Less is More

Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:20:34 GMT

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

That essentially sums up my last posting in a much smaller package.

Design

Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:40:07 GMT

I have been thinking a ton about design. What is it about great products that makes you notice them? I'll provide an example that I have used before, but that really makes the point.

The difference between fantastic design is the difference between (a) and (b). And here is the key point: the people at Denon who designed (a) did not sit around a table and say "hey, guys, let's make a complicated piece of crap!" I am very certain they did not set out to do that. However, they also obviously didn't set out to do the opposite either. There are three reasons in my mind a product can come out looking and working like (a). Either your goals are set incorrectly, you lack the talent to create a (b), or you leave no time to create a (b).

Did Denon set the goal of an easy to use remote control for their very complicated receiver? If they set that goal, they failed. They failed either because they lacked the talent to create something simple, or they didn't leave any time to do so. You can hire talent. However, if you don't leave sufficient time to actually work on the goal, you can't achieve it, your talent will become frustrated, and you'll be left where you started.

Time is the key element. Simply put: it takes more time to make something simple than it does to make it complicated. Making things simple and easy to use takes thought. It takes investigation. It takes trial and error. You have one slot for a button on something: what button do you choose? How do you know?

We don't take enough time in our product design. Instead, we build the Denon remote and then hope against hope that we can find a way to make it the Tivo remote. Our products become more complicated, our users more frustrated, and nobody ends up happy.

Random Musings: Design

Less is More

Design