Enable design objectives to be more effective in guiding design work

The goal of design: design is to better convey the message. The "Better" one includes: more beautiful, more efficient, more elegant ...
This is the consensus we have received after repeated discussions.

Only such a consensus is not enough. Because we're going to be in a situation where I want to design this piece of text blue and it will feel more comfortable. However, using blue may confuse the user because there is no link to the text, and the text on the page that has links is blue. "More beautiful message communication is also the goal of the design AH ~"

So, what we need to do to make the design goals more effective in guiding design work is to further standardize the "better" specific requirements.

More efficient is the basic requirements that need to be implemented first. "More elegant, more beautiful" is a higher demand. This is similar to the relationship between "food and clothing" and "well-off".

Why do you say that?
1. The user is to use the product, not to appreciate, even the apple.com is the same. To enjoy the art gallery, what can you see on a more than 10-inch display?
2. Many visual manifestations of visual design that involve function should be based on science, sociology, and psychology rather than out of thin air and random "creations". For example, the green is generally understood as "feasible" "allowed" "correct", then, the page error information in the green background is not good, even can be said to be wrong.

"More efficient" is an unconditional requirement. Should not be lost in order to achieve other design objectives.

How to ensure "more efficient"?
Guaranteed to be "more efficient", is it OK to keep all the information in the page prototype unchanged? No. I don't know, if I did, obviously I wouldn't have to say it here. Well, why not?

There are two types of work in visual design:
1. Render the atmosphere and display the visual style. Through the contents of the box's shape, color, text color, background colors, backgrounds graphics ... Display a specific visual style, rendering the atmosphere, so that users feel or warm when browsing the web, or trustworthy, or cute ...
2. Use graphical elements to convey information directly or indirectly. For example: Icon design, button style design, highlighting the graphic display of information ...

Do these work, do not arbitrarily deleted the content of the page prototype, just the basic requirements. The process of rendering the atmosphere interferes with the display of the body information is not correct; it is wrong to use graphical elements to convey information incorrectly, and it is not right to decorate the place with icons without the need of conveying messages.
In the visual design process to ensure that the effective level of information transmission is not reduced or even higher, this is a very difficult task.
I used to give a simple conclusion. "Visual representation elements should not contain information", this is a direct implementation of the conclusions, is the design of the goal of a specific requirement. In other words, if you are not willing to understand the goals of the design, more efficient, more beautiful who first, who after, if it is, then you only directly execute the "visual expression elements should not have the amount of information" this conclusion on the line.
In this way, the goal of the design can also produce more similar "visual performance elements should not ..." conclusion. I haven't thought of it yet, think again.

(This article starts in the magazine "Mutual Design Group Monthly Report" 11th period. ）