Nature is a good design.
My grandfather worked as a machinist for a company called POTT — he hand-crafted silverware that costs more than my car. When I was visiting him in Germany I found a dusty pamphlet from the company. It read:
Good design is close to nature.
For the last few years I have seen this as an inspiration. Nature is inspiring and complex. To simply participate in nature is a humbling experience. Here are some of nature’s design lessons:
Nature is imperfect and ambiguous
Nature is an imperfect system. You cannot design the perfect experience. There are too many elements outside of your control. Imagine if you tried to design what you thought to be the “perfect” tree that abided by nature’s constraints. Regardless of how amazing your design for this tree is, there will always be factors out of your control.
To ensure the perfect tree or perfect experience you would have to be able to control the sunlight and water supply and nutrients from the soil. Your design can’t prevent falling boulders woodpeckers and storms.
Nature involves tradeoffs
Nature is constantly fluctuating as elements in the system change. Trade-offs are constantly occurring in nature. The law of conservation of energy states “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” — Albert Einstein.
There is a reaction to every action and there are tradeoffs to all design decisions.
To be human-centric is to design around nature
Ergonomics, psychology, anthropometry are all reminders that we design with the complexity of human life in mind.
The way humans interact with technology is imperfect. Touchscreens are a great example of this imperfection. As amazing as touchscreens are, the nature of touchscreens make them error prone. There is no haptic feedback as the finger traverses the screen. We still need appropriate touch-target sizes to mitigate mistakes.
Nature is transparent.
The inner workings of nature are not fully understood by humans. However, we can still very much enjoy what nature offers — it is not a requirement for us to understand it fully. We are drawn in by natures design and we simply accept it for what it is. Good design is also transparent. We don’t get caught up in the details of the UI — we can simply sit back and enjoy the experience.
Nature provides feedback for ease of learning
The basics of nature are quite easy to learn. We very quickly learn to avoid sharp things. We quickly learn the properties of physics. Colorful frogs and rattlesnakes immediately signify danger. Good software design provides the same ease of learning. It guides us to prevent big mistakes. It teaches us incrementally. It provides immediate feedback.
Nature tells a story
The rings of trees tell stories about our climate over time. Dendroclimatologists (tree climate scientists) have been mapping climate change as far back as the 1600's. We can study glacier movements and dig up nuggets of stories from our past. Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years. Stories are how we connect and learn about the world. A good design can stand the test of time, and good designs often tell a story.
Nature involves continuous re-design
Nature has gone through millions of years of evolution, constantly iterating upon itself. Good design always entails a continual re-design process. There is no perfect design.
