Ask HN: Am I Crazy/ Unreasonable?
Situation: We built the initial software with tailwindUI (with the standard colors and styles) that everyone was happy with except it being a bit too generic to keep without modifications for a larger launch. When the CEO and BizDev Team kicked off the visual redesign with an external design agency I told them that i want to be involved in the design process and that the product should not feature the company brand color that i utterly hate, but was thus far nowhere featured except the company website. After all i am now not just CTO but also largely responsible for Product that i have to live and breathe for it to be the best it can be and I feel it to be kind of my baby for all the reasons stated above. When the meeting took place that i expected to be a presentation of a few concepts and directions to be discussed with the design agency, instead they presented only one nearly final redesign that i hated beyond words and also included colors that trigger me. When i asked why i was not involved as agreed, they said they wanted to keep me from investing time outside building features. Since then i have been trying for 6 months to initiate a change to the design by every means from giving neutral feedback to begging to throwing a public fit with no results except being ignored and at this point not being taken seriously anymore. No one understands the energy it costs me to have to see colors that trigger my disgust response or even that someone feels passionate at all about a UI design. No one wants to even consider a compromise i offered to just minimally change the two colors that trigger me and avoiding two shapes that i hate most. They completely change their story depending on my arguments. When i threaten to leave without a redesign they say that i know the company would be dead the minute i walk away and i have to stay to save my shares and invested time. If i say i should be heard for my role they change the story and say i cannot expect a veto on design with my lousy 10% shares and downplay my importance by making it sound like i am a random developer who could be easily replaced and just has ego problems. As i lead the dev team i can refuse to implement the design parts in question which creates tensions but was so far also ignored by everyone. The problem is that i am running out of energy as i am confronted everyday with aspects of the design in figma and other tools where they put colors as backgrounds or profile pictures etc. Of course i know i am extreme but i tried explaining this is similar to forcing a colleague with a dog allergy to sit next to a an office dog.
Question: Am i crazy for being this upset and hurt? Even ignoring my hypersensitivity i would have expected that given my role in the company my feedback to a redesign would be heard and that at least something i hate would be avoided, yet alone they would try creating something i like too. Bonus question: How would you react in this situation?
44 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] threadIt's okay to disagree, but once the decision is made, you move on. You throwing a public fit is unbecoming of a CTO and would shake any confidence I had in you as a leader.
If everyone else is in agreement, and you're the only dissenter, you are the problem, not them.
Drop the issue and move on. If it's really as bad as you think, it can be changed later. Otherwise just accept that you're wrong.
Other post already mentioned this but is there some leeway here? (e.g. if it's bright pink can you work with the folks involved in this process to make it slightly more subdued, for instance). And what is the hex code(s)? I'd imagine the color scheme would have to be extremely hideous for it to be this trigger to me, personally.
there seems to be no leeway i just asked for minimal changes as a compromise, also the hex codes are here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29916162
I know you hate them, probably as much as I hated working for an ad tech company, maybe more, but design is not your forte and if the remaining stakeholders trust the design you need to accept that,
You have done your diligence and voiced your concerns and if you can't accept their decision you should step away while retaining as much of your equity as possible.
From an alternate perspective, what would your response be if the head of HR told you that you can't use python because they hate snakes? I'm assuming you would reject that (as would I) even if the head of HR had a 10% stake. It is not a decision they have been hired to make. Just like apparently colors and shapes are not the decisions you were hired to make.
How would I react?
I would tell them their pea soup greens, browns and their "organic splotches" remind me of explosive diarrhea and I'm probably not the only one. Then I would get to coding the best damn SAAS I could. When user stories/feedback comes in that vindicate me I will sit with a smug look on my face in the senior staff meetings knowing everyone remembers I was right :-P
> When user stories/feedback comes in that vindicate me
You seemed to have missed the issue at hand. OP doesn't think the design is bad for the business. They just don't want to look at it. That's not a matter of trust or vindication.
Your hypersensitivity isn’t normal, but you already know that. Given you are now dealing with something very painful to you and you aren’t getting anywhere, it’s not crazy that you’re upset and hurt.
> Even ignoring my hypersensitivity i would have expected that given my role in the company my feedback to a redesign would be heard and that at least something i hate would be avoided
From everything you’ve described, I’d be absolutely shocked if that happened.
> How would you react in this situation?
Hard to say. If I was in exactly your situation then I’d be you and do what you’re doing. If I was more like me and faced the issues you face, I’m not sure what I’d do. You’re going to have a hard time at most jobs where you have no control over the colors of most software you look at. Maybe use accessibility settings on your monitor to do something like black and white or muted colors? Maybe I’d found a company or be a contractor for more control. If it was something different but with the same results (I hate something then getting treated the way you described) I’d definitely walk. I can’t stand the dynamic you’re talking about.
