This part of your post I find to be in contradiction with the HN guidelines. It's not a helpful, it's merely snide and dismissive.

Anyway, I don't think my behaviour is crappy. It is undoubtedly better to run your design past someone, test things, take feedback, fix issues, and improve the interface to correspond with the things that people find difficult. If people want help with interface design, the world is not short of willing volunteers with the relevant expertise.

Especially considering I made it clear I was talking about utilities used by, and I quote myself, "regular, non-technical people" — they don't care whether you're making an "expression of vulnerability", they want their software to work. Additionally, the world of IT helpdesk does not applaud having to troubleshoot problems that should've been solved years ago because so-and-so decided to do everything by themselves rather than do some basic user testing or simply have someone else look at their design.

If something is in a testing state, call it a beta. I respect a product that knows it isn't ready for the big time and so is explicitly marked for improvement, either by collaboration with a designer at a later stage or community involvement — this is what happens a lot in open source.

However, don't put it into production, particularly if its design also leads to more problems overall for the users by virtue of its premature release.

I take the user-centric view of product design. We are making these things for other people. They are not going to give us trophies for participation.

I know the triangle of forces would have something to say about my statement, but I find too many developers purposefully build a wall around themselves and product design, perhaps using the aforementioned triangle as justification for why they should keep that wall erected.

Yet, even a passing attempt to understand the basics of design, whether of user interfaces or even of something as mundane as a chair, opens one's mind up to possibilities hitherto unseen due to failing to understand that there can be a strong link between aesthetics and function.