The impact of great design
I have been thinking a lot about product design recently, and was reminded of the many times I have been fortunate enough to get exposed to great design work. The coolest hour of my life was having coffee at Apple with Jony Ive hearing his views on the design process and what makes can make a good product great.
I have been putting together a site for a friend over the last month and have been focused on putting the back-end mechanics together. The dev team and I have been futzing around with a clumsy UI as we have focused on getting the functionality to work just as we want it. My partner keeps asking to take a peek and I just can’t bring myself to let her - mechanics are just too ugly and without a contextual explanation just fall flat.
This weekend, my friend Eugene pulled together our design aesthetic. Suddenly, the whole project has just come alive. Our goal and purpose were immediately clarified, and its now abundantly clear how the site is going to blow users away.
There is nothing coded as yet - in every way, the design effort cannot compare to the thought and work that has gone into building the backend functionality - but there is just something about the visual aesthetic that transforms ideas.
Design is a very hard subject to write about, which is why I am excited for the screening of Objectified in New York next Thursday. Can’t wait to hear the world’s best designers try to explain what makes design work.
