I'm wondering if this is from ESR's latest rant which I didn't read or if it's one of Spolsky's which I also didn't read...

"Most programmers don't have any aptitude for UI design whatsoever. "

The Big LaBelleski tends to agree with this statement, but that doesn't mean a group of programmers can't churn out a good UI if they put work in to it. The aptitude might not be there. But there are several algorithmic methods for deciding on and improving the "effectiveness" of a UI. For example, the cognitive walkthrough [1], and heuristic evaluation [2] provide an excellent method for programmers to determine if a UI is usable. Both of these metrics (and much of the in the UID field) are "task centered", implying the user has a specific task to complete. If a user is exploring an interface and not trying to do some specific thing, those metrics tend not to work. The conclusion is that programmers might not have aptitude, but (1) they need to put more work in to defining tasks and testing those tasks with standard methods and a wide variety of users and (2) there's no excuse for crummy interfaces, particularly in 'open' projects where users are supposed to be involved.

"no amount of practice or education is going to make them good at it. Improved, yes; good, no."

The effectiveness of a UID is a well-defined measure. Words like good, improved, aptitude are not. UIDs are quantitative classified, as opposed to art or writing. In practice, many good user-interfaces have been made by programmers and many crappy interfaces (certain Windows dialog boxes) have been made by expert designers. So I also tend to say "bullshit, bullshit, bullshit" when reading things like this.

If it is from ESR, I think he should shave his creepy moustache and try rewriting that rant after reading some UID literature.

[1] Task Centered User-Interface Design. A shareware book available at http://hcibib.org/tcuid/

[2] Nielsen, J. (1994). Heuristic evaluation. In Nielsen, J., and Mack, R.L. (Eds.), Usability Inspection Methods. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY. 

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<[[Brennen]]> It's actually from a response to [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html one of ESR's recent rants]. I went ahead and fleshed out my original post a bit. In retrospect, this is one of those arguments off on the periphery of my awareness that I wish I had refrained from commenting on.

I guess my real beef is with this whole idea that complex skillsets like writing and visual art and stuff are these neat little blackbox gimmicks that you either have or you don't, through some mystical process, instead of things that people actually learn how to do.