为什么好设计是来自于差的设计

 

Why Good Design Comes from Bad Design为什么好设计是来自于差的设计 ？

Scott Berkun －微软公司(2000年3月/4月)

译: Dozer (2003年2月)

当我作为一个学生在卡内基.梅隆大学就读计算机科学/哲学的时候，我参加了一个设计项目课程,去学习关于界面设计方面的东西。上课的第一天，我到达工作室的时候，发现一个年轻人在绘图桌上对他正在设计的随身听勾画各种不同的变化。我凑上前去，看到在大绘图版上有三、四十个不同的变化，这些变化他已经考虑过，并记录在纸上。 我自我介绍，以自己对设计不太了解为借口，问他为什么他需要制作这么多草图。他想了一会儿，然后说，“我不会知道一个好的想法会象什么样子，直到我已经看到了一个糟糕的想法。” 我微笑着，但却迷惑不解了。如果他是一个设计师，为什么他不少做一些草图，而是要做这么多呢？ 直到多年以后，我才理解他所说的真正含义。 当我开始在微软开始工作的时候，我对把糟糕的idea记录下来感到窘迫。我随时带着一个笔记本记录下开会时或上班路途中涌现的各种想法，但我从来不让别人看到它们。这些ideas中的很多都非常可怕，完全不可能实行。 但是每一个我所想到的idea,无论多么糟糕，它都表明了可以以其他别的方式来考虑问题。我勾画出的每一个新想法都比上一个想法给予更多的信息。每一个糟糕的想法都显示了问题的某些重要方面，而在之前我并没有想过它们。每五、六个想法中，我将具有一、两个也许可行的方案。勾画草图帮助了我，但我不想让别人知道我在这么做。我想，如果同事们知道我画了这么多草图，他们会认为我不是好的设计师。 当该是把想法呈现给开发人员、经理、易用性工程师们的时候，我把我构思出的最佳方案作为主导提交出来。 我花了很多时间去充实完善这个我自认为最好的候选方案，希望其他人不会要求别的，但我总是错的。一个网页的设计可以有很多变化方案，如果你只展示一种想法，自认为能设计一些东西的人都会向你指出几个替代方案，并问为什么你没有按他们的想法去做呢？这是一个令人沮丧的过程，特别是当他们的建议你已经考虑过时。因为当你告诉他们这一点时，似乎没有人相信你。 在很多次痛苦的review会议后，并听取了经验丰富的设计师的建议之后，我学会了展示想法的最佳方式――为了帮助支持最好的方案你必须展示其他候选方案。我开始养成这样一个习惯，展示三至七个想法给大家。这些能代表最有特色的、最有含义的选择是从我全部的想法中挑选出来的。当开会时，我穿行于不同的设计之间，说出在它们之间关键的折中取舍 (trade-off)是什么。当讨论这些想法时，我会指出重大的缺点，而这些缺点只能通过我正在推荐的方案来解决。这种方式帮助使我的推荐被很好地接受。经常有人会提出很好的建议：从设计A中提取某些东西，添加到设计B中。 如果我只充实完善一个单一的想法,就不可能做到这样。 偶尔我需要处理一个困难得让人发疯的问题，由于技术或者进度表方面的限制，唯一的可能方案会可悲地糟糕。在几天热切但没有结果的勾画后，我感到很沮丧，并试图通过询问其他人的意见来重新组织想法。所发生的奇妙事情是，一旦你相信你已经考虑过了所有合理的可能方案后，一个推断性的过程开始了。我会在白板上写下所有可能的选择，微笑地坐下来思考。我知道在白板上的某个地方有正确的答案。当有人路过我的办公室，问我我们将要做些什么的时候，至少我可以指出答案就在上面。以这种方式留下各种选择的余地会产生心理上的优势。要作决定的时候，我将针对每个选择列出一个赞成和反对的理由清单，并依靠我的设计人员、开发人员或其他关键人员帮助我做出决断。从不好的想法中选出最佳方案并不是设计工作中的最显著部分，但这种事情的确发生了。包含了致力于寻求不同想法的正确过程，将使一个不可能的状况变得可以忍受，并给你信心去做出决定。 当学设计的学生向我展示他的草图时，他是在表明他是一个设计人员。所有有创造性的、充满天赋的人们都认可“过程”的价值，他们并不担心被别人知道这样一个事实，他们是通过了很多糟糕的想法才获得好想法的。

