Why the good design comes from the poor design

Design
When I was a student at Carnegie Mellon University studying computer science/philosophy, I attended a design project course to learn something about interface design. On the first day of class, when I arrived at the studio, I found a young man at the drawing table outlining various changes to the Walkman he was designing. I went up and saw 三、四十个 different changes in the big drawing, which he had considered and recorded on paper. I introduced myself and asked him why he needed to make so many sketches on the pretext that I didn't know much about design. He thought for a moment and then said, "I won't know what a good idea will look like until I've seen a bad idea." "I smiled, but I was puzzled." If he is a designer, why does he do a lot of sketches, but to do so much? It was not until many years later that I understood the true meaning of what he said.

When I started working at Microsoft, I was embarrassed to record bad idea. I always take a notebook to keep track of ideas that emerge during meetings or on the way to work, but I never let anyone see them. Many of these ideas are very frightening and impossible to implement at all.

But every idea I think about, no matter how bad it is, suggests that it can be considered in other ways. Every new idea that I sketch is more informative than the previous one. Every bad idea shows some important aspects of the problem that I haven't thought about before. For every six idea, I will have one or two possible solutions. Sketching helped me, but I didn't want anyone to know I was doing it. I think if my colleagues knew that I had drawn so many sketches, they would think I was not a good designer.

When it is time to present ideas to developers, managers, and usability engineers, I submit the best solution I have conceived as a lead. I spent a lot of time perfecting this candidate I thought was the best, hoping that other people wouldn't ask for anything else, but I was always wrong. A Web page can be designed with many variations, and if you only show one idea, people who think they can design something will point you to a few alternatives and ask why you didn't do what they thought. This is a frustrating process, especially when they suggest that you have considered obsolescence. Because when you tell them this, no one seems to believe you.

After many painful review meetings and after listening to the advice of an experienced designer, I learned the best way to show my ideas-you have to show other options to help support the best solution. I began to develop a habit of showing three to seven ideas to everyone. These are the most distinctive and meaningful choices that are selected from all of my thoughts. When it comes to meetings, I walk through different designs and say what is the key trade-off between them (trade-off). When discussing these ideas, I will point out major flaws that can only be solved by the scheme I am recommending. This approach helps to make my recommendations very well received. It is often suggested that a good suggestion be made: extract something from design a and add it to design B. If I had only perfected a single idea, it would not have been possible to do so.

Occasionally I have to deal with a problem that is so hard to get mad that the only possible solution is sadly bad because of technical or schedule constraints. After a few days of intense but no results, I was frustrated and tried to rearrange my ideas by asking for advice from others. The wonderful thing that happens is that once you believe you have considered all the plausible options, an inferential process begins. I will write down all the possible options on the whiteboard and sit down and think with a smile. I know there's a right answer somewhere on the whiteboard. When someone goes past my office and asks me what we're going to do, at least I can point out the answer. Leaving room for choice in this way will have a psychological advantage. To make a decision, I will list a list of pros and cons for each option and rely on my designers, developers, or other key personnel to help me make decisions. Choosing the best solution from bad ideas is not the most significant part of design work, but it does happen. It involves the right process of looking for different ideas that will make an impossible situation bearable and give you the confidence to make a decision.

When the student of design showed me his sketch, he was showing that he was a designer. All creative and gifted people recognize the value of "process", and they don't worry about being known as the fact that they get good ideas through a lot of bad ideas.

If you want bad ideas to appear only in sketches or prototypes (prototype) rather than in the final product, you can do this only by spending a lot of energy exploring many ideas. If the quality of the design work is important to you, you must make sure that the managers arrange their schedules to make it happen and adjust your design thinking to fit the project schedule.
In many cases, the best possible design (assuming it exists) is no more valuable than a good design, especially if it takes twice times to find the design. General George S. Patton once wrote that a good plan to execute now is better than a perfect plan for tomorrow. You must be aware of the competitive realities and financial realities that your team is facing and adjust your design goals to match them. In most web timelines, the prioritization and centralization of design effort is critical. Let the three to five most important tasks get a solid finish so that the rest of the task gets simple but sufficient processing until the next release is resolved.

The more information I read about the Masters in different fields, the more I realized that there was a common feature in their work processes. Every great writer, painter and architect attributes the quality of their work to a tireless attempt. When asked about their artistic abilities, they did not mention that they were inspired by the heavens, but described how many times they had to try to create quality things.

I'm going to end this column with quotes from some famous people, I seem to have a habit of quoting quotations from others, but these people have more credibility than I do:

The architect's two most important tools are the eraser in the drawing room and the sledgehammer on the construction site.-frank Lloyd Wright.

Hemingway rewrote the end of "A Farewell to Arms" 39 times, when asked how he accomplished his great work, he said, "I wrote 99 pages of nonsense for every page of my masterpiece."

The draft of anything is shit. --Ernest Hemingway

The greatest tool of physicists is his waste basket. "-Albert Einstein

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Author Introduction:

Scott Berkun is currently a Microsoft user interface design and usability training Manager (UI Designer and usability training manager) who trains and supports Microsoft's many web and interface designers, usability engineers, and UI developers. During the IE 1.0 and 2.0 development phase, he was a usability engineer, from IE3.0 to 5.0, when he was a UI program manager who previously served as consumer Windows ' primary program manager in Gairen's current position. (Source: Liang/chinaui translation)