What makes UI development painful

UI development is a strange area, almost everyone loves it. Almost, everyone in the beginning. Then there are haters, almost everyone hates code developed by others. Then comes a new demographic, those how hate their own code. Why is it such a tumultuous relationship?

To understand this, we need to understand the relative frame of reference or the background perspective. Most developers don't work on UI for the most part of their time. They work of back-end solutions which require little user interaction. Like a automation which takes inputs once and then goes on its way. The results are not very apparent, until someone tests them. The defects once fixed are mostly fixed (subjective really, but assuming presence of a skilled person). There would be new defects but not the same ones and people perceive the end result in a boolean fashion (YES it works or NO).

UI on the other hand is an aesthetic, scientific and subjective dilemma.

Aesthetics!

Not the ones you perceive, whilst I agree that visual aesthetics are required, I am not speaking of them. What I mean to state is the design aesthetics, how easy it is for a complete stranger (who happens to be developer) to appreciate the classiness of code, ease of fixing and tweaking.

Scientific

kick me if you want, usability is a science, a cultural philosophy, a psychological undertaking. How many of us have read this, let alone understand? Added to this is the technical complexity, does my solution e platform support these features? do the requirement specs agree with this?

Subjective

This is slightly different from usability, as the usability definition covers the most part. I will relent if someone claims this needs to be grouped under usability, but it is my blog buddy. I call it subjective because of one question, When was the last time you were absolutely sure that your POV is same as that of the worlds. Not even mass media (cinema, popular literature, advts.) achieve this.

In the beginning, UI is all green and hunky-dory. I want a button/panel/widget/name it, I write and see it immediately. Wow from self, Wow from boss, Wow from stakeholders. Then comes the ugly monster, "Its all nice, now I need this and want this". Ok, a minor setback. Go back, jump into your RAMBO pants to save the world and achieve this. Not bad is it, repeat this 100 times. The testing team, the users, the changing requirements, the neighbourhood kid, grandma next door...God-dammit, stop! had enough. The world is insane, I quit. Then the boss says, dude what do I pay you for. Get it done. A big sigh.

Why so many questions? Simple, UI evolves and everyone perceives it. It is not taken for granted like back-end code. So where to start-off, Keep the following in mind.

1. Nothing is perfect, not even the solution architecture being used. Ever heard of leaky abstractions? Go google it


2. Design patterns are not meant to be read, but practiced


3. Learn, learn alot; read, read a lot; what ticks, what doesn't; how the technology works. Question everything. Try to mimic the ones you liked


4. People complain of minor annoyances, because repeated annoyances are irky. Annoyances force them to learn, A good UI is forgiving and robust, if they miss these they will complain. Ask any windows user who moved to MAC


5. Don't try to write smart code or quick fixes. You need to be twice as smart to debug it/fix it. Invest time. If you don't have time now, how will you spare it later on?

I will post about tricks that will save the day in later posts. Keep reading.