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On Successful Design and Designer Feelings
What constitutes a successful design? I know some easy answers might be that whatever makes the client or user happy or where the goals of the company are fulfilled. A design that helps get the job done is a successful one. But is it really that easy? I think when you break it down to just clients and customers you are forgetting one major element, the designer.
Being a designer means you are behind the scenes. The only time you get recognition is by other designers. The world (used to) loves to use Facebook due to its utility, but also because of its clean design. Do you think they care about the designers behind the site? Ask someone in your family who Jonathan Ive is and they will shrug their shoulders.
On major websites achieving all the goals of the site is a major task all on its own so I do not mean to belittle the fact that if you fulfill all of these goals you have failed. But successful design has to mean a little more than that to you. As of right now we are caught in the era of user-centered design (UCD) where everything we design is to be done for the sake of the user. This is very important and will help not only websites, but everyday products. Amazon does almost everything that its users want it to do and the company seems to be doing pretty well so it must be successful design, right?
I would have to say that satisfying the users and the clients is only part of the equation. Too many times as designers I think we neglect our own feelings towards a design. I am going to add another element to the equation of successful design and that is the feelings of the designer on their finished project. I have done websites that did everything the client asked of me. The site got higher rankings in search engines. The growth of the site’s community was exponential over a short period. Yet looking back at it, I am not pleased at all with the design.
Maybe I am just too hard on myself because the time constraints to build and design the site were very short so I know I did the best I could do...I think. I did what the client wanted, I did what the user wanted, and I did what I could do given the time, yet I look back at it as not being successful. Why? Because I am not pleased with looking at it now. I created a successful design for everyone, but me.
Very rarely do I come across a design that I am proud of doing for an extended period of time. Part of this has to do with web design not being timeless, but a large part of it is the need of a designer to achieve the greatest experience they can.
I suppose that successful design can mean different things to different people. For the user, if they can accomplish what they want on the site with relative ease then the design is successful. For a company if the site fulfills all of the company’s goals along with the users then it is a successful design. As for me, a successful design accomplishes the goals of the user, the company, and myself.
A lot of us are designing websites because that is what we enjoy to do. If we do not begin to recognize that a successful design should take into account how we feel about the design, then I think we begin to despise what we do. And life is really no fun if you can’t enjoy what you are doing. I know this might come across as a selfish viewpoint, but if you can't enjoy what you do for yourself then you really shouldn’t be doing it.
Artist or Designer
Not too long ago I made the distinction between what I believed an artist and a designer were.
The artist is the individual who loves to get caught up in their work. They do it for their own satisfaction and at the end of the day they want the world to fawn over their creation. If the work they have created isn’t beautiful then there is no point in doing it.
The designer understands that he is there to do one thing and that is to solve problems. Rarely is there any glory in solving problems. You might spend 240 hours building a website only to watch users spend the five minutes needed on it and leave. It shouldn’t sting because if they leave completing the tasks they came to do then you have done your job and that is the satisfaction a designer gets.
Now it seems I'm backtracking believing that part of being a happy designer involves selfish feelings of satisfaction in your own designs. Maybe there is a position in the middle where the Artist-Designer lives. I don't know, but if there is then I would love to know that it exists so that maybe one day I could achieve it.
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7 Comments
Recently, I worked on a re-design of an event page with our designer. We were pretty excited about the one-page layout and how different the re-design was going to be compared to the old site. The clients loved it and now that it has launched, I'm not really happy with it anymore. I talked to the designer and he feels the same way. Perhaps it's less to do with perfection and more to do with anxiety after a launch.
Yeah, so even if a creation is user-centric(and meets the goals set out) it is still someones creation and it seems entirely natural to have a selfish attachment to it. Why does it have to be so defined tho?
But, I can't relate, because I don't assess my life according to success, maybe I do with a metaphor, but not directly.
Honestly, this article seems like complexity of thinking.
I can't edit, but just re-read your last sentence:
I don’t know, but if there is then I would love to know that it exists so that maybe one day I could achieve it.
Why do you need this title or definition to aspire to? Why does it matter to you? And why should it matter to any person, anywhere?
Who cares if you are an artist or a designer, or some in between, if you need a label, just tell people you create shit.
One word: Amen. I agree with this post extremely. I too look back at the few big designs I've had and have to say, "ok, maybe under the circumstances..." or even, "what was I thinking?" I've never heard any real complaints about my work, except from myself. There is an art and a science to web design. Form AND Function. Bravo.
I went back and forth on whether I should comment here or on the article you referenced about the difference between artist and designer. This post won.
I was an artist before I was a designer. I drew and painted and created art that was appreciated by others, which in turn gave me satisfaction. I never saw it as a negative (as implied in your quote above) or selfish to relish the personal satisfaction of creating art. On the contrary, part of how I personally defined art was if it was a creation that came from within my being - an expression of my passion or some emotion or innermost thoughts. As a musician, I define the art of music in the same way. Anyone can write a formulaic pop song that could be appreciated by the masses, but the best music (in my opinion) comes from the soul, an expression of the artist's passion and experience.
Because of this viewpoint, I still consider myself a designer AND an artist. When I design something, there is a creative process that is unique to me as the artist/designer who is behind it. Although I have created my share of formulaic websites, there is a wonderful satisfaction in those that have incorporated my uniqueness of style, approach, etc. in combination with the standards and functionality of good design.
I don't think it's right to state that if you gain some type of personal satisfaction from the artistic elements of your design then they are no longer designs but art. In addition, there are countless great designs that are artistic in their nature.
Dictionary.com defines art as "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance."
Wikipedia says, "Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions."
Some of my favorite websites could fit these definitions without any stretch.
You can choose to be a designer OR an artist, but I believe you can find a way to be both. Finding the way that is uniquely yours is an art in itself.
I would have to agree with BK about your definition of artist. I disagreed with it on your earlier post and I disagree strongly with it again. It is a very negative and generalized definition. In fact it is exactly the kind of definition that cripples art in the minds of the general public. Instead of thinking of it as an effective way to investigate problems, they think of it as "pretty things".
In fact I find Dictionary.com's definition (as supplied by BK above) to be, excuse the language, a piece of shit. That is what the people who go to galleries and say "My toddler could have done this..." think. Wikipedia has it right on.
Back to the article though, I think what you're describing isn't whether something is successful or unsuccessful. Instead I think you are talking in terms of relative success. From what I can understand, the projects you aren't proud of could have been more successful in your eyes. But that doesn't mean they weren't successful for the client. It's easy to apply newer thinking to old ideas to improve them in retrospect, but the kinds of tools we have today might not have been as refined or available in the past.
Post A Wonderful Comment
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I think I know what you mean. Lately I've been doing some coding for some webcomic artists. Since the site has to somewhat match their comics, I let them do all the design work, and then I give advice for making it work better on the web. However, as I go through the process of coding the design given to me, I find myself constantly adding little things, features the artist didn't take into account. The artist usually sees the changes as an improvement, and it's those little additions that make me really satisfied with the work afterwards.