We are Hackers!!!

Today in the afternoon I had chance to go to computer event, where the most interesting conference was given by a man working at a enterprise dedicated to the design of websites. They pointed out lot of very interesting facts, and also gave me the opportunity to figure out others.

The man I'm talking about talked about how important the design of a website was. One of the most important things is how easy for an user results. Imagine a site that has a lot of information, and that that site has also a bad organization. Even having a huge amount of information, it's sure the site won't success, because for the user it can represent a bad experience.

He talked they analyse the site they are going to work on, and check for a lot of variables, such: information arrangement, design, they way the page behaves when a resize is done, etc.

Other interesting thing he pointed out was that it's possible to invest a lot of money in your site, but if for example, you don't let the user know the current url, you are wasting that money. Finally, that the marketing was a big aspect to be take care of, just as defining waht you want to do with your site.

We are just simple workers
Maybe the most important thing he mentioned -that is not part of the design of a site-, is that they only design the site, and then they hire somebody to do the work -this is, the coding-. However, he mentioned this in a way in which I could feel he talked about the coders/hackers as simple workers, who don't need to be well paid. What???????

But it is natural, because in Mexico there's no big advance in the computer area. I mean, we don't have big corporations yet, which helps the money-people to think we don't are that qualified people. Add the fact that lot of coders and hackers sell their work so cheap, because of the mexican economical status, and we have a really bad situation. The way in which the man talked about the hackers -almost as people who do bad design- helped me to understand it. Let's face it: the good hackers trend to be bad designers. But maybe that needs to change.

The importance of the design
The first important conclusion is that the design must be planned. Define your target, define who will use your software. Think about its needs. Thinks about the simpleness. Thinks about the colors. Think in everything you can. This will definitely help your product to achieve a bigger step in quality.

I just can about it following the Gnome project ideas: be as possible as you can, but not _that_ simple. You must have a usability guide, you must have in mind what your customers want.

Paste the money and the science
At least something in Mexico happens is that there is a big problem in the way the money is paid. It looks that the current politics of our president -Vicente Fox, who is part of the PAN political group, an extrem conservativ one- are the same we have had for lot of time: the richs get the more, and the poors the less. That's it all resume din that phrase.

The difference could be done by the people hiring and having corporations -even small ones-, who could give their workers a better salary. Guess what? almost NOBODY does it. Isn't it really bad?

I really think a good thing could be having a corporation -a computers related one- where you are also a coder/hacker and _know_ that your workers worth. You don't explode them, you get the money -the money you really need, not more, not less- and stop thinking that the informatic people must not be well paided.

For example, for the example of the corporation dedicated to the design of the sites, you could have in your same corp both the areas dedicated to design and dedicated to the coding. I'm pretty sure you will have a better way to optimize your designs with your coding areas. Isn't that a good idea?

Economical status?
I think that one of the results of our current economical system is this: everyone out there is thinking in how to gain more and more money. In a world where everything is money, you can't escape this trend. I whish that other economical system were possible -and not just a dream-. Maybe, and just maybe we could spend more time in other aspects of our live: social, human, arts.

But we are not, and the best we can do is compete.

Conclusion
Ok, maybe nothing that productive can be gotten from this -it takes so much time and studies-, but somebody could right now begin a corporation that designs precious sites and also codes them. You will have opportunities to give a better way of live to your workers -not just, maybe, the people who graduates from a private university-. As least in Mexico, that's the way the things work.