Painting Over the Rust
Koan #51
I rarely have the opportunity to design a product from scratch. Many of the projects I work on involve redesigning an existing platform while keeping most of the same functionality. Alternatively, I might be designing a slew of new features to be worked into an existing product. I don’t imagine my experience to be much different from other designers out there.
The trap I often fall into with these redesign efforts is mindlessly accepting the previous design and the implicit requirements associated with it. Many years of experience with countless products, allow me to quickly start a redesign effort in my head, noting the problems and aspects of the design I would like to change. I’ll then begin charging ahead, the gears in my head working with my cart before the horse.
This is what I term as painting over the rust. You can actually paint over rust if you use the right paint and process. But it is generally ill-advised. In design, we paint over rust when we don’t spend enough time evaluating a previous design or conducting the appropriate amount of research. You can even build and fortify error-prone processes into the revised product.
There may be antiquated features in an old version of the product (i.e. low-use features or those that are no longer used). There may be faulty workflows or workflows that need…
