Five Principles to Design By
The whole interweb seems to be buzzing with this Art vs. Design stuff lately. But Joshua Porter’s article ads some new context to the conversation.
Bad design is obvious because it hurts to use. It is awkward, difficult, and complex. In a great irony of the world, bad design is much easier to see than good design. It raps us on the head like a bully. Because of its success, great design is often invisible.
This is a great read because it puts the end into perspective. The user, or viewer of your designs, is the focus here. Give the article a read and tell me what you think of Porter’s observations. Do you agree (you sycophants) or disagree?
As always, I’m not telling you what to think here. I’m just pointing out some of the current conversation to be found in the wild. Read it and form your own opinions. Just be prepared to defend your position.
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Posted in general design |
March 5th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I Agree!
Little in life is more frustrating than going to a website or using a program that is nearly usless because of it’s utter unfriendliness to the user. This angers me. I generally consider myself to be fairly computer savvy and if I can’t figure the design out, lots of other people (like my parents) haven’t got a prayer. Crappy designers make life hard.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I posted a response to Porter’s article under the name frank on his site (scroll down). Interesting debate. His article may clarify design in useful ways, but one point does so at the expense of cheapening art. More useful than comparing design to art would be to discuss what characterizes great design as he does in the other 4 points pretty well.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I think what he’s saying just goes along with what we’ve all talked about, design has a purpose. He takes it into more death that good design is easy and simply I like that because an easy life is a good life.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I think I disagree with some of the article, but he makes a good point that bad design means more headache.