What is good design?
Dieter Rams offers 10 commandments for good design, well, rather ten important criteria, among them:
Good Design is as Little Design as Possible
Dieter Rams, designer – Cold War Modern from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.
Yet simplicity is hard to do, as is good design … ask Douglas Bowman, who just quit his job at Google due to basic, deep-set cultural differences:
Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. […] When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.
For more design-thinking see “What is good design?” at Metropolismag
The 20th-century definition of “good design” was driven primarily by form. Today the stakes are too high, and the world too complex, for a superficial response.
