The conflict between the obscure ideas of designers and the clear, analytic thoughts brought forth from the brilliant brains of system developers (yes, I'm one of them :) creates a lot of conflicts. Some of them results in new, innovative products, most bring frustration and some bring both. Mostly they're good fuel to the well deserved taunting of the stupid designers.
The best I've run into so far, is the designer who asked me if some persons could get a shorter email alias, so that their addresses would fit on one line on the company's web page!
No, I am not joking, and I have not heard this from a friend. I was the developer.
How do you answer a question like that?
First I gave him a polite chance to rescue what was left of his integrity: "Tell me you're kidding!"
He didn't grab the life line, he took the bait: "No, I am not kidding!" And a smiley.
I needed more ammo: "I will not order new aliases if this is your best argument. Convince me."
He gave me arguments like "I hate to write long addresses", "We need to be easy to contact" and so on. Luckily for him there was actually an inconsistence in the company's email alias policy, so he got his aliases (most of them existed already).
The moral of the story
A designer doesn't bother to check his global address book to see if the aliases exists, but would rather make a fool of himself by showing his complete lack of perspective.
The moral of the moral
Developers might find the moral of the story a bit thin. Designers doesn't understand it, they can't consentrate as the paragraph text doesn't justify.
