WHAT IS GOOD DESIGN?

A colleague sent me an E-mail asking me the question, What is good design? He attached the Dieter Rams' 10 Timeless Commandments for Good Design and expressed his concern. This communication prompted the following text and the E-mail response.

According to Dieter Rams, good design:

Good design is innovative.

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good design makes a product useful.

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is aesthetic.

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good design makes a product understandable.

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

Good design is honest.

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

Good design is long-lasting.

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail.

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.

Good design is environmental-friendly.

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

See: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/dieter-rams-10-timeless-commandments-for-good-design

As a list, one could probably broadly agree with the items, the characteristics of ‘good design,’ maybe with some degree of ‘interpretation,’ while noting that the list might not be complete, or perhaps identifying other shortcomings; but for what purpose? Why is a list needed? The schedule seems to be something that has been assembled through reflection and reverie in response to a measurement or assessment, a review of feelings that, when in sufficient degree of something or other vague and ephemeral, is said to be ‘good’ design, when, one supposes, compared with ‘bad’ design, whatever this might be; but again, the question lingers: for what purpose? Is it a checklist for a competition, for awards; is it intended to be something to assist designers in their judgments - but when; at what stage: might it be to shape opinions generally, educational?

What needs to be remembered is that this is not a beginner’s list. It is not a schedule that can be used as guidance, as a set of instructions to start to piece together something that might be said to be ‘good.’ The design act requires an involvement that is more subtle; more rigorous; more personal; more committed: it is not merely an intellectual pursuit.

The great danger of analysis is that it formulates approaches by division, and subdivision, suggesting an approach like reverse engineering could be possible. It also defines how one might begin to think about, to understand a subject, by recognising and reassembling the analysed properties. Design is an open, fluid, dare one say a more ‘creative’ process, although this must not be seen as ‘self-expression’ or even ‘clever’ or ‘bespoke expression.’ Design is different to the itemised ticking of boxes: it does not arise from a checklist, although categories on the inventory could materialise as characteristics of an outcome if one chose to see things in this pedantic, Germanic manner.

Might one suggest that this list could refer specifically only to ‘good German product design’ which appears to be Mr. Rams’ specialty? He has, the report notes, designed for Braun. Read in this limited context, his list can be seen to make some specific sense.

A Dieter Rams design for Braun

I have previously written about the ‘good design’ of a Frankie sink and a Dyson vacuum cleaner. The experience of both of these items can be broadly explained as above, if one considers each point with an accommodating mind; especially the sink, which is a German design. Design in architecture is different to this: architecture is more complex than any single concern or set of issues. It has social and cultural implications; it manages functions on a much broader scale than any product might. Considering the Rams’ commandments, it is difficult to identify ‘as little design as possible’ in a building other than arguing for some degree of integral modesty; perhaps the ‘unobtrusive’ label is the same? Is this the Miesian ‘less is more,’ the tenth commandment? Likewise making a building ‘understandable’ is an odd concept other than the idea of readable function and purpose; perhaps the notion is referring to something being 'knowingly aesthetic.’ Is this the circumstance that was seen in the 1970’s as ‘semiotic’? Given this stated ambition, one ponders why, in product design generally, battery compartments are so cunningly concealed, presenting the user with an annoying puzzle in the attempt to decipher the item's incomprehensibility. The challenge to change the batteries is, at best, like one aspect of design itself - problem solving. What should be a simple act usually involves an ad hoc, trial and error approach.

What one begins to sense is that architectural design – let us just say ‘architecture’ - is an integrated whole rather than a set of parts or described, itemised qualities. Architecture is a consolidated complexity – it is not a unique ‘product’ that could become just one small part of this architectural whole, e.g. as a door handle or a light switch, a jug or a telephone. Architecture is an inherent part of life and its being, encompassing much more than any product might. Architecture shapes the space and place for these items. The divergence is other than a difference in scale, although this is significant: consider towns and cities, and writing pens and toothbrushes. While some products might be developed using a rational, scientific approach, architecture does not grow only from a reasoned scrutiny.

