Measuring the Design Process

Both John Gruber and Buzz Anderson have commented on the experiences of former design lead at Google, Doug Bowman. Doug's observation is that at Google, every design decision must be backed by data. In essence, you must prove you're right. The post is quite short, but it resonates with me because I've seen the same thing at other companies.

Let me say first that I have enormous respect for Google. Not only have I benefitted from their products, but also their culture. The company is famous for being an unapologetically engineering-centric environment. And this is at the core of the discussion.

The most contentious point between software engineering culture and visual design culture is the question of whether important things can be always seen in absolutes. The engineering approach values measurable, reproducible results which can be represented in a graph or a checklist. Unit tests and benchmarks illustrate progress.

The nature of computers calls for this kind of mindset — it's a good match. Computers are incapable of making true judgement calls or subjective decisions. And inconsistent crashes are the hardest to debug. Predictability in computers is a very good thing because we would be in a lot of trouble if routers got bored, for example.

Packets, thankfully, also don't have an preference for which kinds of routers they pass through. But when we talk about end-user software that humans directly interact with, things change quite a bit. If you want to have a successful end-user product, you need to involve a designer.

Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It's messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.

Designers, though, are just as frustrated by the apparent blind allegiance to data at the cost of human experiences. They often feel as if engineers lose sight of the actual goal. Artists see data as a tool only, not a purpose onto itself. The reason for this is simple: data in isolation makes no guarantees about whether the correct thing is being measured, or whether the measuring itself is skewing the results.

If the decision affects humans, a human must intervene to interpret the results. Humans are willing to risk being wrong if it means there's a chance of finding something better. Artists are used to working on these terms.


A Map Doesn't Help You in the Dark

I've seen some quite negative reactions to Doug Bowman's post, which insinuated he was ungrateful for his position at Google. Most of this seemed to hinge on the phrase "I can't operate in an environment like that." But I think this phrase was widely misinterpreted. It doesn't mean "I don't like working in this environment". Rather, it means "You are forcing me to deliver an inferior result based on a flawed belief."

That belief is that data can't lie.

Even though individuals in Doug's position are brought in as experts in their field, eager to share their insights, they are often hired under the incorrect assumption that a designer has amassed information in his or her career, not experiences. That assumption leads to a second flawed assumption: that all decisions will be based on hard facts.

An experienced designer knows that humans do not operate solely on reason and logic. They're heavily influenced by emotions and perceptions. Even more frustratingly, they often lie to you about their reactions because they don't want to be seen as imperfect.

But it's not just empathy that data lacks. The one indisputable advantage humans have over data is imagination. I realize this is often overplayed and sounds like hyperbole. But I mean it literally. The ability to step outside of what you've seen and consider how something that doesn't exist yet may yet exist is at the center of everything we do. Imagination is what allows us to consider if we should try to gather a different kind of data.

If a designer in Bowman's position has to spend every day trying to educate an unreceptive audience, that person will eventually no longer be able to do the job they were hired for. It's no surprise, then, that designers gravitate towards places where they can skip the education step and get right to work.

History books portray Einstein as a brilliant physicist, which he was. His understanding of scientific methods allowed him to refine and articulate his ideas. But that alone wasn't the reason he changed the world. His genius was imagining things that no one else had thought of, which he then set out to describe. He was two things in one: a scientist and a dreamer.

Data and measurements are essential in software, and can take you a long way on their own. But feelings and instincts are necessary too if you want to do something remarkable.
Design Element
Measuring the Design Process
Posted Mar 21, 2009 — 43 comments below




 

Jason Brennan — Mar 21, 09 6627

Try to imagine Google had Larry and Sergey never had any kind of imagination and relied solely on data. PageRank is an algorithm, but it wasn't algorithmically designed.

Matthew Tonkin — Mar 21, 09 6628

I very much agree with the content of this article.

On the topic of data vs imagination, I'm of the belief that Intelligence and Knowledge aren't mutually inclusive. In my opinion there are many differences, but Intelligence allows you to create, gain and apply new knowledge.

To an extent, Imagination is to Data what Intelligence is to Knowledge.

It's possible that Einstein was lucky enough to have had limited formal education. Lucky because he didn't gain (or didn't accept) the incumbent knowledge and data in his field. This left him with his Intelligence and Imagination that broke boundaries.

It's hard to break boundaries with data and knowledge alone.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." --Henry Ford

I've worked with knowledgeable people who have spent years in Universities but I wouldn't rank them as intelligent. On the other hand I've worked with people who have no formal training and are entirely self taught who are some of the most intelligent people I know. Combining these 2 groups can lead to an abrasive environment, but bridging the gap and finding common ground can lead to great things.

