Should it be aimed at products and users with a down-to-earth structured experience, or should the boss, judges or other designers create beautiful “works” with the aesthetics of the boss, judges or other designers as the goal?
As interface designers of digital products, we are in an interesting period. The industry is relatively young, and many so-called “standards” may not be as mature as we think, and even evolve every few months. I believe that many people have similar feelings, that is, we will always choose our work goals between intentionally or unintentionally. Should it be aimed at products and users with a down-to-earth structured experience, or should the boss, judges or other designers create beautiful “works” with the aesthetics of the boss, judges or other designers as the goal?
In the years when I was called a “young designer”, I just wanted to design the most beautiful interface. It’s no wonder, after all, that’s how they taught us in school. Do you remember those design comments in class? We have learned to design for other designers since then. We were told to reduce the word spacing or stop using the bad filters in Photoshop. In any case, we are beginning to understand that there is an important goal behind these things that we do, that is, to gain the approval of other designers.
Fortunately, I gradually realized the danger of this motive. As one of the components of the product, the design must be coordinated with many other aspects of work to promote the ultimate realization of its business goals. Dribbble is full of wonderful interface elements and animations, which may not look bad in a 400×300 thumbnail, but for the actual product, the actual hardware platform environment and use situation where the product is located, and the target user How about it? The success of a product needs to be evaluated in a variety of ways, and the beautiful appearance is only part of it, not the whole.
Product design is business and is subordinate to commercial activities. Companies and customers rely on our design capabilities to achieve greater goals. They hire us and we design products-this means that most of the time we need to provide practical solutions that are beneficial to the realization of product goals, even if the solutions themselves do not seem so Dribbble.
Please don’t misunderstand my point of view. Designers create beautiful things, which is required by their duties, and they are duty-bound. But don’t design products with the goal of “making other designers look at each other”, and don’t put the design goal above the product goal.
Everyone needs a sense of identity and value breakthroughs beyond peers and competitors. However, as a product designer, the goal of “personal self” must be coordinated with the goals of the company and team, making it a positive force to promote the success of the product. This kind of self-fulfilling pleasure is even more wonderful.