I don't think it's obvious they're happy with the job at all. They've said nothing positive about their cofounders. Really the only positive thing at all is that this current product "seems like it will take off" which isn't exactly a slam dunk. It seems like a pretty bad experience to think you're totally responsible for a product and have a redesign done behind your back.
Also note that you do only have 10%. I.e. they can let you go at any time / with or without cause (regardless of your efforts).
I say may since I don't know that would work for mobile or native apps, or maybe you're having to look at other people's computers through screen sharing or whatever. I don't know what to tell you in that case.
Credibility: you're a technical founder, not a designer. Why would they listen to you?
Leverage: you do not have decision-making power on this point. The other people do not feel their position is at all threatened by your disagreement with their choice, otherwise they would not be handling this situation as they are.
Data: there's no data to support your belief; it's entirely subjective. This isn't like a technical decision where you can discuss tradeoffs like performance metrics. You could try to get data by getting user feedback, but given (1) and (2) I don't think it'd be worth it.
I think your best option right now is to realize your value to the company is not on the design side. If that's something you want to be involved in, then you need to build that credibility gradually (and be able to provide better feedback than simply "it disgusts me").
What belief? OP just hates looking at the colors. They've been very clear about that.
I liked the guy -- but everyone started ignoring him and then actively excluding him from all the business processes. Not inviting him to important meetings.
Eventually he got assigned a new project that was shortly "canceled" after and he was let go as being "redundent".
Fortunately, he got 6 months salary for leaving-- and time to find another job -- so I'd say it ended ok in that case.
Our CTO is crazy about green, like it's everywhere in our SaaS app.
I setup some env vars so I can swap out some colors to something more palette-able for me when the env is local.
This could be an option for you in local dev and even staging.
I doubt many co-workers are going to understand your aversion.
For me, these situations were resolved by moving on and/or changing some aspects of my life.
Not saying this necessarily applies to you; just something to consider.
1. With all respect to your experience being triggered, etc, your experience has nothing to do with the experience of most of your users whom you would acknowledge will likely not share that experience. The personal sensitivities of staff really is not what any business in its right mind solves for.
I won't say you are crazy, your experience is what it is, but the painful truth is that your personal experience is irrelevant to the business. It's really important- also painful- to see that. I'm sorry.
2. Your personal experience is relevant to your relationships in and outside the business, but only insofar as you nurture those relationships and that they are healthy ones for you. It sounds like they are not, and on top of that you are in a position of psychic debt from a relationship perspective to your perception of your ownership stake, which is probably a misperception.
3. Your ownership stake is a mirage. Numbers written on paper are worth nothing in early stages, they are strawperson framings of stakes that serve the purposes of the parties really driving the bus and will be changed in the blink of an eye (by dilution, etc) if it starts to matter.
It is SUPER SUPER important to understand that, and to transition your thinking to a mode where you have zero stake, that if you want this business to succeed that you are going to earn your stake, and the only way to earn your stake is to (re)build relationships with key people and to deliver results that matter to the business, not to you personally. Very likely this is a non starter for you.
4. The short painful version is that it very much sounds like you are in deep emotional debt and this colors everything.
No one is forcing someone with a dog allergy to sit next to a dog. They just aren't. If someone has a dog allergy, they can't work in a pet store. That's fine because there are lots of other jobs. Same here. No one is forcing you to work for this business. You can leave tomorrow and in practice you would lose nothing, because early stakes are on balance worth nothing.
You definitely think you can't leave- this is on you. The MOST IMPORTANT thing is to you to get out of emotional debt and get back to a place where you can bring your strengths, and not your weaknesses, to your work.
If you were in an emotionally strong place with strong relationships you COULD leave tomorrow and find people who respected your sensitivities and who valued your understanding of the market and then that might be something.
My advice is to make emotional health your goal.
Best wishes, from someone who has been there, multiple times.
feel free to compare: green: #00FF96 (i hate, looks to me like a mixture of soulless startup color, poison and dentist) -> #33FF8C (acceptable)
blue #3200FF (i hate, gives me the feeling of not being able to focus my eyes and being a generic placeholder color, soulless) -> #0B06FF (acceptable)
If you're indeed "the product guy" on the team I don't understand how your opinion can be so overtly overruled and devalued. I'd be truly steamed.
In any case, looking at it from a problem solving pov (and assuming this is a web app), why don't you use custom css to your liking?
This is a power play and they've been calling your bluff for the last six months. You keep asking for their permission and they have no respect for you.
So, the question is - what leverage do you have? Can you make it more painful for them than for you?
Is this actually about the colors, or is it really about you needing to have control and be heard?
As a number of people have pointed out, you can fix the color problem with some configuration options, or introducing themes. That could actually improve the product too, "dark mode" is all the rage these days, etc.
Your situation seems to boil down to a few questionable assumptions:
* everyone needs to be using and seeing the same colors
* you need to have some control, input, or veto power over what those colors are
That's not a good way to operate. What would you do if someone else with your same level of sensitivity to colors and shapes joined the team, only they were triggered by your favorite colors, and insisted on switching to the colors that trigger you?
You likely have a need to be heard, which is completely and utterly valid. Your sensitivity, as you call it, is likely a sign that your deeply valid need to be heard is not being met.
You likely also have a need to be creative, which is manifesting in your desire to work on design, which is also deeply valid.
You likely also have a need to be treated as if you are competent, which you are and is deeply valid.
Other needs you may have -- appreciation, belonging, cooperation, communication, empathy, mutuality, respect, trust, authenticity... and many others. Most of us deeply struggle to get these needs met, in spite of them being valid and it probably being possible a lot more often than we think.
In NVC, non-violent communication, there is the concept that _needs are never in conflict, but strategies are_.
You have a strategy for meeting your needs. It sounds like your current strategy for meeting your needs as a human being are to (a) work with this team and (b) communicate with this team in the ways you have been communication. You are understandably getting upset that your needs are not being met -- both with yourself and the team.
The work you need to do to be happy is to take a step back and ask yourself your needs which. Here is a great list of needs -- https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory. Remember that all your needs are valid.
From there, you need to think about what strategies you are using, whether they work and, if your strategies aren't working, which strategies you can use to get your needs met. That you can use to _actually_ get them met, because they are not being met right now. That might mean quitting the team you are on; or it could mean staying, but changing the way you communicate your needs. Again, without question, one of the things you need to do is _accept that your needs are valid and stop questioning them_, though you likely need to reconsider your strategy.
Good luck.
Maybe there's a better way to explain what's wrong with the design. Don't just say "I hate it because my ADHD and that's it," explain how the design makes the product worse (if it actually does) or what is wrong with it.
I don't understand how there could even be a shape so ugly that it's worth throwing a fit over. Even if it was something really stupid like a calculator app where all the buttons were shaped like starfish, couldn't you just suck it up and make an ugly UI?
You cannot expect domain experts to change things on the product just because of your subjective reaction. Your options are either:
* Present some empirical data that backs up your argument (eg usability studies, publicly available literature)
or
* Accept that you are not a ui expert and live with it.
Think about it from their perspective, the CEO and business has invested effort/money into making a decision, a decision that is not generally in your purview (design). In almost all situations, even if the CTO vetoes a design decision made by CEO, the CEO should have final say. Generally, ignoring your hypersensitivity, you cannot be upset when CEO or other teams make non-tech decisions you disagree with.
Problem here is that the design impacts your work and output, which does have a business consequence. It is a business cost/risk that they did not factor into the decision. You should frame it this way, not because you have 10% and demand input in the decision because of this, this will cause your colleagues to lose trust in you. They will be worried if this issues come up when they make a non-tech decision.
Separately, them not including in the design process may be a cause for concern. Is it simply that they forgot to invite you to meetings and cc you on emails? Or did they leave you out on purpose? I don't know the situation, it really could be innocent/innocous.
No. If I had your sensory sensitivity I’m sure I would react similarly.
> Am I unreasonable?
Yes. In good companies, products are not designed with the CTOs personal color preferences in mind. Yes, even when those preferences are diagnosably strong.
You have three solutions: 1) Fight. Be warned, I suspect you will both lose the battle and alienate coworkers in the process. 2) Leave. 3) Develop coping mechanisms.
You should obviously do 3, even if you also do 1 or 2.
My 2c: If I were you I would seek professional help. I have a relative who had sound and tactile sensitivity as a child and a therapist was very helpful. If this is causing you so much distress, why not try and improve your ability to manage? What do you have to lose?
Being ignored overall is not a good sign - I would demand clarification of roles & responsibilities.
It may be harsh of me to say but IMO you should leave ASAP. Walk. Line up some work for your people, if they are with you still. You lost and it is unlikely your situation will improve at the leadership level.
Also, stop framing it as them being right/wrong vs. you being sane/crazy. That is a false dichotomy and largely irrelevant to the mechanics at play.