(See my earlier posts for introduction to the series.)
Based on the design driver discussion (see #1) you probably quite quickly form an opinion, which parts of your design are the most important ones that make it successful. They are usually those features or properties that product management or marketing can call “unique selling points”. Perhaps there are a few features that none of the competition has? It can also be qualitative properties, like the old and worn-out but nevertheless valid “ease-of-use”.
Naturally, you must spend your time in the areas that you want to make absolutely right. Which means that there will be many areas of design where you don’t spend your time on. The hardest part is this: you sometimes have to accept good enough or even mediocre designs (naturally, you can’t accept bad design). This will save your time for the important things. It will also provide an opportunity for some designers to do more independent work and for others to take responsibility. If you are part of a permanent team and you want to develop people as well, this gives them a good opportunity to grow as designers.
Juggling time is hard, sure, but I don’t think having to accept mediocre designs is a fact of life, but rather a problem to solve. Even if in many projects mediore is what comes out (for lack of time, lack of skill, politics, etc), giving up on good design is not an option. Shipping mediocrity should be seen as a mistake that can be learnt from, not as an accepted artifact of the work process.
Excellent, we have some disagreement! My hypothesis all along is that everything cannot be equally good. Design, like any natural phenomenon, follows a bell curve. Some parts will be brilliant, most will be good, and some will be mediocre. The target should be that you steer the design so that the brilliant parts are those that users will mostly care about. The mediocre parts should be then there where people really don’t mind so much.
It’s usually easy to spot the areas that you want to get brilliant. But it’s not as straightforward to select areas that you decide that you just decide to let go.
I suppose the dilemma is familiar in any line of business “how to do the right things at the right time?”. What comes to mediocre products, it is one thing if you or your organisation is willing to accept and live with it, but it is the customer and/or the user who decides what the product/service is. If they think a mediocre product from your perspective works fine for them, perhaps you can live with it. If they also consider your product as mediocre, then you may put your business at risk.
Interesting discussion, gentlemen! Sami T’s point brings out the recent discussion on “good enough” in design. As with any outcome of creative work, the definition of good enough tends to depend on viewer’s perception, no matter how good drivers and background work may lie behind.
it would be really interesting to take a peek inside different corporate cultures and the ways what mediates the perception– is it ambition, details or at worst, a committee? Think of for example say, Dell vs Apple. Whereas Apple’s Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive obsess over tiny tiny details until they think it’s good enough, I’m quite sure Dell’s definition of “good enough” is quite different.
Excellent comments both Samis. You highlight my unwritten assumption that when designers hit certain limits (like lack of time, lack of skill, or politics), they bend too easily and tend to accept the kind of mediocrity that is not acceptable by end users.
Apple is of course a good example of not bending easily under the forces of mediocrity-creep, but they on the other hand seem to have endless time, endless talent, and no politics, thanks to dictatorship. ;)
Apple is a horrid example because they are a trend setter even when they fail (appletv, mighty mouse) they are let slide.
People know what they like because they like what they know. It is our job as design leaders to expand the know of the decision makers when mediocre is “good enough”. I know I spend more time educating than doing day to day. Where I applaud apple is that they have made my arguments for more time spent on design easier.
Yes, exactly my point with Dell vs. Apple. it’s a rather unique company built on perfectionism and strict leadership… but a one that has a design-dedicated leadership. I’ve seen Jonathan Ive talk on design and he is literally obsessed with good design. Any good product or a service simply needs people like him, design excellence is usually a straight followup of a single person’s vision and determination.
Organization that accepts “good enough” or mediocrity is a whole another story. They may lack the talent alltogether… or just have it in completely wrong places. Users alone can rarely decide what’s a good product until they see and experience it, usually with the added RDF of marketing. Before that, they just describe what they perceive to like right *at the moment.* But that’s a whole another topic alltogether.
PS. I love my Mighty Mouse still by the day.