Design for life

Design is a multifaceted discipline with many specializations. It is, by definition, a core discipline to every human activity.

People have been designing since they could use utensils, maybe even before: problem solving is at the center of the Design thought process, at its genesis and at its end.

Over the decades, Design has become more defined and compartmentalized; it has gained specialization.

Design has become a profession and Designers have acquired a set of abilities and knowledge, developed methodologies and processes that allow them to pick up the pieces, work with all involved and, keeping a bird’s eye view, help solve the puzzle.

Despite its many specializations, Design is essential. Graphic Designers, Industrial Designers, Interaction, Web and Motion Designers should always be, first and foremost, Designers.

The same way GPs, OB-GYNs and Plastic Surgeons are all, in essence, doctors, specialized Designers should never forget what Design, as a whole, is about.

This seems obvious, I know, but I’ve heard people say “I’m not a Designer, I’m a Web Designer”, which makes absolutely no sense. Specialization should never annul base knowledge, method and philosophy.

Historically, Design is the solving of a problem by giving form to a functioning concept which can be repeatable. Although I like to think of Design as something inherently human, it started to be defined as a professional activity by the drivers of the Industrial Revolution and was heralded as a way to create cheap, repeatable products that were, above all, highly functional, while looking as good as possible (“looking good” being a highly debatable subject).

It’s ironic how, in recent years, the term “design”, then, has been used as a substitute for expensive and exclusive. Designer clothes, designer furniture or designer jewelery are all meant to be exclusive products for wealthy people, often times made to be “good looking” more than useful or even usable. The antithesis of Design, one might say.

The two main components of Design are form and function, with none taking precedence; both are equally important and should be a consideration from early on. However, the mass production-oriented world that begat Design as a professional activity also had a great influence on its philosophy, which lingers to this day. The outcome of a Design project should be repeatable; if it’s an object, it should be possible to mass produce it, if it’s a communication piece it should be printable in quantity or broadcast, if it’s a website, it should be easy to develop for and expand on. A set of rules and guidelines should always come out of a Design project, helping others to repeat it or improve on it.

If you’re creating an unrepeatable object, you’re probably making Art, not Design. If you’re being exclusive, you’re defeating the purpose and are more akin to a Craftsman (yes, or woman), than a Designer.

Nothing of what I just said means the Design methodology cannot be applied to other fields (I started out defending Design is in everything we do), it just means Design is more than a methodology: it’s a mean to connect people by making certain objects available in the right time and social context, with the right function and wrapped in just the right form.

…In a small package. Some comic strips are just like that.

And so it is with this particular issue o “Litte gamers”. This is an inspired strip and one I totally agree with. You must read it. Go on, click.

PS: yes, it is about design.

Since I’m not swimming in time to write stuff, here’s something else somone wrote and you should read.

In this instance, that someone is Bruce Mau, one of the most successful, prolific and indeed insightful designers of our time and the text you must not miss is his “incomplete manifesto for growth”.

Take a deep breath and read it. It should, at the very least, make you think a bit. Here’s the link.

Ben Terrett of Noisy Decent Graphics has written a brilliant presentation early last October which I just stumbled upon and read to the very last syllable. You should go over there and read it yourself.

I for once like the conclusion: I’m a designer, use me better.

I stumbled upon this great kinetic typography video about… well… typography. It’s a beautiful thing:

For the last two and a half years I’ve been, essentially, an application interface designer. I’ve done my fair bit in helping define a Jabber-based instant messenger, and I’ve been responsible for the interface design of version 3, version 4 and the now in development, version 5.

So here are some points I think are absolutely essential, if you’re about to design an application interface.

1. Be involved

Don’t remove yourself from the process of developing the application. Participate and voice you’re opinion, especially when it comes to how things will actually work in the end, because you’re going to be the one making the actual visual interaction bit.

You need to understand the application in depth but also to help define it from the beginning. Remember this: when left to their own devices, programmers came up with the “web-safe” 216 color palette and CSS – two of the most horribly conceived design tools ever. Shame they didn’t have a designer around to point a few things out.

2. Know what’s standard

Some people think it’s cool to re-invent the wheel.

It’s not.

Remember Kai’s power tools for Photoshop? Those were some evil interfaces: completely incomprehensible and ultimately, an obstacle to actually using the applications. If people are used to pushing a button to call an elevator, don’t give them a sensor pad they have to do the moonwalk on in order to achieve the same objective. Just… give them a button.

So, if you know what’s standard, you can get that out of the way and go solve whatever isn’t.

3. Keep it simple…

Try to keep the interface simple: people are not going to read the help files, the FAQ and much less, the f’ing manual, so get that idea off your head. “We’ll put that in the help section” is never a good solution.

As painful as it might be, if someone doesn’t understand how to use your windows after a couple of tries, then you have to go back to the drawing board.

You shouldn’t, however, over-simplify to the point where you omit functionality. If you have some stuff you think your average user isn’t going to touch but a power-user might like, leave it there, but make it smaller and out of the way: power-users – as the definition goes – will poke at everything anyway, so they’ll get it, and if it’s not big and shiny, your run-of-the-mill user won’t get drawn to it like moths to the moon.

4. …but keep it pretty

You want to make things nice and sleek, but if your application does what others do but looks like it was made by a monkey with Parkinson’s, then people are going to prefer the one that looks like Steve Jobs might have liked it.

Once things are in place and you think functionality and ease-of-use have been maximized: glaze it. Just add that extra coat of varnish that makes people’s eyes glint. Using reflections is in at the moment, as are projected shadows, translucency and a general glassy or plastic look. We can all thank Apple for that… or curse them, it’s up to each of us.

