Why is it that design feedback often makes a design worse?
One of my favorite blogs, SplatF, interviewed David Cole recently; he’s a designer working for Disrupto. Dan asks “What’s something great you’ve read lately?” and he answers:
I can’t stop thinking about Mills Baker‘s blog post Design & Compromise.
So much has been written about the design process, satisfying clients, retaining artistic integrity. But that piece brings into focus what I could never quite put my finger on. It’s about why compromise in design is inherently flawed, and it takes the tack that designs are theories until they’re out in the world, and that really jibes with how I think.
I read that post front to back and again, and again. To me this thoroughly explains why the feedback process in designing ends up making the design worse in a lot of cases.
You see, when you create a design, you decide on a lot of things with a certain vision. You see things in a certain way: whoever you’re designing for, whatever problem you’re solving, you see this problem through glasses and what you see through these glasses is basically defined by what you know. The person on the other end — the client — who has to deliver feedback on your design sees things in a different way. He knows different things than you know. He probably sees his company or what he does through a different set of glasses.
If your visions don’t align, your design is compromised. It becomes a combination of two visions, where — as Mills Baker notes — the design is not the sum of its parts, but typically something much worse. Don’t get me started on designing by committee, where this problem is extrapolated to the nth degree.
It’s only when visions align that truly great design can occur. In the case of a new project, the designer and client probably don’t know each other very well. In the best case, the client chose the designer because their values and beliefs align: this creates a solid base for working together.
It should be a company value to truly understand the project problem and align visions with the client. This sounds obvious but most design proposals I’ve read list a lot of design hours but never mention research, information architecture and strategy. The company values should be projected outwards so potential clients already know what the company is about.
Speculative design is a disaster waiting to happen: a design is made without any communication, without any “vision aligning” (a.k.a. strategy). Combine speculative design with design by committee and you just put yourself in the position where it’s virtually impossible to produce a good result.
So in order to produce a good design (supposing both parties are experienced and the practical is no longer an issue), we have 3 possible situations:
- The client leaves the designer to creating his vision, interfering only with that which is business critical.
- The client takes up the autocratic role and uses the designer as a workhorse, creating his vision, “using” the designer, not as a thinker, but as a laborer.
- All visions align (this situation becomes progressively harder to create with more people involved).
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this because an autocratic way of designing, where one person takes almost all of the design decisions, suggests that this one person has the one true solution to every problem.
As for myself, I wouldn’t even want to suggest that I know the design solution to every problem. At most, I like to believe that I can think clearly and given enough time produce a great solution for problems within the fields I am proficient in (i.e. interface design).
The second situation then, where the client is the micro decision maker and the designer is only a tool: I think there are few skilled designers who would be willing to be used as a design monkey. Besides, a designer cannot apply his domain knowledge if he is strictly used as a laborer.
But the third situation can be created: you can surround yourself with people who have the same vision. You can find clients with the same vision if you are clear about what you do and why you do it.
You can find people that believe in the same things you believe in. Craftsmen. Together you can create a design, a product, that is not a compromise. You don’t have to align visions anymore because they are already aligned.
It’s for this reason that I decided to grow Wolf’s Little Store in 2012. To be able to make great things I need people: people with a similar vision. These things I know: I’m moving the office to Antwerp mid december, and in 2012 it’s time to grow. So come talk to me.
