Create slowly, Taste, Good design is intentional
151: Embracing the process to figure out the most elegant and sustainable solution, Examining taste more objectively, Why intention matters.
Welcome to this week's 🔥 Campfire — a subscriber only edition, delivered each Friday, highlighting the most interesting findings on product design, freelancing, career, and personal growth.
Create slowly
We all have goals that we want to achieve. And, given the option, we would like to get to them sooner rather than later.
There's nothing wrong with reaching a goal quickly, but our obsessive demand for immediate gratification — with little respect for the process — harms our health, happiness, and life.
Carl Barenbrug in his article "Create slowly" points out the same concept in the tech space:
Even if you love tech, and I do, you'll feel it sooner or later. We're endlessly bombarded with choices, jargon, reviews, monthly recurring revenues, and so on — that make us feel pressured, envious, and overwhelmed.
Too many product designers are trying to get it right in the first attempt, without thinking about the consequences of such solutions.
Slow design is about embracing the time-consuming process of trial and error so we can figure out the most elegant, considered, and sustainable solution.
Read the full article
Taste
When you like something, do you know exactly why you like it? Most people have no idea. It might be because your friends like it, or it's trending, or because your favorite YouTuber recommends it.
As designers, it's our job to examine taste more objectively, knowing that taste has a close relationship with good design.
In DOC's article "Taste", we can find how taste is connected to quality and curation.
The concept of taste becomes more productive when framed objectively around quality, and in ways that are measurable or at least comparable.
Read the full article
Good design is intentional
Scenarios, where everything fits together perfectly for a product or feature to work just how it was planned, are the path's of least resistance.
Designers can easily ignore the complexities of what can go wrong and focus on the "happy path." However, if the edge cases are not addressed, this is when features and products are negatively impacting people.
Jon Yablonski in his article "Good Design Is Intentional" calls out the difference between unintentional and intentional design, why intention matters, and how to design with intention.
Failure to anticipate the long-term consequences of design decisions in favor of short-term gain often leads to negligent and sometimes harmful outcomes.
Read the full article