你想让不好的想法只出现在草图或原型(prototype)中，而不是出现在最终产品中，你只有通过花费大量精力去探索很多想法才能做到这一点。如果优质的设计工作对你是重要的，你必须确保经理们安排他们的进度表来让它发生，并调整你的设计思考范围以和项目进度表相适应。

设计思考中的一个常见陷阱是追求完美的设计―――认为对于一个特定的问题只有一个唯一正确的答案，假如给予足够时间的话设计人员便能够实现它。在很多情况下，最佳的可能设计（假设存在的话）并不比一个好的设计有更多的价值，特别是如果需要花费两倍的时间去找到这个设计的时候。George S. Patton将军 曾经写道, 一个现在执行的好计划比明天的完美计划更好”。你必须知道你团队所面临的竞争现实和财务现实，并调整你的设计工作目标以和它们相适应。在大部分web的时间表中，对设计精力划分优先和集中使用是至关重要的。让三至五个最重要的任务得到很扎实的完成，让其余的任务得到简单但足够的处理，直到下一次发布再解决。 我阅读关于不同领域的大师的资料越多，我越发认识到在他们的工作流程中有一个共同的特点。每一个伟大的作家、画家、建筑师把他们作品的高质量归结于不倦的尝试。当被问及他们的艺术能力时，他们并不提到是因为来自上天赐予的灵感，而是描述了他们为了创造优质的东西必须做很多次的尝试。 我将以一些著名人物的语录来结束这个专栏，我似乎有一个喜欢引用别人语录的习惯，但这些人的话比我有更多的可信性：建筑师的两件最重要工具就是绘图室中的橡皮和建筑工地上的大锤”—Frank Lloyd Wright

海明威重写了39次《A Farewell to Arms》的结尾，当被问到他是怎么完成他的伟大作品时，他说，“我为了杰作的每一页，写了99页废话”。The first draft of anything is shit. --海明威

物理学家的最伟大工具是他的废纸篓”—爱因斯坦

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

作者简介：

目前是微软公司的用户界面设计和易用性培训经理（UI design and usability training manager），负责培训和支持微软公司的众多web和界面设计师，易用性工程师、UI开发人员。在IE 1.0和2.0开发阶段，他是易用性工程师，从IE3.0到5.0时，他是UI程序经理，在改任目前的职位以前任Consumer Windows的主要程序经理。