Any idea of reverse engineering ‘good architectural design’ is a very dangerous concept. Prescribing design methods is a rationalist’s ambition; it is always less, mocking the ‘myth’ while preaching ‘facts’ and insisting on them too. Architecture must rise out of life and its spirit, and support this concept in every way possible – enrich it. One might be able to say certain things about its qualities, but these will always be incomplete and useful, if at all, only for review and commentary, being something to talk about.

Design method is a subject raised in the late 1960-80s. It always got itself into the blind corner of prescription, suggesting the process could be, should be, 'demythologised.' It is an approach fraught with problems. Christopher Alexander, with his mathematical mind, gave up on his original structural strategy of synthesis, and addressed the poetry of place and place-making, elucidating and encompassing the mystery in ideas and experience. If one does have to try to understand and interpret the wonders of creation and creativity instead of living, being engaged with these enigmatic delights, the Alexander approach is a far better beginning than the Rams' 10 Timeless Commandments. One could start with Alexander's A Pattern Language, and move on to The Timeless Way of Building, and his subsequent publications. They are still worth referencing: our promotion of progress irrationally places everything beneficial in the immediate future, and fashion follows.

THE E-MAIL

R,

A few thoughts.

These comments on good design relate to 'product design' rather than architecture that has social and cultural roles intertwined in functions and fantasies, a catch-all word used here for things meaningfully ephemeral.

Products are for hands to hold, (e.g. toothbrush), and for holding bodies, (e.g. chair) - limited, specific functions with individual, promotional fantasies that directly involve commerce – their marketing.

Architecture accommodates and facilitates life - if you like, bodies - but in a different, more wholesome, more complete manner - seamlessly integrated in depth, both functionally and emotionally.

Lists that seek to deconstruct design, even if they appear impressively complete, always have problems as they suggest a design method in their fragmentation and analysis, the possibility of reverse engineering.

Tom Heath's madness comes to mind, the idea that the steps for good design can be explained and programmed for re-enactment.

Christopher Alexander is probably the best reference here.

Although Alexander changed his position over time, Heath didn't, and kept quoting 'old' Alexander in his new analyses.

Alexander, a mathematician, changed from a 'super-rational' method man to looking at matters emotional and poetic, as integrated and inter-related wholes that embody mystery - from Notes on the Synthesis of Form, to A Pattern Language (and eight other related volumes), to The Nature of Order (five volumes).

I prefer this latter, more cohesive approach, and like to ignore lists as anything but schedules needed for shopping, reminders.

The subject that is always avoided is what does a designer do if not follow Heath, and the rationalists? Just what are the steps, the process?#

I wonder if the enthusiasm for analysis and lists is a revived yearning for, and interest in theory and things of the 1960's, in today's void of indulgent coffee table publications full of sycophantic texts and grand gleaming, photo-shopped images, preferably highlighting every extreme possible – and the impossible?

S.

#

P.S.

Just saw this:

What the buildings are within, the people express without.

Louis Sullivan

It leaves one thinking.

19 March 2019

NOTES

Dyson Cordless Vacuum Cleaner

Framkie Mythos Sink

Both of these items are good designs. Dyson addresses most of the terrible problems with the use of the traditional plug-in-and-pull-along vacuum cleaner; and the Frankie product transforms the kitchen sink into a multi-function work unit. Unfortunately both brands perpetuate the understanding that good design is expensive. The Dyson is over $900 AU; the Frankie sink is over $1600 AU: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2015/09/can-good-design-be-cheap.html  Design seems to get caught up in the 'art gallery' syndrome where 'art' sells for huge figures, a circumstance that leaves budding artists asking for huge figures, even for e.g., two pieces of folded, coloured card with an audacious title, because they wish their work to be considered as 'art,' (good design).

For the record, an old classic needs to be remembered:
Paul Jaques Grillo  What is Design?  Paul Theobald, 1960.
On design method, see:
Tom Heath  Method in Architecture  John Wiley, 1984;
and
Geoffrey Broadbent  Design methods in architecture   Lund Humphries, 1969.
On design, see:
Christopher Alexander  A Pattern Language  Towns. Buildings. Construction  Oxford University Press, 1977.