.
I hardly think saying "This is the way we always do it" is a good enough reason to stop criticizing American Airlines. Designers may not have been critical to brands in the past (just buy authenticity through well-intentioned PR and ad placements)...
But that will not be true in the future, and bringing attention to bad experiences is THE WAY designers can bring about a better world.
But that will not be true in the future, and bringing attention to bad experiences is THE WAY designers can bring about a better world.
I wasn't implying that one should settle, but companies have life cycles too. The original people/passion that ignited the company moves on, retires, or dies. It happens all the time in every sector, it's good for capitalism to have this kind of churn. Fighting change in some big businesses is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks.
You're right that these things happen in cycles -- just like that "The Office is like the office" quote -- things get big and degenerate.
But something about accepting it as unchangeable fact does not sit well with me.
But something about accepting it as unchangeable fact does not sit well with me.
Whenever you've re-skinned, I've suffered. It's never as easy as it seems.
As I always say, beauty is skin deep; user experience isn't.
It takes a little more than some new shine on something to really improve a user's overall experience. It often takes a near complete restructure of the information and logic flow.
It takes a little more than some new shine on something to really improve a user's overall experience. It often takes a near complete restructure of the information and logic flow.
I'm tired of this meme of unsolicited and superficial redesigns of Company X's front page. I understand this economy is tough for designers and there's not a lot of portfolio jobs around, but I think it's more impressive to design for a little nonsense webapp that actually does something. At the very least if would demonstrate you can take something from Photoshop into the real world.
I've spammed my twitter app enough to get feedback, but one thing I was hoping to get when I posted it to HN was some design critiques. If someone wants to put a design together for it check my past submissions for the link and email me.
Corporations are so very dehumanizing. The good of the few shareholders at the expense of the human experience for the individuals who labor typically a minimum of 1/2 of their waking hours but are summarily fired if they so much as speak their mind.
We've accepted this system. Many people at this site will vote me down for questioning the good of the corporate body over the good of the individual. Many will simply vote me down just because it was in the poor guy's contract. But the bottom line is that American Airlines fires people who try to reasonably speak their mind. Simple as that. And the people who vote down against the good of people in favor of the good of the corporate body are the enemy.
We've accepted this system. Many people at this site will vote me down for questioning the good of the corporate body over the good of the individual. Many will simply vote me down just because it was in the poor guy's contract. But the bottom line is that American Airlines fires people who try to reasonably speak their mind. Simple as that. And the people who vote down against the good of people in favor of the good of the corporate body are the enemy.
For the record, I almost voted you down because when I read things like "many people at this site will vote me down", I take it as a dare. Your point is no weaker if you leave out the baiting and reverse psychology.
It's not reverse psychology. It's my disappointment at this public forum when it collectively decides something is too far out of the norm of opinion.
You could easily have phrased that to avoid coming across as reverse psychology - "Since when is HN so defensive of <bigco policy> and shareholder interests at the detriment of users" etc - as a few other posts in this thread have done. Note how most of them are not tremendously downvoted. You, on the other hand, mention voting down your post three times in a single paragraph, each time attacking potential reasons - not covering every reason of course, only the ones that everyone sane should agree are Bad Things. Philosophy class is a bit far now, but isn't this a classic red herring?
"And the people who vote down against the good of people in favor of the good of the corporate body are the enemy."
Clearly meant to make people think that if they vote you down they are the enemy of the Good of the People, rather than letting them form their own responses based on the merits of your argument. Bullshit rhethoric likes this is what has no place here. Discuss the facts or the ethics of matters as you will, but please leave karma-baiting rhethoric out of your posts.
"And the people who vote down against the good of people in favor of the good of the corporate body are the enemy."
Clearly meant to make people think that if they vote you down they are the enemy of the Good of the People, rather than letting them form their own responses based on the merits of your argument. Bullshit rhethoric likes this is what has no place here. Discuss the facts or the ethics of matters as you will, but please leave karma-baiting rhethoric out of your posts.
An interesting response. Thanks. My wording was lame and included unnecessarily expressed social forum fears.
However, it's incorrect that I'm karma baiting. Rightly or wrongly I mention that I essentially worry I'll be attacked. But my central, and I admit strongly worded point, is genuine and I stand by it. I think that we as a society have allowed the corporate mindset to dominate us in a way that our civilization will hopefully grow out of at some point.
While my rhetoric is abrasive, what I'm specifically opposing is the corporate dehumanization that is considered normal and even good by many people. It's very hard not to be abrasive when talking about such things. On the one hand you have a person who's fired for a technical breach of contract when it's clear that he was operating reasonably and in good faith, and on the other you have many people who's eyes glaze over at the injustice and harm to an individual's career because, hell, he screwed up and he breached his contract.
How to unglaze those eyes? I think one way is by making them take a side in the issue.
