Identifying good design in just 6 steps
Why is it important to identify a Good Design when all designs are good? Sounds crazy right…
Something that looks perfectly good to me may not look the same to you. This is where designers end up frustrated with their boss/client.
How am I going get ride off this problem? Maybe I can help you by sharing my views on identifying good design.
6 steps:
Effectiveness:
The first step to identify a good design is by looking at it’s effectiveness. You make designs to solve problem and that design should be effective. For instance, a website that easy to navigate, an app which is handy to use, maybe a logo for the start-ups, anything and everything that you design must be effective.
If your design is not giving a solution then just stop working on it, because when there is no solution no one will be care about that design.
Design something which when present is not noticed but it’s absence is felt, only then the design is actually effective.
In order for your design to be effective is crucial to understand and empathise with your client/user. Before you start designing, ask “Why?” until you really understand the true goal that your design needs to accomplish.
Reflect the right tone:
Let’s suppose you are watching an advertisement in which you notice that the model is switching to lot of different dresses. What are they trying to advertise? Some garment store, right? But guess what you are wrong, that was a mobile advertisement.
Can you understand that the design just dint work the way it was supposed to? Yes, right. Anything we design should be reflected in the right tone. For instance, we can’t show a show the image of an igloo for a refrigerator advertisement, it makes no sense.
Withstanding the Time Test
Good design is sensitive to time. All of like to design something that is timeless, right! But it actually depends on the design we are trying to accomplish and also on the life span.
When you are designing a website you know for sure you will update the site in some years. Maybe not the full site but a little of it, let’s suppose you have a website for shopping, now for every new arrivals of dress you will upgrade the site. But at no point you with upgrade your logo.
Frictionless Design
Friction can be something that you use or read. It will be more difficult for the user to use your design if you add too many friction to it. Friction is generated by things like text that is hard to read or a website that is difficult to use. Measure the information you want to display in your design, extra or unwanted information will make your design friction.
Visual Attraction
This is the point where anyone and everyone will give comments on your design, just because it is a matter of visual look. This is a part that generates more discussions and controversy. It’s hard to agree on something when all we have our own opinions. Now, how are going to solve this issue? You can do that simply by looking at design that is featured by the design community in websites and books.
Little extra with design
This is the final step, if your design has passed the previous 5 steps then it is a good design but it can pass this final step it will become an extraordinary design. For instance let’s take the logo design of “Amazon”. There is an arrow that starts from A and ends at Z. What is it trying to convey? It simply means you can get all products from A to Z in Amazon. A little arrow made the ordinary to extraordinary.
Design Thought
Good design has more than what meets the eye, it’s not only about how it looks, but a combination of a series of thoughtful decisions that are made with the end user and viewer in mind. Design something that is good to use not something that is good to see.