Romme Abesames — Mar 21, 09 6629

I think there is a false dichotomy here and the Einstein argument is not taken fully enough. Einstein exhibited (used) creativity in coming up with his theories but his theories were never accepted or considered good because they were creative. They were accepted because they fit data better than previous ones.

A naive approach of plainly asking people what they want "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." is flawed and has been considered flawed (e.g. http://www.useit.com/papers/focusgroups.html). This is where both design and engineering mindsets can come together and produce something that they by themselves alone cannot.

1) Years of personal and industry-wide inspiration and imagination backed up by data = Solid Principles

2) Solid Principles + Specific Problems + Inspiration = Possibly many candidate solutions

3) Many candidate solutions + data = Sound decision

It seems Bowman and Google cant agree on these "steps":
- Bowman has gone past step 1 and wants Google to take his professional opinion as gospel. Bowman can't accept that step 2 can produce many possible solutions, and grabbing the first that comes to mind is being hasty. And finally Bowman wants to skip #3 altogether.
- Google does not have any good foundation on #1 (solid design principles) and wants to research and prove everything from scratch.

BJ — Mar 21, 09 6630

I couldn't agree more, coming from a design background and being a software developer. Too often I see developers who are solely focused on specific "features" rather than realizing that they are quite literally crafting an experience for a user (that is, unless you are a solely focused on creating developer tools for *nix command line).

Always remember that users have to make sense of the data! It has to be comfortable to them, consumable, and attractive. I believe that developers/companies who understand this concept will always be more successful than those who ignore it.

Thanks again, Scott.

Vladimir — Mar 21, 09 6631

Nicely spoken! I completely agree with you. 10 days ago I suggested the idea of mini Google redesign and I realized that the people are very protective about Google.
I think that Google should dedicate more time and space about their design. Why not to have more beautiful Google?

Matthew Tonkin — Mar 21, 09 6632

Having thought about this a little further, it should be mentioned that Ford ignoring data became his demise.

You could have a Model-T Ford in any color you wanted - as long as that color was black.

Ford's monopoly that was created with the Model-T eventually got overthrown by GM who listened to customers and introduced their car in 5-colors.

(And no, these were not Blueberry, Strawberry, Lime, Tangerine and Grape).

Matthew Tonkin — Mar 21, 09 6634

Having thought about this a little further, it should be mentioned that Ford ignoring data became his demise.

You could have a Model-T Ford in any color you wanted - as long as that color was black.

Ford's monopoly that was created with the Model-T eventually got overthrown by GM who listened to customers and introduced their car in 5-colors.

(And no, these were not Blueberry, Strawberry, Lime, Tangerine and Grape).

Margaret Scott — Mar 21, 09 6635

Scott -- FYI Spelling error from post dated March 21'09
His genius was imagining things that one else had thought of...

I gather you mean "no one"

Jim — Mar 21, 09 6636

I don't know how or why they [G] could not come to an agreement, and let a designer like Doug bail. For crying out loud - create 10, 20, whatever designs and user test the heck out of them. Collect THAT [real] data and refine refine refine instead of theorizing on [design] data.

Having said that... I like [G] just how it is.
-
Jim Summer
-- http://tentonweb.com/
-- Jacksonville, FL
-- http://twitter.com/SEO_Web_Design

Yong Su Kim — Mar 21, 09 6637

Great blog post!

To me, making decisions purely based on data is a utopian fallacy.

The quote that comes to mind is "There are lies, damned, lies, and then there's statistics." The same could be said for data.

We've all been in situations where data has been used to justify a decision that has been made even before the data was collected.

It's all too easy in a political environment to design and shape the outcome of the data used to make decisions. It's no surprise that people get fed up with it and decide to move on.

I think what has been interesting is seeing the evolution of Google's design over the last few years. It's clear with their newer products that their approach to design has improved significantly. Kudos to Doug Bowman and his team for being able to tug the aircraft carrier a few degrees in the right direction.

Since Google is an important service for many of us, let's hope that Google continues to evolve their design in the right direction, instead of just falling back on "data".

Chris Ryland — Mar 22, 09 6638

As I've remarked elsewhere on this topic (but no one saw it ;-), Google does have an uber-designer: her name is Marissa Miller. It's her rather stark taste which permeates all their products.

They might say they are data-driven, but, first the design has to pass her taste test.