That whole "freedom isn't free" doesn't just apply to sticks and guns, but also to ideas, as you clearly know. It costs to say strong things, for me it costs me fear that people just won't like me.
However, it's incorrect that I'm karma baiting. Rightly or wrongly I mention that I essentially worry I'll be attacked. But my central, and I admit strongly worded point, is genuine and I stand by it. I think that we as a society have allowed the corporate mindset to dominate us in a way that our civilization will hopefully grow out of at some point.
While my rhetoric is abrasive, what I'm specifically opposing is the corporate dehumanization that is considered normal and even good by many people. It's very hard not to be abrasive when talking about such things. On the one hand you have a person who's fired for a technical breach of contract when it's clear that he was operating reasonably and in good faith, and on the other you have many people who's eyes glaze over at the injustice and harm to an individual's career because, hell, he screwed up and he breached his contract.
How to unglaze those eyes? I think one way is by making them take a side in the issue.
That whole "freedom isn't free" doesn't just apply to sticks and guns, but also to ideas, as you clearly know. It costs to say strong things, for me it costs me fear that people just won't like me.
We accept this system for a few reasons:
It works. There are no examples of large companies that do different. Small ones? Sure. But once they reach a certain size they either change, or go under.
You sold your labor. End of story. It's not your company, you don't get to decide how it should run. If you don't like it you don't have to work there, if you want to work there you have to accept it.
If I hire a landscaper to make me a wall, and he decides the wall will look better 1 foot over, I'm fully within my rights to fire or not pay him.
You can speak your mind inside the company, but the public "speakings" of the company do not belong to you.
It sucks, I know. But changing it would make things worse, not better.
It works. There are no examples of large companies that do different. Small ones? Sure. But once they reach a certain size they either change, or go under.
You sold your labor. End of story. It's not your company, you don't get to decide how it should run. If you don't like it you don't have to work there, if you want to work there you have to accept it.
If I hire a landscaper to make me a wall, and he decides the wall will look better 1 foot over, I'm fully within my rights to fire or not pay him.
You can speak your mind inside the company, but the public "speakings" of the company do not belong to you.
It sucks, I know. But changing it would make things worse, not better.
Simple as that.
Not as simple as you might think...
Large companies have policies. They have these policies because they don't want people breaking them.
Now, you might say, "well, technically he broke the policy, but I don't see how..." a) he revealed any big public secrets b) he said anything we don't already know c) it did more harm than good in the form of responding to someone with a reasonable criticism d) etc...
It doesn't matter. If you want to break company policy, you get permission to do so. If a large company allows people to break policies "so long as its not so bad..." they will run into problem of interpretation. Mr. X broke policy, and he got fired. Maybe it seemed reasonable at the time, maybe he did it because he cared, maybe he predicted that doing so would increase AA's business. Doesn't matter, at the end of the day, AA was well within its rights to fire him and they might well have been right to do so to stop others from speaking their mind whenever they feel like it.
Don't like the system? Think it should be more careful, discriminate between helpful breaks and unhelpful ones? Want it more fair? Well, I'm sure a lot of people do, and many of them have probably tried to come up with a business model that does all this and is also efficient. Seems like they aren't being adopted by large companies... so there is probably a good reason.
If you really want things to change (and I hope you do, because I agree, a lot of change would be welcomed by a lot of people) you need to propose a reasonable solution to this problem.
Not as simple as you might think...
Large companies have policies. They have these policies because they don't want people breaking them.
Now, you might say, "well, technically he broke the policy, but I don't see how..." a) he revealed any big public secrets b) he said anything we don't already know c) it did more harm than good in the form of responding to someone with a reasonable criticism d) etc...
It doesn't matter. If you want to break company policy, you get permission to do so. If a large company allows people to break policies "so long as its not so bad..." they will run into problem of interpretation. Mr. X broke policy, and he got fired. Maybe it seemed reasonable at the time, maybe he did it because he cared, maybe he predicted that doing so would increase AA's business. Doesn't matter, at the end of the day, AA was well within its rights to fire him and they might well have been right to do so to stop others from speaking their mind whenever they feel like it.
Don't like the system? Think it should be more careful, discriminate between helpful breaks and unhelpful ones? Want it more fair? Well, I'm sure a lot of people do, and many of them have probably tried to come up with a business model that does all this and is also efficient. Seems like they aren't being adopted by large companies... so there is probably a good reason.
If you really want things to change (and I hope you do, because I agree, a lot of change would be welcomed by a lot of people) you need to propose a reasonable solution to this problem.
This seems like a little cognitive dissonance to me:
> So where does that leave us? A 21-year-old wrote a blog post. A guy broke the corporate rules and got fired. The internet (and the blogger!) is outraged.
