The 11th Principle of Good Design
blog.wells.ee
The 11th Principle of Good Design
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Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#2Good design is iterative
I can't help but feel this when i look at architecture. Medeival stone masonry, for example. When it takes decades to build, you can tweak the design. In particular, this is evident to with respect to "human scale," 3-dimensionality, volumetric balance, and proportionality. Much early modern architecture, was just designed to look cool as a model; or to photgraph well in publication. Much of this architecture has a PRE_FAB feel to it (brutalist, etc). Ironically this emerged in the context of (a) more powerul modeling tools; and (b) more degrees of freedom in plastic materiel (ie, modern materials, RC etc).
Edited: brevity
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#3Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#4I'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.
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#5Dieter Rams as any other designer would do lots of iteration before coming up with a design to meet the 10 principles. At some point with hardware you have to settle on something for the long haul. Somehow people managed in that A/B testing free world.
And would users say that the constant UI rearrangements in modern apps are good design? Absolutely not. The UI paradigm of putting buttons in set places on screen doesn't jive with constantly changing their positions, because you memorize the UI by those positions. This is particularly annoying with rarely used features because every time you use them it's a totally different UI.
Depending on constant iteration is not good design. It is a crutch permitted you by software. You can still come up with long lasting solutions if you give them some thought.
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#6If you spend all your time repositioning the trees, you'll never grow a forest.
Not everything needs to be shipped every day. Or built. Or tweaked.
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#7Rams' 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?"
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#8I'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.
They still make them today, and to the same spec
Which says nothing about the process (and possibly iteration) that went into the design before it was finalized.
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#9Good design has always been iterative, but now design is never finished.
The 606 Shelving system certainly went through many iterations, tweaks and changes. At the time of its inception the method of production doesn't allow for the continuous deployment and testing of changes. To me, design from that period is monumental by definition because of this. You had to build something perfect because it only happened once.
Re: The 11th Principle of Good Design
#10I 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 detracts.
What's more, it contradicts point 7: "Good design is long-lasting." How can something be iterative and forever improving, and also long-lasting? You could go into the details and argue with me, but if you do I'll just say you're missing the greater picture.
The "good design" Rams' was talking about is not a process or a means or even a specific thing. It is a static idea of quality, one which is intended to be achievable, and a final product. Iterative might lead to that quality, or it might not. But adding an "11th point" so trivial and insignificant alongside the others dirties the entire collection. It deserves better.