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The 11th Principle of Good Design

blog.wells.ee

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Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#21

I disagree with the triviality of the 11th point. You'll note that in exactly none of Rams' original points does he tell how one is to go about designing. In fact, I could even go so far as to say "Good design doesn't tell you how to go about creating it." It's difficult, and it lends itself to many different processes and methods depending on the situation. It is not necessarily iterative, sometimes iterative design…

I completely agree. Wells's proposal also contradicts "Good design is thorough."

If a design is thorough and long lasting, then why would you need to iterate, much less "ship every day"? Sure, iteration might eventually lead to a good design, but the intervening designs by Rams's definition are not good.

The exception would be when each iteration is thorough and each successive iteration represents a new innovation (principal 1). But most iterative development is not a sequence of distinct innovations. It is a sequence of partial or tentative designs either because there is a business need to ship prior to arriving at a complete design or because the complete design hasn't yet been figured out.

Wells says that the design of physical things can't be updated often, if ever. He says, "This doesn’t work for software anymore." But perhaps that is the problem with much of the software we produce these days. Quantity (of updates, frequency of new features) supercedes quality (of both function and design).

Wells does not seem to quite get Rams.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#22
post #14

The “agency mindset” is also to blame. Once the project is ‘done’ the designer delivers assets and get paid. From then on, the startup can put them on retainer or hand off the project to the in-house designer – or the… engineers. This is an interesting point. Does the "agency mindset" really dictate that once a project is finished, it's finished? Even more, what's the difference between having an agency/designer on r…

I'll answer since I run an agency - note we're a design and dev shop and this is affects both sides of the coin. First I take a bit of umbrage at the term the "agency" mindset because it seems to indicate its our fault. Its more of the "agency relationship* mindset. Unfortunately despite that its a bit true. We generally are in the business of getting things done and out the door so we can go onto the next project. I…

Thanks for the response. I'm working toward building out an agency and your thoughts are really helpful in thinking about a solid approach.

I suppose I should have said that a good agency will be able to get a design to a point where it doesn't need to be iterated on but can be. It's certainly an important thing to acknowledge that getting a 100% perfect release is difficult with budget and time constraints.

A lot to think about.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#23

I'll just contrast two quotes from the article: - Good design is iterative - Vitsoe 606 Shelving system, designed in 1960 by Dieter Rams. They still make them today, and to the same spec.

The fact that the 1960 design is still used doesn't make it non-iterative. It simply makes it the final iteration in that development branch. Edit: and it has in fact been improved in several regards, mostly materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-sh... I'll add another quote: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - A…

"Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative"

See also calinet6's comment.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the 1960 design is still used doesn't make it non-iterative. It simply makes it the final iteration in that development branch. Edit: and it has in fact been improved in several regards, mostly materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-sh... I'll add another quote: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - A…

"Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" See also calinet6's comment.

Do good designs ever evolve?

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#25
post #7

Rams' 10 principles of good design are properties of the design. This proposed 11th is a property of the process to produce that design. The giveaway is that his question is "how can we do iterative design?" rather than "how can achieve a design that is X?"

I also think Wells is confusing the end product with the architecture, the latter being a product whose consumers are the developers themselves.

An architecture that supports iteration may be deemed good design per Rams if the support for iteration is more useful than if it did not. To developers, that architecture could also be more aesthetic, innovative, long lasting and even environmentally friendly (consuming less resources). Sometimes agile architectures are more understandable, but often they are less so.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#26
"Good Design is Iterative" ? Nope, you reach good design by iteration, but once you reach that point there is not need to keep iterating.

If it's iterative then you never have a final design by definition, so how can you judge anything? You can just say "it's beta, it's not finished" to avoid criticism. That's the typical BS we hear from poor software developers all the time.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#27
I don't think there is such a thing as an iterative design. A design is a design as it exists at a single point. You iterate because the design has some issues that are worth addressing.

The nice thing about iterative development is you can build amazingly complex systems that way, systems that are so complex they have no obvious deficiencies. Of course that's also the not-so-nice thing about iterative development too. But either way iteration is a development process. It isn't something that is a design characteristic.

I do think however that good design is flexible. It tolerates changes on all sides. Users can repurpose it. Developers can improve on it. Good design is robust in that it handles these changes. If you want to use that to iterate the design, go ahead, but that's the design principle.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the 1960 design is still used doesn't make it non-iterative. It simply makes it the final iteration in that development branch. Edit: and it has in fact been improved in several regards, mostly materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/garden/dieter-ramss-606-sh... I'll add another quote: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - A…

"Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" See also calinet6's comment.

> "Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative"

We'd differ on that. Iterative design is iterative.

Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design

#29
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Good design is arrived at iteratively" != "Good design is iterative" See also calinet6's comment.

Do good designs ever evolve?

So far as I'm concerned they always do.

Given that reality changes (change is the only constant), it's a must.

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