Eric — Mar 22, 09 6639

It's hard to really know what Doug's experiences at Google were actually like based solely on his job's epitaph. But the web design process can and should incorporate feedback loops. Usability testing, focus groups, and yes A/B and multivariate testing all provide context and guidance for an iterative, evolutionary design process. Most companies lack the budget/resources/execution for thorough testing, but obviously not Google. Is there an over-reliance on data-driven decision methods? Perhaps. But even in the ad agency world, where creative directors rule the roost, ultimately they are held accountable for the ROI/profitability of a campaign, particularly now that online advertising (e.g., search) makes it possible to know (not guess) exactly how effective one creative was vs. another. Of course Google itself has played a pivotal hand in shaping web advertising accountability. But isn't this a macro trend that graphic design will need to embrace?

Aliotsy — Mar 22, 09 6640

I generally agree with this post, and sympathize with Doug Bowman's frustration ... I can understand how he felt stifled.

But I wonder about this sentence:

Even more frustratingly, they often lie to you about their reactions because they don't want to be seen as imperfect.

While that is true, I imagine the data Google bases their design decisions off of are primarily analytics-based, recording what users actually do as opposed to what they say the do - the infamous "41 shades of blue" problem is likely an example. In these cases, lying is countered by hard data.

Generally, I think it's healthy to ask for data to back up broad design decisions, even by a designer as accomplished and admired as Doug Bowman.

That said, requiring a designer to take the time to present a case for a detail like border width suggests a culture so caught up in data that it misses the forest for the trees.

Gabe da Silveira — Mar 22, 09 6641

Romme, you're making things up. Bowman most definitely did not want "the first thing that comes to [his] mind" to be "taken as gospel". First, because design is a process, not a whim. Bowman is not the stereotype of a designer that you have in your head, he has a lot of experience and certainly knows how to work with other people.

The idea that you can just puke up a bunch of "designs" and then bucket test them to come up with the perfect solution is farcical. That's just not how design works. As useful as numbers are for validating and tweaking things, they can not replace the understanding of a talented designer. Furthermore, if you insist on being entirely numbers-driven, you will miss anything that is not being measured (such as the overall gestalt of a design).

None of this is to say that Google is making bad decisions or doing things wrong. Google is what it is. But I find it extremely annoying to get this armchair commentary, full of assumptions about how Doug did his work at Google that is almost certainly wrong, followed with a prescription about how design should work with engineering that is based on a complete lack of understanding of what design is.

Michael Bishop — Mar 22, 09 6642

Anyone who thinks choices can be made based solely on data should listen to this segment in the wonderful radio show "RadioLab". They tell a story of a man ("Elliot") whose emotional center was accidentally removed in surgery leaving him only the ability to make choices based on cold-hard data.

It is interesting to see how all the data impedes his ability to decide. The problem isn't not enough data, the problem is which data matters more? That involves a value system which at a very root level, requires morals and emotions to make the call (or at least break a tie).

LKM — Mar 22, 09 6643

I agree with Romme Abesames. There's a false dychotomy underlying this post.

True, design is about creativity and ideas and things which can't be measured. But just like code runs on an application, your design "runs" on humans. Humans parse your design and execute actions based on what they perceive.

And this can be measured.

It's true that "humans do not operate solely on reason and logic," but this does not contradict the idea that design can be measured. As an example, if you have two different designs and test both designs with a random sample of people, one of the two designs will on average be more successful in guiding humans to their goals than the other one.

Interpreting the results of these tests is "soft" (relying on feelings and instinct) but the test results themselves are "hard" (as in "scientific").

You write:

"Even more frustratingly, they often lie to you about their reactions because they don't want to be seen as imperfect."

Yes, users lie, which is why you never rely on what users *say* :-)

You write:

"Data and measurements are essential in software, and can take you a long way on their own. But feelings and instincts are necessary too if you want to do something remarkable."

But feelings and instincts are important when designing code, too. There's really not such a huge difference between designing for computers and designing for humans. Both require ideas and creativity and feelings and instincts, but both result in a "thing" which can be tested and measured.

Usability tests and iteration and data are an essential part of great user-centric design.

Designers don't design in a vacuum. That's what artists do. Designers create functional objects which are used by humans and which need to be usable for humans. And that is something that can and should be measured, just like the efficiency of code can be measured.

