(A quote from Dieter Rams - former Chief of Design at Braun)
It's hard to think of a company that has had more success with it's product designs than Apple. When you look into how Apple did it, you find out about Jonathan Ive - Apple's lead industrial designer - and how his designs have followed the philosophy outlined by Dieter Rams, who was the lead designer for many years at Braun. When you compare photos of their designs, it is obvious that Ive has a strong appreciation for Rams' work.
What Ive and others have found compelling in Rams' work is nicely summarized in the design principles Rams used at Braun for many years.
- Good design is innovative
- Good design makes a product useful
- Good design is aesthetic
- Good design makes a product understandable
- Good design is unobtrusive
- Good design is honest
- Good design is long-lasting
- Good design is thorough down to the last detail
- Good design is environmentally friendly
- Good design is as little design as possible
The design goals for consumer products differ considerably from those for industrial products. For example, aesthetics and innovation tend to be less important than reliability and ROI - two characteristics that didn't even make it onto Rams' list of design principles. But there are also principles that certainly belong to both, such as making a product useful and unobtrusive. So, what should the 10 design principles be for information infrastructures products? Here's my list:
- Good design makes a product useful (it solves customer problems)
- Good design has recognized limitations
- Good design is unobtrusive (needs minimal management)
- Good design has an attainable ROI
- Good design makes efficient use of resources
- Good design is scalable (capacity, performance & management)
- Good design is resilient (sustains performance through sub-optimal conditions)
- Good design makes a product understandable (facilitates planning & changes)
- Good design is long-lasting (and accommodates future innovations)
- Good design is environmentally friendly
Producing this list was much more interesting than I thought it would be. For starters, it took me some time to get settled in a customer's perspective - as opposed to my usual vendor employee perspective. (l have this wonderful hammer you need). Also, to clarify a point, the idea of management scalability involves the number of people who can effectively manage and control a system simultaneously. That might not be a concern for smaller IT systems, but it certainly is for large-scale systems.
What would you change? Would you reduce or expand this list?
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