Great Design Vs Good Design: What’s The Difference? Here’s The Truth

Video version of this article:
https://youtu.be/njBwem4iTDc

The lowest common denominator for interface design has risen over the last decade. You see a lot less of this now:

We’ve figured out how to make user interfaces look okay and function reasonably well. Industry standards have emerged, just as you have them in other mature industries: In a car, you wouldn’t switch the positions of the gas and brake pedal, or put the seats on the outside of the car. In a user interface, you wouldn’t add blinking text or music playing automatically, and you want things to be relatively uncluttered.

This is great progress for the industry. But what do we do now? Is it enough to just no longer commit the most egregious errors? Or should we strive for more?

I think that the field of digital design is at a point where we need to strive for greatness, rather than just being content with being “good”.

But what does great design look like? How does it differ from good design? Let’s walk through some principles.