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You cannot technically explain yourself out of UX issues, please stop trying. So often I see users bring up UX issues, and programmers then tell them how much work it was to create their product. It doesn't matter how much work it was!! What matters is if your target audience uses it or not.

When a user says: "This is hard to use" your reply should never be "It took me 3 months to build that because library A and library B are so tough to use for reason X and reason Y" It doesn't matter that it's hard. That's the work! That's the effort!! Instead: Listen, and look at what can be done.

This needs framing and putting on the wall of every tech company. 😅

I was in a startup accelerator once, and they had this convoluted system for booking the conference room. As we were all on site, I sent a group email asking if we could use a paper calendar instead. The guy who coded the system came over and shouted at me about how much time he'd spent building it.

There is also an inverse scenario to this; where engineers massively overestimate amount of time it takes to do something (because of confidence? laziness? lack of resources?) but it barely takes any time at all to do when someone attempts it. Im sure Robin has a name for that :D

I especially get annoyed at this in game development and linux-like communities. Both are extremely technically difficult, and it's good to share those conversations with each other as we're building. But to users it's the opposite of helpful. You cannot technically explain away UX issues.

You have to face the reality that sometimes you have worked inefficiently and built bad architecture. If you cannot easily resolve the UX issues that more than half of your userbase is asking about, then you have made mistakes in the work. Admit to that, and do better next time, that's iteration.

I try to write as neutrally as possible, but @joewintergreen.com captures what I have seen as the underlying vibe of many experienced designers, artists, and programmers when dealing with such a situation at work.