> But the web will still be full of arrogant, uninformed, polarizing, self-promoting, controversy-creating content that has ramifications no one wants to own up to. And consequently, the web will still be lacking in common courtesy, humility, and the admittance that most of us don’t know best. Which is sad, mostly because it’s true.
What irony! The So Serious guy is calling out others on being not courteous and not humble in a discourteous, unhumble guy.
> So where does that leave us? A 21-year-old wrote a blog post. A guy broke the corporate rules and got fired. The internet (and the blogger!) is outraged.
> But the web will still be full of arrogant, uninformed, polarizing, self-promoting, controversy-creating content that has ramifications no one wants to own up to. And consequently, the web will still be lacking in common courtesy, humility, and the admittance that most of us don’t know best. Which is sad, mostly because it’s true.
What irony! The So Serious guy is calling out others on being not courteous and not humble in a discourteous, unhumble guy.
Really? How is Joshua's position arrogant and discourteous?
He never attacks Dustin as a person. He calls Dustin's methods and actions into question. I fail to see the irony in this...
He never attacks Dustin as a person. He calls Dustin's methods and actions into question. I fail to see the irony in this...
For one, he repeatedly makes a point of dcurtis' age. That's not really appropriate.
It is if part of his point's that the Internet's letting itself get worked up over what a not-completely-mature kid said.
The fact that Hacker News and other sites have had this raging debate over Dustin's writing belies the fact that basically he's a college student mouthing off a big company, and that we're assuming against the odds that he knows more than an industry professional does. At that point it's absolutely appropriate to remind us of who Dustin is.
The fact that Hacker News and other sites have had this raging debate over Dustin's writing belies the fact that basically he's a college student mouthing off a big company, and that we're assuming against the odds that he knows more than an industry professional does. At that point it's absolutely appropriate to remind us of who Dustin is.
Not even that, he's fueling the controversy that he's criticizing by writing this article.
Controversy? I'd call it holding people accountable for their actions. AA has a terrible website and their employees know it. Mr. X shared "corporate secrets" and got fired for it. AA fired an (seemingly excellent) employee for no substantial reason. Dustin got called out for shoving a design in a companies's face.
Holding people accountable is respectable. And for that, I respect. I respect you and Dustin. Accountability is a rare bird these days indeed.
Holding people accountable is respectable. And for that, I respect. I respect you and Dustin. Accountability is a rare bird these days indeed.
I'm sure the "Creating Controversy..." writer has some reasonable points. Perhaps Dustin Curtis really is only fourteen years old and is a frightful bounder who drops his aitches and has cocoa and bloaters for supper.*
But really, Dustin Curtis makes some good points. The reason sites like AA's are so much worse than they could be is precisely because of bloated and poorly-organized infrastructure and competing interests. That excuse isn't going to stop customers from going to better, more easily-navigable sites if they have a choice. I have bought plane tickets more than once from airline B instead of airline A just because I couldn't get what I needed on airline A's site. About a year ago USAirways.com charged me eight times for the same flight and never sent an e-ticket. I don't buy from them any more. If I can't find and buy the best flight from airline A because their web site doesn't work well it's the same result to me as if they don't have that flight.
Look at how much more market value has been created by companies like Kayak.com who have used a lot less resources to create a much more effective buying experience than the most of the big lumbering airlines. Their gain has come about because the airlines have not been able to overcome their organizational problems.
Also, what Mister X* wrote was quite tactful. While it acknowledged some internal problems at AA (which certainly are obvious anyway) it did so in a very graceful way and provide a pretty good counter-argument. It was about the best statement American Airlines could have hoped anyone would have put out in response to Dustin Curtis' piece. You might argue that they were justified in firing him. You might be right (and you might not) but they were also very clearly very stupid to fire him. Had they merely given him a mild rebuke and then promoted him then they could have maintained control over what has turned into a small scandal for AA. Instead, he's no longer bound to watch his words so carefully. I hope he'll have more to say.
So if Dustin Curtis really does chew broken bottles and turn into a werewolf at the time of the full moon* that's too bad. All I know about him is that he seems like a pretty decent designer who has strong opinions and isn't afraid to voice them but who probably hasn't read Frederick Brooks.
Maybe if someone upstairs at AA had an attitude like Dustin Curtis and Mister X I wouldn't be putting them on my list of "companies to avoid doing business with whenever there's a reasonable alternative."
* P.G Wodehouse "Service With a Smile"
* Why does this name make me think of "For British Eyes Only..."
* Another P.G. Wodehouse reference I can't place.
But really, Dustin Curtis makes some good points. The reason sites like AA's are so much worse than they could be is precisely because of bloated and poorly-organized infrastructure and competing interests. That excuse isn't going to stop customers from going to better, more easily-navigable sites if they have a choice. I have bought plane tickets more than once from airline B instead of airline A just because I couldn't get what I needed on airline A's site. About a year ago USAirways.com charged me eight times for the same flight and never sent an e-ticket. I don't buy from them any more. If I can't find and buy the best flight from airline A because their web site doesn't work well it's the same result to me as if they don't have that flight.