Romme Abesames — Mar 22, 09 6644

Gabe da Silveira, I think you are falling into the false dichotomy that I was trying to point out

re: "As useful as numbers are for validating and tweaking things, they can not replace the understanding of a talented designer",

I fully agree data should not replace the designer (or the creative design process)...but the talented designer also doesn't replace data. The talent and wealth of experience of the designer allows certain aspects of the design to proceed by leaps and bounds without bothering to quibble and double check every minor detail. This is where solid principles and inspiration comes in. But when rubber hits the road, it is data that drives the conclusion.

This is similar to many industrial/commercial creative endeavors. An inventor doesn't focus on the numbers when coming up with something totally new. But the invention prospers or withers by the numbers it "produces"... # of units sold, % improvement in X over previous products, % lower cost for the same features, etc. This is not limited to graphic and web design...this is actually how engineering and science works a lot of times.

Eric I think is in the right direction when he commented
"But even in the ad agency world, where creative directors rule the roost, ultimately they are held accountable for the ROI/profitability of a campaign, particularly now that online advertising makes it possible to know exactly how effective one creative was vs. another"

It is easy to fall into the false dichotomy. Companies and organizations that can straddle both sides have a better chance of overall success.

Bloc — Mar 22, 09 6645

But the greatest designers are those that think outside the box - those that ALSO are artists.

And thats the problem with Bowman and Google - Google probably didn't want this side-effect. Some of Bowman's work is truly inspired, which can only come from his artistic tendency - not some search results based on what people like or not. They come in play afterwards and aren't even then totally reliable, as people's taste change as the wind.

Jesper — Mar 22, 09 6646

LKM said: Usability tests and iteration and data are an essential part of great user-centric design.

Designers don't design in a vacuum. That's what artists do. Designers create functional objects which are used by humans and which need to be usable for humans. And that is something that can and should be measured, just like the efficiency of code can be measured.

I agree with this, and it also seems to me that Douglas would not only agree but have experienced this. But, acknowledging that I know as little as anyone, that's not what seems to get him down. Doing three mockups and testing them and making several iterations and testing *them* is perfectly fine.

But Google is now working on such large a scale that they're actually convinced that the difference between a 3, 4 and 5 pixel border is measurably different, that the difference is statistically significant and that the improved performance, if you can actually put it like that, is worth their time and money and provides for better customer satisfaction than something that looks as originally intended.

This is micromanagement of the highest order and I would be hard pressed to imagine that my employer regarded my input as valuable, or my direction as direction, if I were to have been high-pass-filtered in every last detail in this way.

Which is completely different from saying that they do it on purpose, or with the intent to quash the thing that they hired him to do.

alice — Mar 22, 09 6647

I agree with the article. It is not so much he can't design, but it hinders his ability to do so. Design in and of itself is based on problem resolution and a trust the the talent of the designer. There are many times that at first I design something for a client and initially they don't like it because of preconceived notions. I then educate them to look at the whole picture the aims of the project set for and its purpose. The ambiance we wanted to create. I liken it to Starbucks, if researched in its early days it would have shown nasty numbers. Who would buy a 4 dollar cup of coffee, it would never go mass market. Yet they created an atmosphere for success. If I hire someone I give the the problem and let them solve it. I don't narrow my expectations to what I am limited to, nor do I ask the general public about the nuances in the design process. Someone here brought up Ford, and they were oh so correct in the initial appraisal that if researched better horses would have been the answer. Then another mentioned he failed because he only developed them in one color and GM took over. That is true only to an extend. Ford's forte was no in that end of design. It was more of an engineering talent. He didn't have a clue on color. There was no inherent appreciation of design at Google, because they never had a designer in their leadership ranks. I love Google's search engine. Yet, I understand what over analysis means and in the end it will hurt them. Why, because it takes the human creativity factor out of the equation which will leave the audience cold. It won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen. I mean really, if you tested that blue theory in the state of Carolina and polled those at Duke. You would find a great distaste for baby blue, while a deep love a nice dark navy.

alice — Mar 22, 09 6648

I agree with the article. It is not so much he can't design, but it hinders his ability to do so. Design in and of itself is based on problem resolution and a trust the the talent of the designer. There are many times that at first I design something for a client and initially they don't like it because of preconceived notions. I then educate them to look at the whole picture the aims of the project set for and its purpose. The ambiance we wanted to create. I liken it to Starbucks, if researched in its early days it would have shown nasty numbers. Who would buy a 4 dollar cup of coffee, it would never go mass market. Yet they created an atmosphere for success. If I hire someone I give the the problem and let them solve it. I don't narrow my expectations to what I am limited to, nor do I ask the general public about the nuances in the design process. Someone here brought up Ford, and they were oh so correct in the initial appraisal that if researched better horses would have been the answer. Then another mentioned he failed because he only developed them in one color and GM took over. That is true only to an extend. Ford's forte was no in that end of design. It was more of an engineering talent. He didn't have a clue on color. There was no inherent appreciation of design at Google, because they never had a designer in their leadership ranks. I love Google's search engine. Yet, I understand what over analysis means and in the end it will hurt them. Why, because it takes the human creativity factor out of the equation which will leave the audience cold. It won't happen tomorrow, but it will happen. I mean really, if you tested that blue theory in the state of Carolina and polled those at Duke. You would find a great distaste for baby blue, while a deep love a nice dark navy.

