This is just a quick introductory post: first amongst sequels 😁 that will lead to a discussion of certain long standing design patterns that may perhaps require a second glance.
Along the way I hope to discuss design processes that have revolutionised UK information design, and worked incredibly well and brought about transformationally great results, a fantastic rule book and standards, but that are already being neglected.
As a user of customer-facing web technology, or indeed computer technology, you will have come across good and bad User Interaction design.
Great design seems to come from magic insight, but doesn't.
Equally design comes from a number of places and if you have worked in the industry you may have encountered them.
Opinion
Frequently I come across design discussions where people believe themselves to be right, but are unable to back it up. Or they back it up with a bit of research that proves their side right.
So the first place it comes from is opinion - that's a whole other topic - people do have a sense of 'what is right' and that's ok.
We process interactions many times a day and may not be always able to describe why something is right - that's why we do user testing. You are a user too. So is the person whose opinion you do not respect. I hope to give a few examples in one of the sequels.
Research
And research processes can be biased to produce a particular results - may be not obviously, but subtly.
An assumption in the process, or a manner in the construction of the process can cause a particular obviously counter-intuitive result, yet confidence in the process makes obviously questionable results obtain currency.
Of course one could equally say that if the process is good then however counter intuitive the results, it is good.
And that is fair too, but they could also be a symptom of a research process fail that is worth investigating further.
Tooling
Some design simply comes about because it is what the tooling used to create it provides. If you work in at an enterprise level, you will find loads of custom internal tools used to control the internal systems or make an order, for example, which have just been constructed with form tools provided by a particular IDE, with little further ado.
Commercial pressure
Ok this could also be put down to commercial pressure, which is that things simply get done to the point of least expense and basic functionality, which of course has its place.
History
Some design is created because it was down like that before and that can be good way - if it worked before - why not repeat it.
Fashion
Of course equally repeating something that works elsewhere is a good way of learning and improving - and a good designer knows what to steal and what not to.
But what others are doing and seems popular is another reason to do something - though usually the copy is not as good, is not done for the same reasons as the original and frequently doesn't work.
System creep
It works here, so we can use the same design pattern on a different system with completely different interactivity requirements. Moving something from a computer to phone, from a phone to a touch screen. But whilst this application can seem inspirational it is frequently foolish - mouse points and fingers work extremely well, but very differently.
Affordance
The concept of affordance is one that a user doesn't need to invest much thought into working out how it works, however the familiarity of a design pattern can also lower affordance, which may be a reason for system creep above. It is a good commercial and design incentive - people will want to use what they know.
Entrenched design
But when these faults all come together they reach the pinnacle of bad design - entrenched bad and inherited design patterns and forms.
A new design gains currency for it use in a particular circumstance, it becomes fashionable, is repeated over and over again, copied from system to system that are not for their purpose, that get incased into tooling, and eventually becomes embedded across so many design systems that no one even notices and everyone takes it for granted.
It's unsuitability goes unnoticed by the best designers in the biggest companies.
We will discuss more anon.
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