Stop fetishizing speculative design work.
Design agency F-i recently released their ‘progressive disruption’ of an airline website. Let’s not get drawn in by the flashy sales video.
Let me start by saying this:
Design without constraints is not design at all
I have a huge amount of respect for F-i as a design agency. They’ve consistently put out incredible work over the years. But let’s call this what it is. A buzzword laden marketing video. They designed something flashy in hope of driving press and potential clients to their site. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s a smart way to drive press and pageviews.
What bothers me is the amount of designers (this encompasses UX, UI, ‘experience directors’ and whatever other job title you may have) that are lauding this as some revolutionary and brilliant take on a backwards and broken industry.
I saw one tweet from a designer who felt that this “inspired him to become a better interactive designer”.
Also, this:
This HN thread about @F_i case study demonstrates most nerds still hate good design news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6090132
F-i has some inspirational work, to be sure, but this is not something you should hold up as a pinnacle of interaction design or design process.
What they described is a conglomeration of services that entire companies have spent millions of man hours building. Sure, let’s just combine flickr, trip advisor, a couple other services, flight search, hotels, travel discovery, and all the typical airline services. And let’s do it all on a single page. That’s a totally feasible feat of engineering because all of these systems run lightning quick and there are no integration issues.
I’m not even going to go into whether or not this is even what people want/need from an airline website. It’s also unclear whether this is a site for a single airline or a tool built on top of existing systems.
It reminds me of the Facebook redesigns that go around every couple months or so. Fantastic visuals, no thought given to business constraints.
Design in the real world is subject to limitations. Appreciate the case study for what it is, a concept. Feel free to marvel at the slick animations and beautiful visual design. But keep in mind that design is more than the presentation on the page.
A good designer can make anything look pretty. A great designer does research, knows his constraints (and how to intelligently push past them), understands how to work with engineering and development teams to reach the best possible solutions…and still manages to push the boundaries of visuals and interaction.
Feel free to hit me up @kylefrost
Side notes:
- My ‘perfect airline website’ probably looks something like Adioso. Some great interaction work, albeit with a bit of a learning curve, and a ton of killer engineering going on to support a unique search experience. Big fan. Hipmunk is obviously a popular choice as well.
- As I stated before, F-i does fantastic work, and there’s a reason they are respected in the design community. Check out some of their other case studies http://www.f-i.com/work/all.
- If anyone from F-i happens to read this, killer strategy by the marketing team. This is by no means a criticism of your work. I understand that it’s a just concept. But seriously guys, try not to lay it on too thick.
