I have not been around for a while. I’ve been busy organising my move to London. It’s not complicated, but it requires my head to be in the details.
I’ve been also working on some interesting projects. Now I can say it, since when I was given the briefs, they did not look so interesting.
I thought they looked poorly designed. They were, somehow. Not designed from the user’s point of view. To me, that’s a big drawback, as it might cause the failure of the project.
However, I was focusing on one aspect of the whole product that did not work as it might, or as it should.
There are many aspects of a project that have to been taken care of: interface design, system development, production, deployment, information management, business plan, and more. In a small company, it comes down to few people managing most of them. I was lucky enough to be involved in the production side as well. That poorly-designed interface design also came with some interesting production issues. The front-end designer wanted to give the client a catchy, engaging interface, and she did. The client approved. Then it came the time to make it work, and it did not work quite. But it had to work.
I, then, realised ‘it working’ is as important as ‘it being designed well’. Because even ugly, poorly designed, dodgy cars do take people from point A to point B, and that might not makes them great cars, but they’re transport nonetheless.