Look at how much more market value has been created by companies like Kayak.com who have used a lot less resources to create a much more effective buying experience than the most of the big lumbering airlines. Their gain has come about because the airlines have not been able to overcome their organizational problems.
Also, what Mister X* wrote was quite tactful. While it acknowledged some internal problems at AA (which certainly are obvious anyway) it did so in a very graceful way and provide a pretty good counter-argument. It was about the best statement American Airlines could have hoped anyone would have put out in response to Dustin Curtis' piece. You might argue that they were justified in firing him. You might be right (and you might not) but they were also very clearly very stupid to fire him. Had they merely given him a mild rebuke and then promoted him then they could have maintained control over what has turned into a small scandal for AA. Instead, he's no longer bound to watch his words so carefully. I hope he'll have more to say.
So if Dustin Curtis really does chew broken bottles and turn into a werewolf at the time of the full moon* that's too bad. All I know about him is that he seems like a pretty decent designer who has strong opinions and isn't afraid to voice them but who probably hasn't read Frederick Brooks.
Maybe if someone upstairs at AA had an attitude like Dustin Curtis and Mister X I wouldn't be putting them on my list of "companies to avoid doing business with whenever there's a reasonable alternative."
* P.G Wodehouse "Service With a Smile"
* Why does this name make me think of "For British Eyes Only..."
* Another P.G. Wodehouse reference I can't place.
OK, I get the point about being nice, but the AA.com design is ugly. I'm sure as a giant company AA is used to criticism.
There are many big companies with sites not only ugly, but unusable. For example, Rogers.com (Canada's cell phone almost-monopoly). Half the site (the account management interface) seems not to work with anything except IE6. Are the people responsible for that abomination incompetent? I'd say so. But we are all supposed to be nice to the slow big companies and not talk about it on the Internet :)
There are many big companies with sites not only ugly, but unusable. For example, Rogers.com (Canada's cell phone almost-monopoly). Half the site (the account management interface) seems not to work with anything except IE6. Are the people responsible for that abomination incompetent? I'd say so. But we are all supposed to be nice to the slow big companies and not talk about it on the Internet :)
This author undervalues criticism. Being polite is not always the most effective way to create change.
it depends on what kind of change you want and at what cost.
great changers focus so purely on the matter at hand that they do not let their causes get dragged down by insults or violence. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr come to mind.
ps - "I don't apologize for that, nor do I regret it." a little humility goes a long way. defensiveness and pigheadedness are quite different from intention and stance. passion is different than fighting everyone. making friends and spreading passion might even be more effective.
great changers focus so purely on the matter at hand that they do not let their causes get dragged down by insults or violence. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr come to mind.
ps - "I don't apologize for that, nor do I regret it." a little humility goes a long way. defensiveness and pigheadedness are quite different from intention and stance. passion is different than fighting everyone. making friends and spreading passion might even be more effective.
"It’s easy to “design” when you’re unencumbered by things like metrics, creative direction, business acumen, sales experience, actual functionality, enterprise scale, or any thought about how a site with millions of page views and users has to function."
Wait... what? None of this makes much sense at all.
"Metrics"? Metrics for what? A metric is just a way of measuring things. What are we measuring? Pixels? Number of visitors? Number of bytes transferred?
"Creative direction"? Again, what does that mean, exactly? It's an airline website. It's supposed to be elegant and functional, not a work of postmodernist art.
"Business acumen"? Business = getting people to pay you, and people will be more inclined to pay you, all other things being equal, if your website is better designed. Is there some reason why a website redesign would cause AA to lose money? The cost of designing a website is trivial, in comparison to AA's annual budget of $22,935,000,000.
"Sales experience"? "Sales" usually means selling things to people in person, or over the phone, which is a very different business from designing a website to sell people things (ask anyone who's done both).
"Actual functionality" is the only legitimate criticism here. It's quite a bit harder to make a website that actually works than to draw it.
"Enterprise scale" is a myth. Justin.TV, according to their website, currently has 29 employees (including the founders). Justin.TV's Alexa rank is #222. American Airlines has 85,500 employees, and their website is less popular (rank #1,465), and almost certainly requires less bandwidth and storage space to boot.
I won't comment on whether the guy is or isn't a jerk, but the ability to spit out a long list of fancy words ("metrics"? Come on) does not a legitimate criticism make.
Wait... what? None of this makes much sense at all.
"Metrics"? Metrics for what? A metric is just a way of measuring things. What are we measuring? Pixels? Number of visitors? Number of bytes transferred?
