Goodbye, Google An Article by Douglas Bowman stopdesign.com Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. “Is this the right move?” When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions. Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle. designdecisionsdata
Chopped and disfigured The details of a building cannot be made alive when they are made from modular parts If the builder wants to build the room from modular four-foot panels, he must change the size of the rooms, and change their shape, to fit his panels. In such a building system, it is impossible for a person to create a plan which reflects the larger subtleties of site or plan. Each plan will always be chopped and disfigured to make it fit the building details. To make the building live, its patterns must be generated on the site, so that each one takes its own shape according to its context. Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building What's suitable for each unique condition modularity