Spectrum Tokyo Meetup #04
Designer’s and Engineer’s
Thinking Styles
@ninjinkun
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@ninjinkun
• Senior Software Engineer at Launchable, Inc.
• Enterprise SaaS startup in the US
• Frontend Engineering and UI Design
• 75% Engineer, 25% UI Designer
Designer
25%
Engineer
75%
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A typical conflict on development
🙅
🙋
Can you change these button to separate colors?
No, because they are the same component
Designer
Engineer
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Designers: Top down thinking
• Responsible for user experience
• Design starts with empathy for users
• Focus: Managing users’ perceptions/
emotions/thoughts
User’s life
Button
Web page
User’s behavior
…
User’s goal
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Engineers: Bottom up thinking
• Responsible for building and maintenance
• Computer science is built on building blocks
• Focus: Managing code/system complexity HTML/CSS/JS
CPU
Button
OS
Web Browser
Compiler
…
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We need both!
• Designers + Bottom up: To reduce complexity
• Engineers + Top down: To improve usability
🤝