"Creative direction"? Again, what does that mean, exactly? It's an airline website. It's supposed to be elegant and functional, not a work of postmodernist art.
"Business acumen"? Business = getting people to pay you, and people will be more inclined to pay you, all other things being equal, if your website is better designed. Is there some reason why a website redesign would cause AA to lose money? The cost of designing a website is trivial, in comparison to AA's annual budget of $22,935,000,000.
"Sales experience"? "Sales" usually means selling things to people in person, or over the phone, which is a very different business from designing a website to sell people things (ask anyone who's done both).
"Actual functionality" is the only legitimate criticism here. It's quite a bit harder to make a website that actually works than to draw it.
"Enterprise scale" is a myth. Justin.TV, according to their website, currently has 29 employees (including the founders). Justin.TV's Alexa rank is #222. American Airlines has 85,500 employees, and their website is less popular (rank #1,465), and almost certainly requires less bandwidth and storage space to boot.
I won't comment on whether the guy is or isn't a jerk, but the ability to spit out a long list of fancy words ("metrics"? Come on) does not a legitimate criticism make.
Serious irony...
I have two stories to add to this discussion, although perhaps this discussion does not need more fuel to the fire.
First, when I was 21 (in 1999), I was the founder of my last startup, Tellme. So I have been a young entrepreneur.
Second, one of Tellme's customers (in 2002) was American Airlines. So I understand how they work and the challenges they face.
At Tellme, we built a lost baggage voice application for AA. They figured if we could make their 800 number keep customers happy when the airline lost your bag, we'd be able to do a decent job on the rest of their apps. I'm proud to say that today Tellme answers every call to American Airlines, but back to lost bags. In the course of building that initial application, I learned things like: airlines issue a ticket number, a PNR, a bag tracking number and a lost bag ID to customers. These numbers are all different and customers don't know which is which. I also learned that at that time, American could not pull up a list of reservations (PNRs) based on your Frequent Flyer number, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary that year. Finally, I learned that passenger names for the lost bags database contained only the first 8 characters of a passenger's last name. Projects were underway with major subcontractors such as Sabre and EDS at that time to resolve and improve some of these issues. But the point is, big companies have complex systems. Some of these things were unbelievably bad at first glance to a tech guy like me, but they were all there for a reason. We also take for granted the fact they manage the incredible operational logistics of taking off a few thousand airplanes and moving millions of people around at 500+ mph in the air every year -- not too shabby! So my takeaway #1 is that it is far too easy for geeks, especially inexperienced geeks, to bash the complexities of big enterprises. At Tellme, we were successful by working within the constraints we had. For the lost bags app, we figured a consumer would never know which bag ID or ticket number we were asking for, so we built an app that found the user's lost bag record by asking the caller for 1) city where bag was reported lost; 2) date of loss and 3) last name of the passenger. Since the last names in the lost bags database contained only the first 8 characters of a user's last name, we used the US Census database of all names to automatically expand all 8-character last names into all the possible last names (e.g. Williams would be expanded to also include Williamson, etc., as a possible match). Throughout our deployment and work with AA, I became really impressed with the talent and dedication of their employees. A woman I worked with closely wore a necklace with a charm she had been awarded for 15 years of loyal service to the company. In 2002 the company was 4 months post-9/11 and to see the people there move full speed ahead on new applications amidst the greatest challenge to their existence in the history of their industry -- not to mention a national tragedy -- was inspiring.
Second, I was a 21-year old entrepreneur once. I was brash, insensitive, and abrasive. I grew up an only child. You do the math. At times I made cynical remarks that were not helpful. I was smart, and I seldom doubted my own opinions. As my mother would say, "Often wrong, but seldom in doubt." One of the folks on our founding team suggested I read Dale Carnegie. Another gave me the Steven Covey book. In the end I became a more effective communicator not just from reading books but by growing a little older. Yes, Dustin's remarks about AA where he paints them as some sort of completely incompetent idiots are wholly inappropriate and abrasive and unfair. I think that's in large part because the guy is 21. I also understand that designers can be an especially opinionated bunch. Of course, this type of vitriol is not limited to youth. For example, folks on one end of the political spectrum or the other often refer to Nancy Pilosi or George Bush with disdain that ignores the humanity of these individuals. Whether due to youth or passion, people lose their perspective, and when we do this, our message gets lost in the heat of its delivery.
My recommendations would be to try to put yourself in the shoes of the guy you're criticizing. You can be frank in your criticism, but you don't need to be callous. It gets easier with age. I'm still to this day critical of some things, and often I am passionate about those opinions, but it's possible to be a passionate critic without coming off as a jerk. It's something I work at all the time.
It's also possible to be an airline and have a good web site. As an American Airlines customer, I hope they improve a lot in that area soon, as Virgin America is definitely setting the bar today for in-air customer experience, and neither has a particularly great Web site. Yet.
