[Sigia-l] Re: Design(ers) [was: is bad design a choice?]

[Jared M. Spool]

At 01:45 PM 10/17/2005, Todd Warfel wrote about eBay:
>Just imagine how much better it would work with a little better "design."

I'd actually like to be doing some of this darned imaginin'.

Would it double their revenues? Up it by 50%? 10%? 1%? Would a redesign 
have any positive effect at all? (After all, this is the site where 
changing the page background from puke yellow to neutral white pissed off a 
substantial number of existing customers and sent them packing to the 
competitors.)

How much could we, as *designers* guarantee that this "little better 
'design'" (as y'all put it) would help eBay's business objectives?

The point I'm tryin' to make is we seem to have this here belief that "good 
design" be helpin' and "bad design" be hurtin'. But we can't really define 
what makes "good" or "bad" design, right? (Other than the ol' standard 
I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it approach.)

And we can't really substantiate the claim that improving design will help 
the business in some sort of way. It feels like it should, but do we know 
for a fact that it does?

It's the facts that I'm most interested in.

So, before we be condemnin' eBay as "bad design", maybe we oughta be clear 
on what that actually means. Certainly, before we go gettin' all 
high-and-mighty about that good vs. bad design thingy.

I'm just sayin' :)

Jared


Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
4 Lookout Lane, Unit 4d, Middleton, MA 01949
978 777-9123   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks