Great designs aren’t all that common. Heck, on the web, for example, a simple well designed site can be hard to find, let alone something great. But what separates the great from the good, or mediocre? Would you know it if you saw it?
My guess is that many of you might think you’d know, but do you really? If you really sit down and think about it, subjectivity aside, can you come up with a list of things that make a great design.
I bet you could, but I’m here to tell you it’s not things like tagging, or really slick drop shadows. No it’s not that easy, if it was everything out there would be great. I’ve got a few ideas of my own I thought I’d share, and I’d love to hear your thinking when I’m done.
So, what makes a great design?
- A great design has a point of view.* A really great design will make a clear statement. It’ll be unique in a way that doesn’t necessarily mean it stands out, but it’ll be clear that it has something to say. As such, there will usually people who don’t “like it” and that’s not really a bad thing.
- A great design isn’t done by committee. I don’t think you can achieve great design if you have to compromise to please many. Design is best done with one clear vision and an enabled designer who everyone involved trusts to bring that vision to life.
- A great design is clear and to a large degree, invisible. A great design should speak for itself and there should never be any question as to what its purpose is.
- A great design is written as much as it’s “designed.” The words you choose to use in your designs are as important as anything else that goes into it.
- A great design is more than “usable.” If you’re shooting for a usable design, your simply shooting for average. Every design should be usable, it’s much better to be usable and good. Or great.
- A great design pays attention to details. If there is one thing I wish I could have on many of the projects I work on is more time and budget to nail down all the little details.
- A great design isn’t a template. Along the lines of paying attention to details, a great design will address an entire system in as much detail as possible. This is something that you simply can’t do on the “template” level alone.
- A great design takes time and isn’t cheap. This is fairly obvious, but when it comes to design you do get what your pay for, and, along the same lines, if you rush it, it’ll appear rushed.
- A great design is never ending. I think, especially when it comes to the web, and interaction design, that a really great design will evolve over time and needs to be looked at, questioned and refined over time.
- A great design isn’t perfect. If there is one thing you should pay attention to on this list, IMHO, it’s that striving for perfection in your designs can do much more damage than good. Usually what happens here is that someone isn’t happy because the design isn’t exactly what they wanted to see, and so they want to make changes to bring it in line with that vision. This most often results in compromise to achieve consensus, which also means you’re getting further away from something great. There is no such thing as perfect design, accept that and strive to do something great.
Excellent list. Echoes many sentiments I’ve had for a long time.
Thank you.
Great list Keith. I’ve been fighting with a couple of the items you mentioned, and now I don’t have to anymore; your descriptions make sense. thanks.
I would add that a great design solves a problem or a need. Otherwise, what is its purpose?
@Christian - well, yeah, but I think that goes without saying at this point.
Good to get the fundamentals across again Keith.
>>”If you’re shooting for a usable design, your simply shooting for average.”
By this statement then - most of the sites on the Web are not even getting to average! Painful eh?!
>>”A great design is never ending.”
With this one, I think there’s a twist that can be added: a great design can adapt/evolve. By that, I don’t mean it is forced to do something that would really require a redesign, but where the addition of a small feature or change (such as graphic image, button, badge, even a change of some colors - like the ‘Pink for October’ event) doesn’t cause the site design to fall apart. So, I think one of the merits of a great web design is where a site can adapt gracefully while remaining effective.
I can’t read this list without the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch running through my head…
“Our chief design element is a point of view. A point of view and a clear voice. Our TWO chief design elements are…” ;)
@Keith - I’m not so sure. I see a lot of designs where this question clearly has not been asked.
It’s a bit like when you ask a client/web team “Who is your audience?” and the answer “Everyone!”
I think people tend to be too focused on design from a visual standpoint to the detriment of asking whether a design is successful because it solves a problem or fulfills a need.
@Christian - I get your point and agree with you. However, we talking what makes a great design here. If your design has no purpose it’s not really design at all. I don’t want to water down what I’m saying here or debate semantics.
IMHO - design with no purpose isn’t even design.
Great post Keith!! Finally someone nails it on the head about what makes great design. I spent 4 years at Emily Carr, and not one teacher knew a darn thing about design. What design school did you graduate from?
@jasonZ - No formal design schooling here. Just years of experience and loads of self-teaching. :)
I liked the last point best: A great design isn’t perfect.
“A great design takes time and isn’t cheap” - If only our customers understood :)
Even though I have studies philosophy, I am not quite into semantics either. However, the question is, what do you mean by great?
I agree with Christian Watson, that Design always has to serve a function. There has to be a problem to solve. Your points aim rather at the visual aspect of design.
The command line is well designed interface, even though it seems there is no design at all
Andrej - I’m taking a few things for granted, sure, but in general “great” means better than good. My points are not only aimed at visual design, I’m just expecting my reader to make the mental leap and assume that there is a problem to solve - otherwise we’d be talking about art.
Again, I hate getting into semantic debates. I’m pretty sure both you and Christian get my points and if not, I’m not going to even attempt to defend them on the basis of the semantic meaning of the words “design”, “great”, “function”, etc.
Great list, especially “A great design takes time and isn’t cheap” true
Great list, especially “A great design takes time and isn’t cheap” true
Excellent list. Echoes many sentiments I’ve had for a long time.
Thank you.
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One more thing: “less is more” in web page design