First, when I was 21 (in 1999), I was the founder of my last startup, Tellme. So I have been a young entrepreneur.
Second, one of Tellme's customers (in 2002) was American Airlines. So I understand how they work and the challenges they face.
At Tellme, we built a lost baggage voice application for AA. They figured if we could make their 800 number keep customers happy when the airline lost your bag, we'd be able to do a decent job on the rest of their apps. I'm proud to say that today Tellme answers every call to American Airlines, but back to lost bags. In the course of building that initial application, I learned things like: airlines issue a ticket number, a PNR, a bag tracking number and a lost bag ID to customers. These numbers are all different and customers don't know which is which. I also learned that at that time, American could not pull up a list of reservations (PNRs) based on your Frequent Flyer number, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary that year. Finally, I learned that passenger names for the lost bags database contained only the first 8 characters of a passenger's last name. Projects were underway with major subcontractors such as Sabre and EDS at that time to resolve and improve some of these issues. But the point is, big companies have complex systems. Some of these things were unbelievably bad at first glance to a tech guy like me, but they were all there for a reason. We also take for granted the fact they manage the incredible operational logistics of taking off a few thousand airplanes and moving millions of people around at 500+ mph in the air every year -- not too shabby! So my takeaway #1 is that it is far too easy for geeks, especially inexperienced geeks, to bash the complexities of big enterprises. At Tellme, we were successful by working within the constraints we had. For the lost bags app, we figured a consumer would never know which bag ID or ticket number we were asking for, so we built an app that found the user's lost bag record by asking the caller for 1) city where bag was reported lost; 2) date of loss and 3) last name of the passenger. Since the last names in the lost bags database contained only the first 8 characters of a user's last name, we used the US Census database of all names to automatically expand all 8-character last names into all the possible last names (e.g. Williams would be expanded to also include Williamson, etc., as a possible match). Throughout our deployment and work with AA, I became really impressed with the talent and dedication of their employees. A woman I worked with closely wore a necklace with a charm she had been awarded for 15 years of loyal service to the company. In 2002 the company was 4 months post-9/11 and to see the people there move full speed ahead on new applications amidst the greatest challenge to their existence in the history of their industry -- not to mention a national tragedy -- was inspiring.
Second, I was a 21-year old entrepreneur once. I was brash, insensitive, and abrasive. I grew up an only child. You do the math. At times I made cynical remarks that were not helpful. I was smart, and I seldom doubted my own opinions. As my mother would say, "Often wrong, but seldom in doubt." One of the folks on our founding team suggested I read Dale Carnegie. Another gave me the Steven Covey book. In the end I became a more effective communicator not just from reading books but by growing a little older. Yes, Dustin's remarks about AA where he paints them as some sort of completely incompetent idiots are wholly inappropriate and abrasive and unfair. I think that's in large part because the guy is 21. I also understand that designers can be an especially opinionated bunch. Of course, this type of vitriol is not limited to youth. For example, folks on one end of the political spectrum or the other often refer to Nancy Pilosi or George Bush with disdain that ignores the humanity of these individuals. Whether due to youth or passion, people lose their perspective, and when we do this, our message gets lost in the heat of its delivery.
My recommendations would be to try to put yourself in the shoes of the guy you're criticizing. You can be frank in your criticism, but you don't need to be callous. It gets easier with age. I'm still to this day critical of some things, and often I am passionate about those opinions, but it's possible to be a passionate critic without coming off as a jerk. It's something I work at all the time.
It's also possible to be an airline and have a good web site. As an American Airlines customer, I hope they improve a lot in that area soon, as Virgin America is definitely setting the bar today for in-air customer experience, and neither has a particularly great Web site. Yet.
It's actually quite funny that they fired him for violation of NDA.
It's like an old joke that someone got punished for disclosing military secrets after he said that general is stupid.
It's like an old joke that someone got punished for disclosing military secrets after he said that general is stupid.
My Comment to Joshua:
I appreciate what you're saying here, but I think you're mischaracterizing the point of both of our articles. Neither of us proposed our mockups as comprehensive redesigns or attempted to address anything past the basic visuals. I wanted to buy shoes, and I found it to be a really frustrating experience, so I said something.
If the door to a retail store is hard to open and you complain about it, does it make you an arrogant prick for failing to think through all the potential reasons for the problem? Maybe the company handyman only comes every two weeks. Maybe there's a mountain of paperwork required before any repairs can be made. Maybe the staff needs approval from management. Does that make your frustration with the door situation any less relevant? It definitely makes you empathize with the staff, and speaks volumes about the company's ineffective management, but that doesn't change the fact that the door is really hard to open, and this is a problem for you as well as other customers. Understanding the context is important, but it doesn't make our critiques any less relevant.
