Good Design comes from Care, Skill and Experience

Good design comes from the combination of three things: Care, Skill and Experience.

Care

If a designer doesn’t care, forget it. Good design starts with care. Bad design happens when people don’t care enough. Care means noticing things others miss, understanding the hidden connections between people, products and services, and wanting to make things better.

Care starts with the user. Does my product make their life better? Do I care if they’re happy with it?

But care goes further. I also care about the environment. Does my product create unnecessary waste? Does it harm the system it’s part of? And I care about how a product affects people. I wouldn’t design something that keeps people doomscrolling just to increase engagement.

I can hardly stand it when people don’t care enough to use what they have designed.

A coffee pot that drips when you pour is a perfect example. It looks like a coffee pot, but it doesn’t actually do what a coffee pot is supposed to do. The designer simply didn’t care enough to use it and notice the problem.

Skill

Good design comes from good designers.

Skill matters. It takes practice, feedback and learning. Most people don’t start as good designers, but they can become good through practice.

For me, skill also means adapting to new tools. I keep learning new tools to improve my skills, but I always pay attention to the end user and the impact of what I create.

As a designer, I am my own biggest critic. Developing skill is a continuous learning process.

Experience

Experience is learning from the past to make better decisions today.

Skill and care are crucial, but experience is also about advising the client and asking the right questions. Sometimes that means challenging what the client asks for, because their first idea isn’t always the right solution.

My experience is like someone whispering in the back of my head:

“We tried this before, and it didn’t work. You learned from this. Do this and don’t do that.”

Experience means learning from the past and using that knowledge to make better decisions today.