Thoughts on Design
Users don’t make mistakes. Designers do.
Whilst that may not be strictly true, I like to design and work on products as if it is. Working on the assumption that everything is in your control as a designer both empowers you but, more importantly, makes you responsible for the experiences users have with your product. If something doesn’t make sense, a user can’t find something, or they leave frustrated - I assume that there’s something I can do to fix that.
Too often you hear designers complaining that users ‘don’t get it’. In reality it’s more likely the designer hasn’t communicated clearly to their target user. If you assume problems are your fault, you may not achieve perfection, but I bet you’ll get damn close.
Design is about trade-offs.
Design is about making the right trade-offs in the right circumstances. Should the product be more experiential or functional? More playful or serious? Typically one design isn’t ‘better’ than another, it’s just the mix of trade-offs that’s different. It’s better to consider which design (or combination of trade-offs) is better in this context? Take Wikipedia for example. It’s often described as being an example of bad design and design students regularly try redesigning it. And whilst it may look visually rudimentary, its designers have traded-off looks in favour of usability.
Its no-frills aesthetic disguises the fact that it is very accessible for people with different impairments, it works on practically any device, it loads quickly without requiring fast internet, and works in over 300 languages. For a product that is designed to be usable by the entire planet, these considerations are far more important. However, pursuing usability at the expense of looks wouldn’t be appropriate for a high-end fashion website, which needs to be as elegant and sophisticated as the clothes they’re selling. So when Wikipedia starts selling ballgowns, I’ll reconsider.