Does Plumbing Twitter* take itself as seriously as Design Twitter?
In my role as Head of UX for reecetech, I’ve spent much of the past 2.5 years learning everything I can about plumbing, HVAC, and related trades. Given everything going on in the world, much of that learning has been supplemented by following plumbers on various social platforms to get a glimpse into their day-to-day activities.
Inspired by a tweet from Chris Spalton, who asked whether Plumbing Twitter took itself as seriously as Design Twitter, I decided to take a quick dive into some of the similarities I see between Plumbing and UX Design — gleaned wholly from social media.
What is Design Twitter?
While there is no official “Design Twitter,” Design Twitter is the self-deprecating name for the space on Twitter where Designers of all philosophies “meet” to discuss design.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time immersed in Design Twitter will know it is a hotbed for robust discussion about all things design, and is often a lightning rod for airing out frustrations with the current state of design. And as Chris mentioned in his original tweet, Design Twitter has built a bit of a reputation for taking itself a little too seriously at times.
* If Plumbing Twitter exists, I’m yet to find it. I am though elbow deep in Plumbing Instagram and Plumbing Facebook.
If Plumbing Twitter exists, I’m yet to find it. I am though elbow deep in Plumbing Instagram and Plumbing Facebook. I’ve found social media to be an insightful, and at times eye-opening, way to learn more about plumbers, plumbing, and related fields — let’s call it secondary research.
So, if Designers online take themselves a little too seriously at times, what about Plumbers online? Here’s a few similarities I’ve seen between Plumbers and Designers online.
Unsolicited critiques
Design in the real world is a fine balancing act between creativity and constraint. The trade-offs, compromises, and business rationale for design decisions are rarely made public. As a result, unsolicited design critiques, tear-downs, and even redesigns are a staple of Design Twitter — and so too of Plumbing Social Media.
In the Plumbing space, plumbers will regularly post a photo of someone else’s handiwork, generally accompanied by a comment like “Must have been a last-thing Friday job”. For me, this is one of my favourite parts of Plumbing Social Media. To the untrained eye (AKA me), it is often impossible to discern exactly what is wrong in the images shared (although I’m getting better at this). Reading the critiques from other plumbers has taught me more about plumbing than I could ever have imagined.
Requests for critique
One of the main positives of Design Twitter is how generous many Designers are with their time, particularly when it comes to helping out Designers who are early in their career. With some regularity, emerging Designers will share their work and ask for feedback from folks with a little more experience.
I’ve seen a similar pattern emerging in Plumbing forums and groups. Sometimes these requests come from folks who have just started out on their own after completing an apprenticeship, sometimes from more experienced folks who have stumbled onto a situation they’ve never seen before.
“Other than using an extension on the left bowl and below the connector, what were my options here?”
Old-school vs new-school debates
Nothing gets Design twitter more fired up than a debate arising from some new-fangled technique or tool that makes a designer’s job “easier than it should be” or “isn’t the way I’d do it”.
Similar debates occur in Plumbing circles, whether it be those who prefer one brand of Hot Water Unit over another, or those who prefer to hand-weld copper pipes vs those who prefer to use copper press fittings.
Lo-fi sketching
In design circles you’ll find a group of folks who are adamant a designer’s most important tool is pen and paper, and who regularly advocate for sketching and lo-fi wireframing as a key part of the design process. Other folks are much more comfortable using the tools at their disposal to skip this step and go straight to digital and hi-fi solutions.
Some of my favourite images from plumbing folk are the ones they share of the creative sketches they’ve done. Flashing design work is always interesting to see, while the range of materials used to write shopping lists on is also fun.
Plumbing social media isn’t for the faint hearted. I’ve seen more poo than I ever thought I’d see in my entire lifetime. During the last couple of years there’s been a little too much conspiracy theory-ism creeping into the useful stuff. And I’ve seen waaay too many photos and jokes about “Plumbers Cracks”.
Overall though, there’s quite a few similarities between the social media discourse of Designers and Plumbers — including a strong meme game (although Plumber’s memes tend to be a little more NSFW).
For anyone interested in getting their own glimpse of Plumbing Social Media, here’s a couple of interesting accounts you can follow:
https://www.instagram.com/heysistaplumbing/
https://www.instagram.com/vixen.plumbing/
https://www.instagram.com/plumber.ella/
https://www.instagram.com/mrsplumbermumma/
https://www.instagram.com/that.plumbing.chick/
https://www.instagram.com/thatbushroofer/
https://www.instagram.com/life_of_a_maintenance_plumber/
https://www.instagram.com/dave.the.plumber/
https://www.instagram.com/ctrplumbing/
and of course
https://www.instagram.com/reeceplumbing/
