“As Little Design as Possible” — Dieter Rams and Learning Experience Design
The SK-4 Stereo, the ET66 Calculator, the T3 Pocket Radio, the LE 1 Electrostatic Speakers, the Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System, and the T1000 World Receiver. Maybe not product names that stick in the mind, but these are some of the most influential works of industrial design of the last century and all the work of legendary German designer Dieter Rams. Rams worked as head of design for the German consumer goods company Braun for over thirty years and during that time Rams produced products that have become icons in the field. Rams’ impact in the field of design is so significant that he is often credited as one of the major sources of inspiration in modern design practice and has pieces of his design work in the permanent collection of museums around the world including the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Throughout his career, Rams defined and developed what he came to speak of as the 10 Principles of Design. At its heart, his design philosophy is deeply user-centred. Rams’ said:
“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people. Design should not dominate things, and should not dominate people. It should help people. That’s its role.”
The 10 Principles that Rams developed are intended to guide designers in producing works of design that are as effective, impactful, and elegant as possible.
- Good design is innovative
- Good design makes a product useful
- Good design is aesthetic
- Good design makes a product understandable
- Good design is unobtrusive
- Good design is honest
- Good design is long-lasting
- Good design is thorough down to the last detail
- Good design is environmentally-friendly
- Good design is as little design as possible
I’ve long advocated that, whatever field or discipline you work in, you should always be looking at what is happening elsewhere. That might be in neighbouring industries or practices, but it might also be in fields that are very distant from your own. As a learning experience designer, I’m keenly interested in the work of designers in a whole range of industries — game design, architecture, graphic design and, of course, product design. I’m looking at what’s happening in these different disciplines to see if there is anything exciting, interesting, or innovative that I might find use for in my work as a designer. What, then, might a learning experience designer, take from Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Design?
Good design is innovative
As learning designers, novelty is a constant temptation — novelty can make us stand out, it can grab attention, and it can show we’re at the ‘cutting edge’ of things. Rams would urge us to resist the temptation for stylistic novelty and shiny gimmicks, and instead find ways to be innovative in the experiences we create for users, in our case learners, and to let the innovation emerge in the ways we achieve our ends and goals. Outcome and experience are everything.
Good design makes a product useful
If our designs don’t serve a need, provide real value, or create a positive impact then they’re not good designs. There are all kinds of other ends we might find ourselves wanting or even needing to serve, but it’s that core focus on delivering utility that will make for outstanding learning design.
Good design is aesthetic
We might think that as learning designers aesthetic concerns are less of an issue for us than product designers, but these aspects of design can be just as crucial to successful learning design as in any other field of design. How we construct learning materials, how we arrange a learning space, and how we communicate in visual media can be incredibly powerful if we hold to simple design principles.
Good design makes a product understandable
If our product is a learning experience, then good design makes that experience understandable. We don’t want lasting confusion in our participants, we don’t want learners who cannot access or engage with the learning experience, and we don’t want to set up barriers to entry for potential learners. We need to seek clarity, inclusion, and simplicity. This allows us to put the challenge and the work elsewhere in the experience as our learners won’t have used up all of their energy just figuring our design out.
Good design is unobtrusive
It’s the frustrating paradox that designers often face that poor design is very noticeable, but excellent design is often entirely unobtrusive. Try and open a door the wrong way and you’ll immediately recognise the bad design at play, but open it the right way and you won’t even notice. Great learning design is equally unobtrusive. If the learning experience is unfolding well then the design (and the designer) are moving out of the way to let the learning happen. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tze comments that under good leadership, people will say “…we did it all by ourselves” and we should strive for the same in our learning design.
Good design is honest
Honesty is an important principle of learning design, though we might more often talk about transparency, clarity, or authenticity. However we speak about it, having open and honest relationships with our learners, leading people with authenticity, and creating learning experiences that are transparent and open will all help drive powerful learning.
Good design is long-lasting
It is likely the case that the very best-designed learning experiences are those that hold perennial value. If we are designing only with an eye to today, or with a single, specific group of learners in mind we can still design great learning experiences but the most impactful, and the most transformative are likely going to be those that speak to something broader, and more universal. We should aim for long-lasting learning design.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
If you look carefully at Rams designs you’ll likely notice two things. The first is how simple, clean, and sparse they are. Nothing unnecessary. Nothing extraneous. The second thing you’ll see is how everything that is there is exactly right. Precise, carefully considered, elegant. There is a sense of absolute thoroughness in every design. The more thorough we are in our own design work the more effective, effortless, and impactful it will be. Every detail matters.
Good design is environmentally friendly
It might seem to be a little odd to talk about how environmentally friendly learning experience design is, but I think that’s not because it’s not relevant to us but rather because we’re not very good at rethinking what we do and how we work. We can ask simple things, such as whether we are using too much paper, too many resources, or too much stuff? We can also ask more practical questions — does this need to be face-to-face? If it does, do we need to send everyone to the trainer or can we bring the trainer to us? Are there alternatives to the simple online/in-person dichotomy? Is there space for innovation? The best design exists in the greatest harmony.
Good design is as little design as possible
It’s very easy to create learning experiences that are very simple, but actually quite empty. I’ve seen lots of workshops like this, and even more lessons in schools like this. Learning experiences that lack any real impact or significance but are easy to run and easy to design. It’s also easy to create learning experiences that are stuffed full, bulging with activities and ideas. Designers who, rather than plan, think, and reflect, have thrown everything at the design in the hope that something in there might stick. In one case we’re under-designing, and in the other, we’re over-designing. What’s incredibly hard is to design a learning experience that has precisely as much as is needed and absolutely no more. Designs that show care, thought, and restraint. It should always be our aim, as learning designers, to give and do as little as possible, but no less, as this allows for the greatest possible experience for our learners.
Emerging from these principles — whether we are product designers or learning designers — is the idea of situating the user, or the learner, at the very heart of what we do. Rams himself said,
“Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design. Good design is the fruit of intense, comprehensive, patient and contemplative reflection on reality, on life, on the needs, desires, and feelings of people.”
If we can hold to this in our design work and embrace those principles of simplicity, honesty, and clarity then we’re going to open up a much greater space for our learners to move through transformative and impactful learning journeys. They will have the means, and opportunity, to engage with the work, to explore, to play, to make mistakes, and to find themselves in the learning.
