Design is not effortless...
As Ryan Olshavsky and Jonathan Cho mention in their presentation, good design is not easy and itâs not effortless - it may seem obvious, but in reality there is a lot that happens behind the scenes in order to achieve a good design.
I think they do a great of taking us through their process and how they go from a lot to end up with a little. They did this several times, first with the app functionalities and then with the designs. Even though they didnât involve any users in their process, which I imagine was due to time constraints, it was very clear they were trying to keep their decisions as objectively as possible.
Something else I found interesting, was how they differentiated between goals. App goals vs audience goals vs business goals.Â
Audience goals - the characteristics your users have and what their needs are.
App goals - describe the qualities of experience you want users to have.
Business goals - describe the results you want the app to have after launch.
I think this is very important to keep in mind when designing an app, since as they say, you donât want to design a really cool app that no one uses. Which is why understanding your audience is so important and we constantly make the mistake of saying, our audience is everyone, or we are users of our app, thatâs why their emphasis on âyou are not the userâ resonated to well with me. Specially since before I started at Ironhack, I used to be one of those people.
Another important aspect of their presentation was with design, whatâs the right design? Itâs difficult to make a choice or to know based on just one screen, this goes in hand with their idea of âone idea is not enoughâ. Which is difficult, everytime we make something, we think, yes! this is it! when in reality, the first screen we do is rarely the best one or the one that resonates more with users. This is where iterating comes in, now, something they didnât mention is... when should we stop iterating? When have we iterated enough? and I think this is also a problem, because we can then become confused with our own options and we stop being objective.
To sum up, I think Ryan and Jonathan do a great job at answering the question: âhow do you achieve good design?âÂ
First, good design is not easy. It can be a lot of fun, but it takes time, energy, and thoughtful deliberation.
Start with what you do know and build from there. It's okay if you don't have the whole system figured out ahead of time.
Don't settle for your first concept, or what might be good enough. Then critique your designs to determine which options best suits your customer goals and your app goals. Keep iterating and evaluating until the design feels right.
(Quick note, I was really impressed at how they used Keynote for the interface)
Those are my thoughts, I hope you enjoyed them!