Richard — Mar 22, 09 6649

When the aim of the design can't be explicitly specified, you're right. As soon as you have a way to know if your design is "better" or "worse" that isn't simply opinion, measuring will improve the design - it has to, because the result is measurable. So a designer who says "You are forcing me to deliver an inferior result based on a flawed belief" has the flawed belief, surely? They might feel a design is inferior, but the data proves it does the job better.

Apple is the obvious counter-argument, but then Apple works in a place where it's hard to test better or worse, because the final test is how it does in the market. If there were a way to produce 50 different iPhones for each feature and test each on 1000 people, you'd quickly find out that data improved the product. Google can test each thing (or group of things) on many people, so it drives their culture.

Rob Morris — Mar 23, 09 6650

Great entry.

At the risk of sounding obnoxious - exceptional design has ideals, integrity and vision. It listens and is informed by its users, but sometimes more importantly, it knows better.

Designing on data will only get you so far. You can never paint a masterpiece if you only paint by numbers.

Jonathan Blocksom GSTI — Mar 23, 09 6653

Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences.
If engineering were reducible to hard edges we wouldn't need engineers anymore -- we'd have computer programs that solve all engineering problems for us. The fact is most engineers are solving problems where there's insufficient data, unknown requirements and no guarantee of success. It requires just as many "decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences" as any artistic endeavor. Numbers and measurements are as valid a tool for the engineers work as any paintbrush or ink is for the designer, and knowing which numbers ultimately matter can be as hard as knowing which color to choose.

Graham Jenkin — Mar 23, 09 6654

Doug's experience of design at Google was typical of many designers, but not the rule. As design manager for the Ads User Experience group, my experience has been different. Yes we use data to assist in decision-making, but data takes a back seat when teams develop the kinds of design innovations you experience in Google Analytics, the new AdWords UI, and other products delivered by the Ads team.

More commentary on the experience of Google designers

Steve Weller — Mar 23, 09 6655

It's also a question of investment.

In a data-driven environment, you invest in only what you can prove. What happens if the data is later shown to be bogus and the real data produces a negative result? Do you remove that successful product immediately? Do you change the data processing so that the bad data would have had produced a positive result? Do you question the usefulness of the process and throw it out? Do you do nothing?

That design cannot be disproved is one of its strengths.

Blain — Mar 23, 09 6656

There's data and then there's data. Rereading the original article, I realized, they're unit testing. These blues will be tested out of context, like the border widths, shades of green, whatever. It's impossible to get full data on everything because of all the permutations and combinations will quickly balloon out of size. But unit testing is good for discrete modules. It shouldn't be used for UI. Otherwise, you get a sum of parts, not a whole.

For something like search, this is good. The search won't ever win any design awards, but as a tool it's second to none. You have the advertising separated from the content, and each entry is its own island. Get in, search, click a link, get out.

But for something like mail, when I have to use Gmail, I use mail.app instead of Google's site, just because of all the clutter of dozens of little, unit-tested buttons and statistically validated borders. That for optimization reasons, the search field is static, and things are grouped into packets of fifty. And yet, no drag and drop, nor sorting by anything other than date, nor autoupdate. But the advertising is well-integrated.

Doug — Mar 23, 09 6657

Great design creates new data. Design is creative, not reactive.

Glenn — Mar 23, 09 6658

I don't know why, but I would have expected Google either to let the designers design, or to pair them with engineers as Xerox PARC did.

Gino — Mar 23, 09 6659

You keep talking about designers this and engineers that, but what I think you're missing is that in most larger organizations, it is Product Managers who rely heavily on data, and perhaps designers being on the other side of the fence. Engineers tend to be stuck somewhere in the middle, taking pressure from both sides.

Gino Zahnd (interaction designer)

Spencer — Mar 23, 09 6660

I couldn't agree more with the vast majority of what you say in your post, but I think it's surprising that Einstein is the example that you turn to at the end of your piece.

Einstein is an interesting example to use because he's neither a computer scientist nor a designer (at least not in the traditional sense of those words). The importance of Einstein for you is that he is "...a scientist and a dreamer." I think that's an important thing to note.

I think that design and philosophy have a lot to learn from one another. Almost everything you say about art applies equally well, if not better, to the discipline of philosophy.

This idea gets a lot of flack from the CS and engineering crowd (not to mention a fair amount from the Art/Design people), but reading Foucault has only increased my appreciation for design.

I think the thesis of your article is near the bottom when you say:
The one indisputable advantage humans have over data is imagination. I realize this is often overplayed and sounds like hyperbole. But I mean it literally. The ability to step outside of what you've seen and consider how something that doesn't exist yet may yet exist is at the center of everything we do. Imagination is what allows us to consider if we should try to gather a different kind of data.

I would like to take issue with this in a way that I think expands its terms.

Not only is data incapable of imagining by itself, there is no such thing as data by itself. Data doesn’t really exist in any pure form, rather it exists only in the interpretations we make of it, in its collection, in our preconceptions of what it will be. Data only ever exists in a social context, and it’s only ever possessed by individuals.

I think there are two readings of your argument. The first would hold it as saying that data only describes the world as it currently exists, and imagination is the capacity for thinking outside the world, for making something entirely new.

I take issue with this reading. Foucault tells us that we learn who we are, and we learn how the world works. He says our freedom in the world comes from our ability to combine, interpret, destabilize and reunderstand the ways in which we have learned the world.

If this is the case, it means we cannot imagine things outside of the world. Design never happens in a vacuum; there is no originality in any sort of pure form, originality is only a useful way of combining forms of knowledge we have inherited.

This is the basis for my second reading of your argument: Data and perspectives on design and existence that attempt to be solely informed by data (although I disagree that such a thing is possible for the Foucaultian subject) violently deny the very things that make the act of design the exercise of freedom.

The future exists for us not in the narrow sense of the continuation of the present with “better” stuff in it. The future is a limitless horizon that expands the way in which things can exist. This means we have to avoid limiting ourselves by sticking to the data. New ways of doing, being and thinking will emerge out of the chaos and instability of the world we inherit.

This is the promise of good design: that it can be the embodiment of freedom. Good design pushes things forward. It invokes the arts and skills of the present to create objects and ideas that expand the ways we can experience the world. Its new-ness and the way we can appreciate it comes not from its “originality,” so to speak, but rather from its constant reaffirmation that we are not limited by the ideas of the present.

Einstein was, admittedly, kind of a badass. At the same time, he was informed by a lot of discourses that hold on to what I feel is a really limited view of what humans are and what they can do. Design is important because everything we do can be thought of as design.

We design doorknobs and papers. We design computer software and websites. We design our personal styles and communication forms.

The primary argument of Foucault’s I’d like to use is that there are no neutral statements. The things we leave out are as important, if not more, than what we choose to include. Leaving out a “humanistic approach” to design isn’t about “not including it”; it’s a deliberate exclusion. This is because data only exists in context to the people who collect, code and employ it.

Similarly, adopting a data-less approach is an exclusion of the way in which our understanding of design has been created in relation to data. It is a political choice that says that one thing is more important than another.

I use a Mac because I feel like the people who make it are passionate about pushing the envelope and creating new ways of thinking/doing/being. They make design choices that are not necessarily informed by what has been successful in the past, but by what expands our computing experience for the future by creating new interfaces, new ways of interfacing.

Sometimes they make huge mistakes. That’s why I think every good design team should have Foucault scholar. That doesn’t necessarily make mistakes impossible, but it helps to make those mistakes move things forward in powerful ways that affirm freedom.

Richard Earney — Mar 23, 09 6661

Would data have approved the VW "Lemon" ad in the '60s?

Taken at face value, the ad was denigrating to the product, but to the more creative mind it had a reverse psychology.

This is not to say engineers aren't creative, or wouldn't get the advert, but having worked with business development people, engineers and project managers who see design as a thing 'that has to be done, I suppose' or as provision of screenshots, I can see how the soul can be sucked from talented designers by the data mentality.

Spencer — Mar 23, 09 6662

I couldn't agree more with the vast majority of what you say in your post, but I think it's surprising that Einstein is the example that you turn to at the end of your piece.

Einstein is an interesting example to use because he's neither a computer scientist nor a designer (at least not in the traditional sense of those words). The importance of Einstein for you is that he is "...a scientist and a dreamer." I think that's an important thing to note.

