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Transparent Ambition

(take.surf)
74 points goranmoomin | 1 comments | 21 Jun 25 23:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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pwg ◴[23 Jun 25 17:54 UTC] No.44358323[source]▶
> Apple's designers (and those of many other companies) come back to the idea of translucency giving order and imbuing personality. I cannot for the life of me understand where this idea comes from.

When the company employs designers on a permanent salaried basis, those designers must make changes in order to assure their continued employment. To do otherwise risks the bean counters in the accounting department asking the pointed question: "Why are we employing all these designers when they are not producing anything?". The result is that there must be change for the purpose of assuring the designers continued employment. Result: translucent designs no one wants, but that looked great in the powerpoint presentations used to assure the designers remained employed.

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1. tshaddox ◴[23 Jun 25 21:10 UTC] No.44360148[source]▶
The problem with this explanation is that it also requires multiple parties to be unaware of things which you seem to think are obvious or even self-evident:

1. The designers must be unaware that "no one wants" these new designs (or perhaps they're incapable of creating new designs that people do want).

2. The executives must be unaware that "no one wants" these new designs.

3. The executives must be unaware of the designers' plot to prevent themselves from being fired.