h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Any entry about design simply must bring up the subject of what is good and bad design. This includes not just things like "fitness for purpose", but in whose interest the prefered design lies (like the browser wars in windows). It should also point out that designs that are good for some people are downright naff for others (ie wimp systems vs command line, where command line is easy to automate, so is very good for the disabled, where as wimp's are easy'ish for the complete newcomer to use, but are almost completely imposible to automate).

A good suggestion, but maybe impractical, IMO. A good design is one that meets its requirements; a bad one is one that doesn't. A truism, if there ever was one, but there's little more to say about good and bad design (and distinguishing the two) unless you want to include OPINIONS. In that case, there's an infinite amount that can be said, but perhaps very little that can be agreed.

You say "...designs that are good for some people are downright naff for others..." This misinterpretation leads to a conclusion that is just plain wrong. A design is a solution to one or more requirements. If the requirements have been properly met, the design is a good one.

However, if a product is presented to some people, and the requirements of those people do not match the requirements the product was designed to meet, then the *mismatch* is a problem. A problem with life, the universe and everything.

Your text comments on the differing needs of people, not on a failing of design.

Thanks for taking the time to post your reaction to my proposed Entry,

Pattern-chaser

The comment is on the differing needs of people, but it also points out how a lot of designers design something as a general solution, and in the process close off certain things that you could do easily in earlier versions of the same thing.
They do not keep in mind that there are people who use the existing software for more than they want to use it for.
Windows vs the command line is a good example of this.
in the command line, anything that you could do from the command line, you could put into a script, or batch file, and easily automate. lots of people did this as standard, as it made things easier to use. It was a well known practice. you could also call the same things from within your own programs, which again was done as a standard practice.
When windows came along, it was presented as a simpler way of using your programs, so that you did not need the same level of knowledge to get started using the machine. by not considering the two previous examples of standard practice when implimenting windows, they made it so that although you could get started with a lower level of knowledge, the difference between programmers and ordinary users was made so much larger that they suddenly made it so that I.T. departments had to have windows experts to do what ordinary users could quite easily do before. This is definately bad design, and not just a matter of opinion, and is therefore highly relevant to your proposed entry. It is not a matter of designing for different groups, it is a matter of not being aware (which as programmers in the example, they should have been) that there were other groups than the simplisticly specified target audience, and is a sign of insufficient preperation prior to implimenting the proposed design.

Hi Xyroth!

I don't want to get into an extended argument about this. Please? Of course there is such a thing as bad design. An example might be when older product features are deleted without confirming whether or not they are (still) required by users.

Nevertheless, a Rejected Guide Entry that attempts to define design is much too general for your hobby-horse: specific usability problems with Microsoft Windows! I don't disagree with what you say, but this isn't the right forum for such details.

Thanks anyway for your contribution,

Pattern-chaser

I only used windows vs the command line as an example. I could just as easilly have choosen the french replacing their national library with a trendilly designed building, which then had to be retro-fitted with extra features cos the architecht didn't bother to talk to the librarians about how books needed to be stored, and designed something that would have been fine as an office block. The fact that the national library then had to move into this unsuitable building despite it's unsuitability was due to the polititions selling the old building before the new one had been built, and checked. It is a general problem of the designers not bothering to consult with the end users of the thing that they are designing, thus making life generally more difficult than it needs to be for parts of the population (sometimes 100% of the population).

Yes, usability is an important part of design. If you get it wrong, your design will almost certainly fail. And yet safety is just as important, and has as great an effect. And then there's efficiency, which can be a show-stopper in some circumstances. There are many vital aspects of design; I would hope to avoid concentrating on one of them, to the possible detriment of all the others.

I do accept the relevance of your comments, xyroth, but my Entry is pitched at the most general level, where too many details would obscure the overall sense of what I'm saying.

I honestly don't perceive a need to point out that there can be good and bad designs (or to explain how/why this can happen). I think it's obvious, just as there can be good and bad paintings, books, plays, music, sculptures and so on. I hope most readers would take this for granted.

Pattern-chaser

Fair enough, but I thought that as this was the single biggest mistake that designers seem to keep making in all areas of design, it might deserve a mention, if not here then in a possible future entry on good and bad design. keep up the good work. cheers .