This is pretty silly; all designers should be good designers, but most specialise in different mediums e.g. you usually wouldn't hire a print designer for the web, or a web designer for an iPhone app as they don't understand the HIG.
I think the point of the post is that good designers should be generalists. A good designer would read (or re-read) the iOS HIG in order to have a good idea of the platform's guidelines before beginning work.
If that is what the author is trying to say, then I think they are stating the blindingly obvious. Hire people who understand the fundamentals - that goes for every single job and is a given.
"There is nothing special about the web that makes it more or less challenging than designing on an iPad. They are just different."
Differences are exactly what makes something special. Specialists are those people who have in-depth knowledge of the differences and know how to make use of them ... and know how to make use of those differences now, not after they experiment and figure things out from first principles.
So advertising for an OSX designer, or an Android designer is a sound decision. I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins (unix is unix as the cliche goes) ... but I won't - Linux admins may know the fundamentals of unix, but I want people who really understand Solaris and how to get the most out of it. And I don't want to wait whilst a Linux sysadmin learns the differences between them.
To be a little critical of the author, it doesn't sound like he has much experience as a designer - the blog post sounds like something written by someone who doesn't know what he doesn't know. Isn't the saying that the 'devil is in the details' (or differences) ... I would have thought that a good designer would understand that and never argue that all you need is generalist knowledge.
"I've run a team of Solaris sysadmins and yes I could have hired Linux sysadmins…"
Now you're comparing system administration to design - this doesn't really work. Technical skills like this don't translate well, and I never claimed they do.
The post is about UI and interaction design and those principles are the same across all platforms. Design patterns for a specific device, operating system, or medium (e.g. the browser) are not something you need to be a specialist to learn, analyze, or pick up - you need to understand the fundamentals of design.
Early iPhone designers who built great apps had spent much of their careers designing on the web. They had to learn and come up with new design patterns, but since they were good, it was well within their skill set.
Technical skills like this don't translate well ..."
Heheh I knew I should never have used an analogy, there is always something that won't quite hold true to the point you are trying to make :) The main point I'm trying to make is I believe in any field, the details are always important and things like patterns are shortcuts to speed up a process, but they aren't a fix-all for whatever problem you are trying to solve.
If you compare the best iphone apps today to the best iphone apps from the start, I think most people would argue that today's apps are far slicker and easier to use. Why is that? it's because people have built on previous experience of what worked and what didn't. Experience matters, understanding the differences matters, specialist knowledge matters and it's why advertising for a specific type of designer matters.
I will agree with you that a good designer can, with enough time, achieve the same results as a 'specialist' designer - but that's the whole reason people advertise for a specific skillset, they don't want to wait.
I think what he is trying to say is that you should get designers who aren't tied down into a niche part of design, as this would often indicate that they aren't really designers but merely people who use photoshop and happen to make their money doing Wordpress design or Shopify design etc.
What I think he is missing and why I think he is basically giving bad advice is that sometimes you have to label yourself in such a way that you minimize friction from a getting hired point of view.
Many clients believe that there is a difference between a good Wordpress designer and a good iPhone designer, but obviously the truth is that if they are anything worth they don't care what they have to design for.
Design is not simply how it looks but as much how it works.
Blanket statements kill me. Yes you should hire a good designer. But you should attempt to target a niche when it makes sense.
If I am making an iPhone app I'd like a designer who has experience with it. So it is the difference between "I want a designer with OS X experience" and "I want a OSX Designer". Aren't they almost one and the same?
What Ben is getting at is that a truly good designer is a person who has little aversion to what medium they're working on. Additionally, I think he's also coded in a bit of a slant toward most of the businesses out there that are hiring who only associate design with certain products or languages. An honest mistake, sure, especially for those who don't know about design.
But we're beginning to enter an era where if you run a business and your adement about having a well-designed product, then you should be willing to take the time to develop a cursory knowledge of the industry. Be able to differentiate between buzzwords and the all-too-familiar "insert development platform here" designer. Although his argument is a bit understated, Ben's point is clear: don't waste time with people who aren't absolutely head-over-heels about design. They cost more and sometimes require more resources, but the return on that investment will surprise most people. Even if they don't believe it, people respond to good design.
Design is NOT about the way things look or for that matter even work. Design is about that inherent way of thinking that makes you question, understand and then perform actions. So yes, if you are actually good with graphic design at a fundamental level, you are also good with web or iOS or any other new screen devices where elements need to be arranged and form a visual relation.
If there is any one designer who says they are good with mobile design and not web or vice versa, beware, either the person does not their own potential or does not get design.
Designing for any medium has their own constraints and designing for that medium is designing within those constraints.
Well, a big part of rocket-ship design is actually engineering, so that is quite different :)
I think if one can design a user interface for Android, there should be a reasonable overlap with the skills required to design a user interface for iPhone :)
There are also specifics to other types of design.
Web: sRGB, design with technology in mind (grid systems and other), different views on the same design (mobile, monitor resolution), things that are consistent across browsers.
Mobile apps: platform convention, touch oriented.
I suppose print takes the cake in terms of annoying details, however.