It’s a good idea not to ignore the trends though, because people are very conditioned to respond to familiarity and in today’s world, true originality is grossly over-rated.

5. Above all, keep it consistent

Whatever you do, if you took the initial effort not to re-invent the wheel… don’t re-invent your own wheel. Choose a style and go with it. Repeat your visual cues throughout the application, don’t change shapes or colours from one window to the next, define your language and use it throughout.

Keep your headers the same, your footers the same, your buttons in the same place in every window, your font use consistent, your colour use consistent and the same goes for icon use, types of separators and aggregators, frames and so on.

Having all these things defined will help you focus on the core design of each window, improving your chances of success. It’s not easy, but it can be a lot of fun.

In closing, these are simple tips and they are certainly not new, nor are they specific to a computer application interface design. They are actually things every designer should think about when going about the task of building any sort of communication model. But I think it’s never too much to remind myself even of the most basic or apparently obvious things.

After all, if nobody ever forgot about the basics, the world would be perfect, and we’d get bored.

Have fun.

I’ve been hard at work on the new graphical interface for the SAPO Messenger project. Since it’s being re-designed from the ground up, almost nothing (if anything, really…), is being used from the previous version.

In keeping with that philosophy, I decided to design a simple bitmap font for the call clock. The call clock is basically a time counter that shows you how long you’ve been in a call. This is important because some calls cost money (although most are free), and it’s in your best interest to keep an eye on the duration.

I designed a very simple square dot-based number set, from 0 to 9, plus a colon to act as a separator. The clock will be placed over a little imitation-LCD display I created in Photoshop and it will be possible to change the background color (more on that closer to launch date…).

I think the font will work well, although I haven’t yet seen it running. Here’s a sample:

I’ve been asked to help with the selection of a new designer for my current project. I’ve never interviewed anyone, but it occurred to me that it would be interesting to ask the candidates to give us a simple and quick definition of what they think design is.
I’ve come up with a sort of ideal answer, for me: “Design is a project-based discipline which uses creativity, research and experimentation in order to find and implement a solution for a problem.”

This sounds about right to me. In fact… I feel like printing it out in big letters and hanging it over my workspace.

I like designing things for people. I like it when people enjoy things I’ve designed: either because they enjoy the way it looks, or because they enjoy using it and get a good experience from it.

Fortunately for me, I have a job that allows me to design such things and get some enjoyment from it. Unfortunately, I also have to make ads.

I understand the need for promotion and commercialism in today’s economy, but I really don’t like it. To me, designing ads is a waste of time.

First, advertising is not made for the people, it’s not created to serve or help anyone other than the advertiser wanting more sales. Secondly, the functionality behind advertising is driven by the need to fool people into feeling like they need to obey the ad.

We all know advertising creates false needs in order to increase consumerism and feed the world’s economy as we know it. There’s no need to be naïf about it in order to understand that it is wrong. We don’t have to ignore its existence or pretend not to understand its necessity, to dislike it.

So, creating an ad campaign is painful to me. Especially because at where I work, there is a lack of distinction between a designer and an advertising person (whatever they’re called). Just because I can design a space, illustrate an idea, create an interaction, it doesn’t mean I can come up with clever ads. I’m not an advertiser, I never studied advertising or marketing, and worst of all – I couldn’t care less.

So I come up with ads, they get sent up to marketing, and shot down because they don’t fit the company’s communication. And I get pissed.

I get pissed because, obviously, marketing should have their own ad designers – preferably designers that understand advertising – and their own copywriters, and their own people to do all that stuff. Study the audience, come up with the ads that work and so on and so forth. I can design the products – I cannot sell them, to save my life.

The structure is wrong, and that’s a management mistake – nothing to do with me, really – so I understand I will continue to have to work in advertising and come up with ideas to promote products. I have to strongly resist the temptation to be honest: “look, our product’s ok, but it does crash a bit and you might want to try these other guys as well”; and I’ll have to put aside my personal hate of misused exclamation marks; and I’ll have to take deep breaths and wait and hope that one day I won’t have to make any more annoying ads, that people fight to ignore anyway.

Apple has done it again. Perhaps now even more than ever: the whole world is talking about the iPhone. Some people even want to buy one, not realizing it’s not even going to be on sale for at least six months to a year (depending on where you live).

I’m no Mac nut, nor do I believe in treating companies as if they were religions, but I have always admired Apple’s design-centered products. The iPhone is possibly one of the most clear examples of this practice: it is almost design in physical form.

The whole thing was created with its use in mind, as a central drive for the concept.

Use. Utility. Function. Form. Design.

The thing is logical and intuitive. It looks like it should look: like it works, like you can pick it up and use it, no need to RTFM, unless you really, really want to.

The iPhone is not perfect, for the simple fact that nothing is. But any discussion as to whether or not it is the materialization of a great idea, is purely theoretical: of course it is a great idea; whoever disagrees is merely embarrassed to admit they’re horny just looking at it. People are raving about this product without even having touched it: this is perfect marketing. The product appears so ingenious, so good, so attractive, that it sells itself as an idea, long before it hits the shelves.

Even if the iPhone turns out to be crap, by the time we realize it, we’ll all own one already.

As a designer, it gives me great pleasure to see a product like this being introduced. It helps people see that design is not “doodling”, it is the shaping of ideas into products and solutions. It takes a bit of art, a bit of research, a bit of madness and a lot of freedom. And that, I think, is all behind Apple’s newest gadget.