[HN Gopher] Good Design vs. Great Design
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Good Design vs. Great Design
        
       Author : gymshoes
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2021-09-18 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.andy.works)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.andy.works)
        
       | TheRealNGenius wrote:
       | The navbar is suboptimal. Having a transparent background makes
       | it so black things scrolling by obscure the logo for instance.
        
       | designcode wrote:
       | His apps are badly designed wrapped up in loud visual design
       | that's trying to do / say too much.
       | 
       | Just adding 3d doesn't mean you've stumbled upon a new era of
       | interface design.
        
       | armchairhacker wrote:
       | Strange figurative wording aside, I think the author is
       | reiterating that, in order to go "above and beyond" and stand out
       | from the competition, you have to create something novel and
       | radical. And directed more towards art and creative fields.
       | 
       | "Good design" is following all the classic design tips. Like a
       | material website that implements material design correctly, is
       | good design. And this is actually OK and better than "great
       | design" for most situations.
       | 
       | "Great design" needs to stand out. And the only way to stand out
       | is to do something weird. Take some fancy website made out of
       | ASCII: not something you should write your IT software in, but
       | maybe good for a portfolio.
       | 
       | Radical "great design" is really good for art and music: almost
       | nobody cares about a beautiful portrait, people want something
       | strange and creative. It's really bad for software architecture
       | "design": when writing code, you practically never want to stray
       | from the obvious, traditional path. For UX design and websites
       | it's somewhere in the middle, and depends on what the software is
       | for (e.g. business solution UX is less creative, video game is
       | more creative UX).
        
         | overgard wrote:
         | I think the author is confusing art and design. Art is all the
         | things he says are great: challenging, messy, unconvential,
         | etc. etc. But design in a lot of ways is more about empathy and
         | engineering. Someone wants to do something and you're figuring
         | out how to make that as understandable and efficient as
         | possible. You don't need to be super creative to make a great
         | design, you need to understand what the person is trying to do
         | and make solving that as obvious as possible. IMO this guy
         | wants "design" to be Art, and that's just confusing most of the
         | time.
         | 
         | If I'm downloading some app it's probably because I need it to
         | do something. I don't give a shit about the designer's ego, I
         | do not need my mind blown, I just want to do the thing I set
         | out to do and move on with my life.
         | 
         | The problem with most design is everyone thinks they're the
         | next incarnation of Steve Jobs and if they just get rid of more
         | buttons and make their typography really really nice everyone
         | will see their creative genius. So we're constantly dealing
         | with apps and their "bold" redesigns of things that everyone
         | understood perfectly fine before. It's incredibly frustrating.
         | Even reading what this guy is doing on his site, it's like
         | reinventing all the built in apps that work fine with "Bold"
         | new versions. Yeah, I don't really need a bold new calculator
         | or weather app.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | happytoexplain wrote:
       | The "great" side is very vague - it's hard to tell what the
       | author is trying to say.
        
       | the_arun wrote:
       | According to author - Great design describes how to market our
       | failures.
        
       | karmakaze wrote:
       | TL; DR [without the labels]                 is usable.
       | challenges.       solves problems.      enriches the soul.
       | functional.           is fulfilling.       is invisible.
       | is in your face.       is good process.      is usually messy.
       | is familiar.          is uncomfortable.       optimizes.
       | discovers.       is consistent.        is unexpected.
       | follows patterns.     sets the new patterns.       is
       | understandable.    opens new vistas.       is clear.
       | leaves room for interpretation.       gets out of the way.  has
       | something to say.       is for all.           is for you.
       | 
       | You can decide for yourself which is better.
        
         | Zababa wrote:
         | A few of the ones of the right could be an evolution of the
         | ones on the left (functional and fullfilling, solves problems
         | and enriches the soul, is for all and is for you), some others
         | are terrible (is in your face, usually messy, uncomfortable).
        
       | croes wrote:
       | I prefer good design.
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | I'll buy good design for my business and clients, but I'll buy
         | great design for my home.
        
         | codingdave wrote:
         | I thought this was just a snarky response until I read the
         | article, but yes - based on TFA's description, I'll take "good"
         | any day.
        
         | Zababa wrote:
         | Great design is design that stays good even after fullfilling
         | all the list from the "great". But most design fail at that,
         | and thus are not good anymore.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | overgard wrote:
       | Great design sounds awful
        
       | true_religion wrote:
       | I actually have a lot of criticism for their designs, but I'm
       | going to hold my tongue since they make a calculator app for the
       | iPad and don't charge money for its or feature creep their way
       | from calculator into social media.
       | 
       | Edit.
       | 
       | Whoops. I spoke too soon.
       | 
       | I downloaded the app, and it says I have a week to decide if I
       | want to pay 14$ a month for it.
       | 
       | A month! For a calculator app!
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | great design challenges you... to pay $14 a month for a
         | calculator app :^)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jstummbillig wrote:
       | Good design is getting hired by Google in 2021. Great design is
       | choosing to work for Google in 1998.
        
       | draw_down wrote:
       | Aphorisms aren't as deep as their authors would have you believe.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-09-18 23:02 UTC)