I think that design and philosophy have a lot to learn from one another. Almost everything you say about art applies equally well, if not better, to the discipline of philosophy.

This idea gets a lot of flack from the CS and engineering crowd (not to mention a fair amount from the Art/Design people), but reading Foucault has only increased my appreciation for design.

I think the thesis of your article is near the bottom when you say:
The one indisputable advantage humans have over data is imagination. I realize this is often overplayed and sounds like hyperbole. But I mean it literally. The ability to step outside of what you've seen and consider how something that doesn't exist yet may yet exist is at the center of everything we do. Imagination is what allows us to consider if we should try to gather a different kind of data.

I would like to take issue with this in a way that I think expands its terms.

Not only is data incapable of imagining by itself, there is no such thing as data by itself. Data doesn’t really exist in any pure form, rather it exists only in the interpretations we make of it, in its collection, in our preconceptions of what it will be. Data only ever exists in a social context, and it’s only ever possessed by individuals.

I think there are two readings of your argument. The first would hold it as saying that data only describes the world as it currently exists, and imagination is the capacity for thinking outside the world, for making something entirely new.

I take issue with this reading. Foucault tells us that we learn who we are, and we learn how the world works. He says our freedom in the world comes from our ability to combine, interpret, destabilize and reunderstand the ways in which we have learned the world.

If this is the case, it means we cannot imagine things outside of the world. Design never happens in a vacuum; there is no originality in any sort of pure form, originality is only a useful way of combining forms of knowledge we have inherited.

This is the basis for my second reading of your argument: Data and perspectives on design and existence that attempt to be solely informed by data (although I disagree that such a thing is possible for the Foucaultian subject) violently deny the very things that make the act of design the exercise of freedom.

The future exists for us not in the narrow sense of the continuation of the present with “better” stuff in it. The future is a limitless horizon that expands the way in which things can exist. This means we have to avoid limiting ourselves by sticking to the data. New ways of doing, being and thinking will emerge out of the chaos and instability of the world we inherit.

This is the promise of good design: that it can be the embodiment of freedom. Good design pushes things forward. It invokes the arts and skills of the present to create objects and ideas that expand the ways we can experience the world. Its new-ness and the way we can appreciate it comes not from its “originality,” so to speak, but rather from its constant reaffirmation that we are not limited by the ideas of the present.

Einstein was, admittedly, kind of a badass. At the same time, he was informed by a lot of discourses that hold on to what I feel is a really limited view of what humans are and what they can do. Design is important because everything we do can be thought of as design.

We design doorknobs and papers. We design computer software and websites. We design our personal styles and communication forms.

The primary argument of Foucault’s I’d like to use is that there are no neutral statements. The things we leave out are as important, if not more, than what we choose to include. Leaving out a “humanistic approach” to design isn’t about “not including it”; it’s a deliberate exclusion. This is because data only exists in context to the people who collect, code and employ it.

Similarly, adopting a data-less approach is an exclusion of the way in which our understanding of design has been created in relation to data. It is a political choice that says that one thing is more important than another.

I use a Mac because I feel like the people who make it are passionate about pushing the envelope and creating new ways of thinking/doing/being. They make design choices that are not necessarily informed by what has been successful in the past, but by what expands our computing experience for the future by creating new interfaces, new ways of interfacing.

Sometimes they make huge mistakes. That’s why I think every good design team should have Foucault scholar. That doesn’t necessarily make mistakes impossible, but it helps to make those mistakes move things forward in powerful ways that affirm freedom.

Arlen — Mar 24, 09 6665

The Ford/GM stuff is a little lean on facts: Actually, for a significant part of its product life (including when it was first released) the Model T was available in many colors. GM moved ahead of Ford not because of colors, but because they changed the conversation: while Ford continued to sell on price alone, GM changed the conversation to be about luxury features and buying on credit (something Ford refused to support).

The real problem between Google and Doug Bowman was nailed by a single sentence, back in #6657: "Great design creates new data."

Sometimes people don't know what they want until after they have it, sometimes even long after. Data doesn't help in making those decisions, because the effect of the design hasn't been felt, yet. Those decisions need to be made by intelligence, as guided by experience. If the project manager has the courage, that is; if not, then the easy decision is to let the numbers speak. That way if he's wrong, he can push the blame onto the study the numbers came from, or the people participating in it.

Have a look back at the great industrial design triumphs of the past. How many of them were brought about by polling data vs the vision, experience and talent of a single person or small team?

