|
|
|
|
|
|
by calinet6
5045 days ago
|
|
|
I disagree with the triviality of the 11th point. You'll note that in exactly none of Rams' original points does he tell how one is to go about designing. In fact, I could even go so far as to say "Good design doesn't tell you how to go about creating it." It's difficult, and it lends itself to many different processes and methods depending on the situation. It is not necessarily iterative, sometimes iterative design detracts. What's more, it contradicts point 7: "Good design is long-lasting." How can something be iterative and forever improving, and also long-lasting? You could go into the details and argue with me, but if you do I'll just say you're missing the greater picture. The "good design" Rams' was talking about is not a process or a means or even a specific thing. It is a static idea of quality, one which is intended to be achievable, and a final product. Iterative might lead to that quality, or it might not. But adding an "11th point" so trivial and insignificant alongside the others dirties the entire collection. It deserves better. |
|
|
If a design is thorough and long lasting, then why would you need to iterate, much less "ship every day"? Sure, iteration might eventually lead to a good design, but the intervening designs by Rams's definition are not good.
The exception would be when each iteration is thorough and each successive iteration represents a new innovation (principal 1). But most iterative development is not a sequence of distinct innovations. It is a sequence of partial or tentative designs either because there is a business need to ship prior to arriving at a complete design or because the complete design hasn't yet been figured out.
Wells says that the design of physical things can't be updated often, if ever. He says, "This doesn’t work for software anymore." But perhaps that is the problem with much of the software we produce these days. Quantity (of updates, frequency of new features) supercedes quality (of both function and design).
Wells does not seem to quite get Rams.