You argue that, "it’s easy to 'design' when you’re unencumbered by things like metrics, creative direction, business acumen, sales experience, actual functionality". Of course, but think about all the companies that manage to get it right. Huge, lumbering corporations like Amazon, JetBlue, and Virgin all manage to pull off great user experience despite facing the same challenges. Why shouldn't Zappos and American Airlines be held to the same standard?
I found the Zappos website insanely frustrating to use, so I spent an evening identifying some of the problems I spotted and added a mockup to clarify. Yes, I was a little inflammatory, but the overarching message was a positive one. I wasn't trying to tell them how to sell shoes or reinvent their business - my article was intended to show how a few simple changes overtop of the existing website could help make it easier to use. Blurry images have nothing to do with metrics, business acumen, or sales experience. If this helped push them towards making their website easier to use in any way, then I'm happy.
I feel awful for any designer who has to deal with Dilbertian management and bureaucracy, and I agree with the previous commenter - our frustration should have been primarily directed at the management team at either company. That still doesn't change the fact that there are designers responsible for crafting the pixels, and the pixels show a general lack of care. This might be due to the culture of the company, poor direction, or a myriad of other factors, but it doesn't make the work itself any less sloppy.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a brash 23-year-old, but I'd rather say something and risk looking like an asshole than continue to patronize a company that doesn't care about their customer experience.
-Andrew
I appreciate what you're saying here, but I think you're mischaracterizing the point of both of our articles. Neither of us proposed our mockups as comprehensive redesigns or attempted to address anything past the basic visuals. I wanted to buy shoes, and I found it to be a really frustrating experience, so I said something.
If the door to a retail store is hard to open and you complain about it, does it make you an arrogant prick for failing to think through all the potential reasons for the problem? Maybe the company handyman only comes every two weeks. Maybe there's a mountain of paperwork required before any repairs can be made. Maybe the staff needs approval from management. Does that make your frustration with the door situation any less relevant? It definitely makes you empathize with the staff, and speaks volumes about the company's ineffective management, but that doesn't change the fact that the door is really hard to open, and this is a problem for you as well as other customers. Understanding the context is important, but it doesn't make our critiques any less relevant.
You argue that, "it’s easy to 'design' when you’re unencumbered by things like metrics, creative direction, business acumen, sales experience, actual functionality". Of course, but think about all the companies that manage to get it right. Huge, lumbering corporations like Amazon, JetBlue, and Virgin all manage to pull off great user experience despite facing the same challenges. Why shouldn't Zappos and American Airlines be held to the same standard?
I found the Zappos website insanely frustrating to use, so I spent an evening identifying some of the problems I spotted and added a mockup to clarify. Yes, I was a little inflammatory, but the overarching message was a positive one. I wasn't trying to tell them how to sell shoes or reinvent their business - my article was intended to show how a few simple changes overtop of the existing website could help make it easier to use. Blurry images have nothing to do with metrics, business acumen, or sales experience. If this helped push them towards making their website easier to use in any way, then I'm happy.
I feel awful for any designer who has to deal with Dilbertian management and bureaucracy, and I agree with the previous commenter - our frustration should have been primarily directed at the management team at either company. That still doesn't change the fact that there are designers responsible for crafting the pixels, and the pixels show a general lack of care. This might be due to the culture of the company, poor direction, or a myriad of other factors, but it doesn't make the work itself any less sloppy.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a brash 23-year-old, but I'd rather say something and risk looking like an asshole than continue to patronize a company that doesn't care about their customer experience.
-Andrew
All this for what basically amounts to the flickr homepage flipped horizontally and an extra text box added? Dustin Curtis doesn't seem very creative to me.
Mr. X got fired because Dustin published his email.
What reasonable man could publish somebody's email in which author bitches about his corporate workplace and expect not to get him fired by this?
Corporations perceive them selves as saint. If anyone complains about the smell in their cathedral he gets kicked out. You can probably get away with such offense if you are customer but never if you are employee.
Another question is: Is money worth so much to justify visiting such smelly place daily?
What reasonable man could publish somebody's email in which author bitches about his corporate workplace and expect not to get him fired by this?
Corporations perceive them selves as saint. If anyone complains about the smell in their cathedral he gets kicked out. You can probably get away with such offense if you are customer but never if you are employee.
Another question is: Is money worth so much to justify visiting such smelly place daily?
This article is outright stupid.
Let's say for a second that Dustin really is a ridiculously ignorant designer (he's not) - who gives a crap? He's a customer who is really displeased not only with the AA website but with the total experience. And the majority of the comments on the other submissions were about how even people here hated the company, before you found out about the firing of Mr. X.
