Guiding Principles of a Good Design
It is rare to see the best choices when approaching a new design. Usually there are too many considerations and factors for a reliable picture to form. At this stage intuition is our best hope when sorting through the alternatives.
To help organize the intuitive thought-process, here are four important guiding principles to keep in mind…
Simple
The design contains no unnecessary complexity or unneeded technology. It uses fewer parts, streamlined assembly methods, and reuses the same parts, assemblies and software where sensible.
Scalable
A scalable design can be expanded or contracted to a reasonable extent without the need to start over. It can be bigger or smaller, faster or slower, louder or softer – and so forth – without fundamentally rearranging the basic design concept.
On-target
An on-target design does what is required. Nothing more. Nothing less. There are no superfluous or missing features. Everything works as planned.
Effective
The product isn’t overbuilt or underbuilt. No corners are cut. No hard choices are ignored. The customer stays happy. The company continues to turn a profit.
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Unfortunately, it often takes a disaster to learn good design practice.
In the early 1970′s, General Motors introduced the Chevy Vega, a four cylinder economy car intended to compete with the Ford Pinto and the Japanese imports. But instead of building a simple car using standard technology, GM decided to design a brand-new aluminum engine — in theory to save weight and increase gas mileage. The engine program, however, was delayed by a myriad of technical problems because nobody at GM had ever built a production aluminum power plant before.
1972 Chevrolet Chevy Vega Advertisement
When the Vega finally did roll out under intense pressure from senior management — they were a nightmare of leaks, blown head gaskets, poor gas mileage, and endless recalls. Did the company meet its goal of building a competitive vehicle? No, because the aluminum engine became the goal, and they forgot what they were trying to achieve with this model. As a result, the car was too complex, had too many big-car elements, was small but heavy, hardly any fun to drive, held too few people, and cost customers all sorts of headaches.
Sometimes a disaster must be meted out by the angry gods of reality before we learn the lessens of good design practice. But learn we do, or else to the scrap heap of history do we trudge.
Ken Ramsley