Back in the early days of the desktop computer, a new term was coined: "visi-knowing." It meant being deceived by the numbers in front of you into believing they accurately represented reality. A university once held a competition between two teams of students. One team used a set of tools centered around a spreadsheet, while another used a set centered around a word processor. They were given data, reports, etc., from many companies and told to make the decision to purchase or not. The spreadsheet team said to purchase, the word processing team said no. They were right, the company was an empty shell.

Numbers are *not* the final answer, no matter how earnestly Charlie Epps declares it. I'm not saying designers are always right. but what I am saying runs counter to this visi-knowing, even wiki-knowing, age: following the herd is usually sub-optimal.

What it comes down to is fear of failure: Design by data is rarely horrible; it's also rarely beautiful. Design by human designers can be either.

rates — Mar 25, 09 6667

I belive google has great attention on design
take Gmail for example

Daniel — Mar 25, 09 6669

For whatever it's worth, and that likely isn't much, the Model T was manufactured in many colors other than black for many but not all years it was produced. It was the case, however, that color wasn't completely customizable: certain colors were tied to certain configurations of styles and features (two door vs. four door, etc). Not unlike, say, the variety of color but limited link between colors and feature sets for, say, Apple products.

Cyprian Gwd — Apr 07, 09 6679

Hi, great post. What I found interesting about Google Design:

Ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience:

1. Focus on people – their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people's trust.
10. Add a human touch.

Cyprian Gwd — Apr 07, 09 6680

Hi, great post. What I found interesting about Google Design:

Ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience:

1. Focus on people – their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people's trust.
10. Add a human touch.

mmw — Apr 16, 09 6687

I do understand, Doug's problem and I am agree on the fact: when you are in charge of something you don't need to prove to others that what you do is the right thing, imagine you have a plumber at home for a leak ;), and you start arguing on his job...
sure you can be judged by your peers, it's how the world is working. Anyway I found sad those comments on engineers... I always give the hand to the designers and worked with them to find solution solving problems between data and final render, to sum up, find the way to satisfy everybody, there are also many developers that doing graphism, multimedia, visual stuff for their own pleasure ;) and I think those guys should say the same things, they do understand the design world, It's one of the big point at Apple, people work together and they don't have to prove to each other that they are doing is the right thing.

from picasso, software, hardware, whatever, if you don't keep in mind that your work is for other folks, end-user :), you are doing crap, and for me, the Google design is crap HTML 3 survival, imagine if apple releases docMac/mobileMe as free services?, but anyway I will alter my comment one of the point Google have to face to a huge demand, "so lighter is the render better is your life" yoda:engineer , but it's not a reason to do crapy stuff, you can be light and elegant: two concepts that Google doesn't understand, there hired two much old school nerds, for instance, the last "web project" (only a part of problem/project), the front could take 3/5 millions of real connexion in less than 4hours, this is a wellknown huge, corporate, imagine if as Team lead engineer, the data rules your stuff, the guys shot me..., we worked hard with designers, system admins, servers platform teams and we found the right solutions together in a elegant way respecting all the jobs on this kind of huge project and I never asked to someone to prove is right...

Jared — Oct 20, 09 6963

The problem can be seen exhibiting two simple fallacies:

1. Isolating cause and effect is really hard. Variations in the numbers could be due to anything. I don't buy that Google can really measure user reactions to 3, 4, and 5 pixel borders. I mean, are they holding EVERYTHING else constant? Is that even possible? Sounds a little pseudoscientific.

2. When they spend their time measuring a nitpicky detail like that (if they even can measure it), what Google is NOT measuring is the opportunity cost of wasting engineering and design resources "choosing" between two (or even 41) menial "options" instead of using their skills and experience to dream up some third possibly more amazing design (and just letting the designer supply a few carefully chosen defaults in the details). Missed opportunity to apply imagination, as Scott says.

I can see why he quit, having all his decisions second guessed--undoing the work he was paid to do. Sounds poisonous. (I would say it sounded Microsoft-like except MS's decisions are not even made from data/engineers but rather stacks of clueless marketers/salesmen/managers and endless committees, which is obviously worse.)

Web design — Dec 29, 09 7047

Thanks for great news!

mode paris — Jan 13, 10 7107

Great entry, but at the risk of sounding obnoxious - exceptional design has ideals, integrity and vision. It listens and is informed by its users, but sometimes more importantly, it knows better.

Kawasai scarpe — Jan 22, 10 7146

Hi, great post. What I found interesting about Google Design:

Ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience:

1. Focus on people – their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people's trust.
10. Add a human touch.




 

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