Ignorant, fine. Harsh, fine. You guys are getting caught up in criticizing Dustin because it's the easiest thing to do. It's weird how all you anti bigco people are so riled up in the way someone expressed their poor customer experience and overlooking the fact that AA fired an employee trying to reach out. I know it violated the contract, whatever, but that just shows us where AA's mind is. Mr. X didn't say anything that made me look down upon AA. We know big companies run slowly, that's a constant. I doubt there's one person out there who read Mr. X's statement and learned something uniquely bad about AA that they didn't know of before. If anything, it made them look more humane.
You're right though, a 21 year old's ignorance is the real issue here. Forget widespread displeasure with AA, or the fact that they fired an employee for personally reaching out to a customer that else wouldn't have been reached out to, it's the arrogance that really kills you.
Let's say for a second that Dustin really is a ridiculously ignorant designer (he's not) - who gives a crap? He's a customer who is really displeased not only with the AA website but with the total experience. And the majority of the comments on the other submissions were about how even people here hated the company, before you found out about the firing of Mr. X.
Ignorant, fine. Harsh, fine. You guys are getting caught up in criticizing Dustin because it's the easiest thing to do. It's weird how all you anti bigco people are so riled up in the way someone expressed their poor customer experience and overlooking the fact that AA fired an employee trying to reach out. I know it violated the contract, whatever, but that just shows us where AA's mind is. Mr. X didn't say anything that made me look down upon AA. We know big companies run slowly, that's a constant. I doubt there's one person out there who read Mr. X's statement and learned something uniquely bad about AA that they didn't know of before. If anything, it made them look more humane.
You're right though, a 21 year old's ignorance is the real issue here. Forget widespread displeasure with AA, or the fact that they fired an employee for personally reaching out to a customer that else wouldn't have been reached out to, it's the arrogance that really kills you.
Oy, Kyro. Usually I side with what you've got to say but this time I think you're in the wrong.
> Let's say for a second that Dustin really is a ridiculously ignorant designer (he's not)
He is in that he's never worked for a major company in a design position.
> He's a customer who is really displeased not only with the AA website but with the total experience.
I've had to deal with customers before. I've had customers tell me to fire everybody in a movie theatre for incompetence. Usually we pretend like we care in front of them, then roll our eyes once they're gone.
> And the majority of the comments on the other submissions were about how even people here hated the company, before you found out about the firing of Mr. X.
There was just as much criticism before. The summary of mass opinion is: We hate American Airlines and their design, but the issue has been oversimplified here.
> I know it violated the contract, whatever, but that just shows us where AA's mind is. Mr. X didn't say anything that made me look down upon AA.
The deal is when you sign an agreement, you follow it. What if Mr. X had been an Apple employee leaking a new product? That's what he did here. Perhaps not as severely, but it's the same corporate crime. And his response let Dustin write a second article bashing people at American Airlines, so it invited even more bad PR.
> If anything, it made them look more humane.
Mr. X was paid to design web sites. AA has other people who're meant to make them look humane. Right now they're sucking, but it's sound in theory because it lets everybody know what they're supposed to do. It works well for other companies. AA is bad, but they won't fix the problem by growing laxer.
> Let's say for a second that Dustin really is a ridiculously ignorant designer (he's not)
He is in that he's never worked for a major company in a design position.
> He's a customer who is really displeased not only with the AA website but with the total experience.
I've had to deal with customers before. I've had customers tell me to fire everybody in a movie theatre for incompetence. Usually we pretend like we care in front of them, then roll our eyes once they're gone.
> And the majority of the comments on the other submissions were about how even people here hated the company, before you found out about the firing of Mr. X.
There was just as much criticism before. The summary of mass opinion is: We hate American Airlines and their design, but the issue has been oversimplified here.
> I know it violated the contract, whatever, but that just shows us where AA's mind is. Mr. X didn't say anything that made me look down upon AA.
The deal is when you sign an agreement, you follow it. What if Mr. X had been an Apple employee leaking a new product? That's what he did here. Perhaps not as severely, but it's the same corporate crime. And his response let Dustin write a second article bashing people at American Airlines, so it invited even more bad PR.
> If anything, it made them look more humane.
Mr. X was paid to design web sites. AA has other people who're meant to make them look humane. Right now they're sucking, but it's sound in theory because it lets everybody know what they're supposed to do. It works well for other companies. AA is bad, but they won't fix the problem by growing laxer.
I like his website, but his hubris is monstrous. Anyone can crank out a clean design in a few hours when they're working with no specs, business goals, market research, investors or actual customers to answer to. (I liked his AA.com design, but it was one page deep and dumped critical parts of the original's site map.) As for the guy getting canned and the faux 'net outrage, gimme a break. He should've known better. Fortune 500 companies that employ tens of thousands of people aren't known for deviating from policies as basic as you keep your mouth shut about the inner workings of the company in a published public forum.