An irreverent exploration of the neurological divide between those who develop and those who design, with practical advice on how to get along better. Starting with a survey we conducted on stereotypes designers and developers have of one another, I look into the neurological reasons why this might be and how we might work around it.

1. AVOIDING A COSTLY DIVORCE
Improving relationships between designers and developers

2. Meet face to faceACCEPT DIFFERENCES
WHAT WE’LL COVER
1. Differences between developers and designers
2. Differences of perspective
3. Difficulties in communication
4.How to overcome these

4. DEVELOPERDESIGNER

5. PRECIOUS
CREATIVE
IMPULSIVE
ARTY PERFECTIONIST
TRENDY EXPERIMENTAL
VISUAL THINKERS
ILLOGICAL
SCARVES WEED

6. PARTICULAR
MATHEMATICAL
STUBBORN
ALOOF DIFFICULT
BAD COMMUNICATORS
LONELY ISOLATED
OVERWORKED
LOGICAL
ANALYTICAL INFLEXIBLE

8. Meet face to faceACCEPT DIFFERENCES
DESIGNERS AND
DEVELOPERS ARE
DIFFERENT

9. 80%
Of creatives in her
study suffered from
mood disorders
30%
Of the control
group did
Dr Nancy Andreasen

10. INVENTOR“INVENTOR” BRAINS

11. CONTROL GROUP
Secrets of the creative brain
Nancy C. Andreasen, 2014

12. CONTROL GROUP
Secrets of the creative brain
Nancy C. Andreasen, 2014
Association cortices

13. Secrets of the creative brain
Nancy C. Andreasen, 2014
Association cortices
“INVENTOR” BRAINS

14. Precuneus
INVENTOR BRAINS
Drawing on the right side of the brain:
A voxel-based morphometry analysis
of observational drawing
Chamberlain et al, 2014
Creatives have more grey matter

15. Precuneus
INVENTOR BRAINS
Drawing on the right side of the brain:
A voxel-based morphometry analysis
of observational drawing
Chamberlain et al, 2014
Creatives have more grey matter

16. "This region is involved in a range of
functions but potentially in things that
could be linked to creativity, like visual
imagery - being able to manipulate visual
images in your brain, combine them and
deconstruct them,"
Dr Rebecca Chamberlain

17. INVENTOR“ENGINEER” BRAINS

18. Engineers

19. Middle frontal gyrus
Attention
Division of attention
Language
Silent word reading
Working memory
Problem solving
Value retention
Engineers
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

20. Inferior frontal gyrus
Working memory
Verbal / numeric
Engineers
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

21. Inferior frontal gyrus
Language
Silent word reading
Working memory
Problem solving
Engineers
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

22. Inferior parietal lobule
Working memory
Verbal / numeric
Problem solving
Engineers
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

23. Middle temporal gyrus
Semantic memory retrieval
Categorisation
Engineers
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

24. “ENGINEER” BRAINS
Attention
Division of attention
Language
Silent word reading
Working memory
Problem solving
Value retention
Verbal / numeric
Semantic memory retrieval
Categorisation
Understanding understanding source code with
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Siegmund et al, 2014

25. INVENTORS ENGINEERS

26. PARTICULAR
MATHEMATICAL
STUBBORN
ALOOF DIFFICULT
BAD COMMUNICATORS
LONELY ISOLATED
OVERWORKED
LOGICAL
ANALYTICAL INFLEXIBLEPRECIOUS
CREATIVE
IMPULSIVE
ARTY PERFECTIONIST
TRENDY EXPERIMENTAL
VISUAL THINKERS
SCARVES WEED
ILLOGICAL

28. Meet face to face
COMMUNICATION
IS OFTEN DIFFICULT

32. “By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms,
you save much mental effort, at the cost of
leaving your meaning vague, not only for your
reader but for yourself.
This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The
sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual
image. When these images clash… it can be taken
as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental
image of the objects he is naming; in other words
he is not really thinking.”
GEORGE ORWELL
POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

33. “When you open that Pandora's box,
you will find it full of Trojan horses”
ERNEST BEVIN
LABOUR FOREIGN SECRETARY

34. “SIMPLE”

36. How much
money you have

37. How much your
money has
increased

38. Your goal

39. Are you going to
meet your goal

40. How long you’ve
got to reach it

42. UI is simple and
intuitive, shows the
minimum information
useful to the user

43. Each figure will take up to
3 calls to different legacy
systems and /or 3rd party
services to calculate

44. Each figure will take up to
3 calls to different legacy
systems and /or 3rd party
services to calculate
Would take over 20
seconds to generate the
page.

45. Has Y user seen
this message
before?

46. Retrieve value
for Y user

47. Calculate exact value
of pension fund at X
point in time for Y
user

48. Calculate current
value vs historic
value at X date for Y
user

49. Calculate months
left until user
defined retirement
date

50. Project future values of pension
fund based on user Y’s desired
retirement date using multiple
3rd party services

51. Design Team
Developers

52. MEET FACE TO FACE
& USE DIAGRAMS!

53. THE FIRST “DIAGRAMS”
c.80,000 years ago

54. THE FIRST “DIAGRAMS”
c.80,000 years ago

55. Meeting place Paths between
camps
Stream between
waterholes
ABORIGONAL PICTOGRAMS
c.40,000 BCE? - present

60. USE DIAGRAMS
UNDERSTANDING

63. Meet face to faceACCEPT DIFFERENCES
1. Go to lunch, have a pint
2. Discuss your mutual constraints and concerns
3. Explain why you something isn’t possible
4.Help people see things from your point of view
5. Be open to having your mind changed
6. Look for new possibilites
STRENGHENING TIES

64. TYRANNY OF DESIGN

65. DESPOTISM OF DEVELOPERS

68. “We don't live in a shared reality, we each live
in a reality of our own, and causing upset is
often the price of trying to reach each other.
It's always easier to dismiss other people than
to go through the awkward and time
consuming process of understanding them.”

69. “We don't live in a shared reality, we each live
in a reality of our own, and causing upset is
often the price of trying to reach each other.
It's always easier to dismiss other people than
to go through the awkward and time
consuming process of understanding them.”

71. fin
@fluentux
@djamiestanton