Why Good Design Comes from Bad Design
Scott Berkun
Microsoft Corporation
March/April 2000
Summary: Follow-up to an early column on designing good UI. (3 printed pages)
I've received several requests to complete the missing part two of an earlier column, Making Usable Products: An Informal Process for Good User Interfaces. I read this early column again recently and thought it was awful. So now you're getting part two, which, in my mind, is really a thinly veiled revision of and improvement on part one. Perhaps you won't notice, but of course now that I've told you, you'll probably go back and look at the first one and be really disappointed that I've had a year to write part two and this is the best I could do.
When I was a computer science/philosophy student at CMU, I took a design project course to learn about all of this interface design stuff I'd heard about. The first day of class I arrived at the studio room, and found a young man at a drawing table, sketching out different variations of the Walkman® he was designing. I got close enough to see the large sketchpad and saw 30 or 40 different variations that he had considered and put down on paper. I introduced myself, pleaded ignorance about design, and asked him why he needed to make so many sketches. He thought for a second, and then said, I don't know what a good idea looks like until I've seen the bad ones. I smiled, but was puzzled. I felt like going back across campus to the computer science labs. If he's a designer, shouldn't he make fewer sketches instead of more? I didn't really understand what he was talking about until many years later.
When I started at Microsoft, I was embarrassed to document bad ideas. I kept a notebook with me at all times to write down ideas when I was in meetings, or traveling on the bus to work, but I never let anyone see it. Many of these ideas were awful, just plain unworkable. But with each idea I came up with, no matter how bad, it revealed some other way of thinking about the problem. Each new idea I sketched out was more informed than the last. Each bad idea illustrated some important aspect of the problem that I hadn't thought about before. Out of every five or six ideas, I'd have one or two that might be feasible. The sketching helped me, but it was something I didn't want others to know I did. I thought folks would think I wasn't a good designer if they saw how many sketches I made.
When it came time to present ideas to developers, managers, or usability engineers, I'd lead with my single best idea. I'd invest time in fleshing out only my best candidate, and hoped I wouldn't be asked about the others. I was always wrong. There are so many variations for designing a Web page, that if you only show one idea, anyone who thinks they can design something (which includes everyone) will point out several alternatives to you, and ask why the idea you're going with isn't the one they just came up with. It can be a frustrating process, especially if the suggestion is one you've already considered, because no one seems to believe you when you tell them that.
After many painful review meetings, and hearing advice from seasoned designers, I learned the right way to present ideas—you have to show the other candidates in order to help support the good ones. I began the habit of presenting three to seven different ideas, culling from my total set of ideas the ones that represented the most distinctive or meaningful choices. When in a meeting I now walk through the different designs, calling out what the key trade-offs are between them. When discussing ideas, I call out important negative qualities that are only answered by the idea I'm recommending, which helps set up my recommendation to be well received. Often someone will make a good suggestion for taking something from design A and adding it to design B. That wouldn't be possible if I had only fleshed out a single idea.
Every so often I'll work on a problem that is insanely hard. The only possibilities, because of technology or schedule limitations, are tragically bad. After a few days of intense but fruitless sketching, I'll feel depressed and try to regroup by asking others for their opinions. The magical thing that happens is once you're convinced you've considered all reasonable possibilities, a deductive process can begin; I'll write all possible choices on the whiteboard and sit down with a smile. I know that somewhere on that board is the right answer. When people come by my office and ask me what we're going to do, at least I can point and say it's up there somewhere. There is a psychological advantage to containing the space of choices in this way. To decide, I'll make a pro and con list for each choice, and rely on my designer, developer, or other key people to help make the call. Choosing the best among bad ideas isn't a highlight of design work, but it happens. The right process combined with a dedication to pursuing several ideas makes an impossible situation bearable, and gives you the confidence to make a decision.
When the design student showed me his sketches, he was showing me that he was a designer. All creative, talented people recognize the value of process, and have no concerns about revealing to others that it takes many bad ideas to obtain good ones. You want the bad ideas to come out on sketch paper or in prototypes, not in the product, and you can only do that by expending the energy to explore lots of ideas. If quality design work is important, you have to make sure managers set their schedules to allow it to happen, and pace the range of your thinking to match the schedule.
A common trap for design thinking is searching for perfect designs—the belief that there is a single right answer to a given problem, and a designer should be able to realize it given enough time. In many cases, the best possible design (if there is such a thing) isn't worth more than a good one, especially if it takes twice as much time to find it. General George S. Patton once wrote, A good plan executed now is better than the perfect plan tomorrow. You have to know the realities of the competitive and financial plan your team is working from, and adjust the goals of your design work to match them. On most Web schedules, it's critical that design energy is prioritized and focused. Make the top three or five user tasks rock solid, and keep the rest simple but adequate until the next release.
The more I read about great masters in different fields, the more I see how there is a common thread in their work process. Every great writer, painter, architect, or director attributes the quality of their work to tireless discipline. When asked about their artistry, they don't point to magic or divine inspiration, but describe how many attempts they must make to create things of the quality they desire.
I'll close this column with comments from various well-known figures. I seem to be making a habit of quoting people, but these folks have slightly more credibility than I do:
The two most important tools an architect has are the eraser in the drawing room and the sledge hammer on the construction site. —Frank Lloyd Wright
Hemingway rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms 39 times. When asked about how he achieved his great works, he said, I write 99 pages of crap for every one page of masterpiece.
The physicist's greatest tool is his wastebasket. —Albert Einstein
Rewrite and revise. Do not be afraid to seize what you have and cut it to ribbons … Good writing means good revising. —Strunk and White, Elements of Style

译: Dozer

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