This post will expand upon Matt’s previous post on “good design.” I was trying to think about what constitutes “good design.” Immediately, a few main ideas popped into my head; simple, elegant, timeless, and functional. Maybe the most important to me was simple. Simplicity in the way something looks is always appealing. I would guess that simplicity in how something operates is appealing to everyone.
Just out of curiosity I searched Google for the phase “What is Good Design?” An article showed up called Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design. (I didn’t know who Dieter was and had to check on Wikipedia.) Apparently, Dieter is some sort of industrial designer. The article and his principles seem to be written about consumer products but could easily be applied to any design field.
Here are his ten principles.
Good Design is Innovative
The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
Good Design Makes a Product Useful
A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
Good Design is Aesthetic
The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
Good Design Makes a Product UnderstandableIt clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
Good Design is Unobtrusive
Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Good Design is Honest
It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
Good Design is Long-lasting
It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
Good Design is thorough Down to the Last Detail
Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
Good Design is Environmentally Friendly
Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
Good Design is as Little Design as Possible
Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.
Do you agree with his principles? What are the most important principles to you?
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- Blueprint for Design (29)
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January 18, 2010
The problem with the idealistic approach to a good design is the business aspect. There are many good designs, like that of B&O for example, aim at a narrow segment of mature consumers. Fancy functions and features lure the mass consumer; even they do not need or do not know how to use them. Consumers are intimated by complexity of consumer products and the need for simplicity is more urgent than ever. How to design simple to use products that appeal to the mass consumer is a dilemma for product managers. In addition to ease-of-use, psychological and aesthetic factors also contribute to simplicity of the experience. Usability is a qualitative measure and not suitable for benchmarking ease-of-use to compare different products. Unless we can quantify simplicity, further progress on this front remains ad hoc.
January 18, 2010
Like the phrase “good design,” simplicity is a very subjective word to use. I know that. It would be nearly impossible to quantify what it means. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good concept and something to continually strive for as a designer.
Fancy functions do not always lure the consumer. The most obvious example of that is the Apple iPod. It’s simple in it’s aesthetic and it’s easy-of-use. As Mr. Rams said, “Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.” You could argue that the iPod only has what’s essential. Take for instance the iPod Shuffle. It plays music, allows you to adjust volume and skip tracks. That’s it. It works.
January 18, 2010
I am decidedly not a designer, but I have worked with some pretty good ones, most notably when I worked closely with some great talent at the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton and the advertising shop, Leo Burnett. To a person, their best work was that which was simple to understand, simple to use and simple to appreciate. The following quote holds for life and design, I think. Henry David Thoreau, once wrote to his teacher, Ralph Waldo Emerson…. “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Emerson wrote back, “Don’t you think one ‘simplify’ is enough?”
It is not only humorous, it is cogent and compact.