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Have you ever had the experience of working on a project or presentation, and you can’t really get any momentum until you get a draft of the document done first and can “shoot holes in it”? For me, this book has summed up what I’ve always felt but haven’t been able to express succinctly: “form follows failure”.

I’m about 3/4 through this interesting book, which as a history junkie, I initially picked up to satisfy my need to read something fairly dry before heading to bed. What I discovered is a rather entertaining essay on the evolution and science of design. Henry Petroski uses case studies on how common objects (the paper clip, zipper, fork, masking tape, etc.) have been developed over time as a background for his overall thesis, which is that form does not follow function, but rather failure.

What he means by this that rather than necessity being the “mother of invention,” failure of a product or service to perform in some way is what drives an innovator to develop a solution. In short, being annoyed with stuff that doesn’t work is what motivates us to create something new that fulfills our personal or collective expectations.

What’s exciting to me about this argument, although penned by Petroski in 1994, is that it absolutely supports the “always in beta” development model that is the current standard for progressive web sites and applications (such as Gmail, iStockphoto, etc.). You throw something out there, listen to people complain about what doesn’t work, and then you innovate, and repeat the cycle ad infinitum. What is fantastic about the internet age is that this cyclical development process can occur in real-time, and the benefits to clients and users are conveyed at the same lightning speed.

I can’t mention this topic without paying homage to David Armano and Critical Mass for their inspirational “always in beta” website and experience at the 2007 Forrester Consumer Forum (I had the privilege of being interviewed live by David at the event). The website is now evolving (who would have thought?) beyond it’s original intent of a “new idea” at the Forum into a real-time communications portal for Critical Mass.

To tie this all together, offline projects, and really all design challenges that an agency tackles, are subject to the rule of “form follows failure”. At an agency, we listen, we create, our internal reviews and client feedback tell us what’s wrong with our creation, and we continue to hone and refine until the final design accomplishes all that it can. I guess adding “routinely and adeptly fails on all initiatives” is a great line to my resume after all.

After a semi-long absence, I’ve decided to go a little Seth Godin on you and post a picture from my camera phone.

Sure, as a photographer this image makes me cringe, but my trusty Treo was all I had on hand. While on a client pitch in NYC earlier this week, I spent a few minutes in a lobby with a DHL drop-off box. I was inspired by the simplicity of the answer for a very important question that anyone about to drop a package in the box may have, “Have they picked up packages here yet, or not?”.

The large, block letters in all caps that indicate if a package has been picked up or not are not sexy, or even all that interesting, but they are 100% functional. I think that can be a hallmark of great design. DHL could have gone with a really slick system of lighted buttons, color-coded tabs, or whatever, but instead they chose the direct route. If I can walk up to the drop-off and see immediately that the packages for the day are “NOT PICKED UP”, I can drop my package with confidence and not have a second thought, which I would bet is exactly what the drop-off box designers were going for. Bravo DHL.

I’m a regular reader of Time magazine and of Time.com (especially their super-friendly mobile edition). Naturally, I was quite interested to see that they had put out an article that highlights the top 50 websites and top 5 “Worst websites” on the internet today. Their criteria is much different than the design community would use, so I anticipated some head-scratching while I read the article.

However, I was totally shocked to see that the number 1 “site to avoid” (also the number 1 worst site on the web) was eHarmony.com. From a design and functionality standpoint, eHarmony isn’t anything to write home about, and it’s probably not going to be at the top of the buzz lists for Web 2.0 applications. It is, however, a solidly designed and functioning site. According to Time magazine, the reason that everyone should avoid eHarmony is:

“Our main beef with this online dating site is its power to cause utter despair. eHarmony claims its more “scientific” approach to matchmaking differentiates it from competitors — its users complete extensive personality questionnaires, in order to connect them to others based on compatibility. In early 2006, eHarmony announced that more than 16,000 couples had married during the previous year as a result of meeting on the site, citing a 2005 Harris Interactive poll. That’s about 90 people finding love every day, a track record bound to inflate expectations. On a more typical dating site, where users are prone to making snap judgments based on photos and sketchy profiles, if you don’t find that special someone you’re less likely to take it personally. It’s easier to shake off because, after all, that’s hardly the real you up there on that site. But if you’ve taken the time to answer eHarmony’s 436 compatibility survey questions and paid its premium charges ($21 to $60 a month, depending on how many months you prepay), and the site then delivers terrible recommendations — or worse, rejects you as unmatchable — what do you tell yourself then? The company’s advice, to stick with it for several months to improve your odds of finding a soul mate, sounds all too self-serving (the longer you use the site the more you pay). The site also discriminates against gays.”

If you read the “discriminates against gays” article, you’ll see the real backbone of Time’s issue with eHarmony and how utterly absurd of an argument it is. The author even acknowledges at the end of his rant that’s it’s perfectly within eHarmoy’s rights as an independent company to choose not to provide services for men seeking men or for women seeking women. The author is gay himself, and he does a thorough job of pointing out that there are many sites that provide dating services for gays only that do not include services for straight people.

Time, normally a trusted source of objective news about what’s going on around the world, has really let their readership down by choosing to publish this article. To be clear – I’d just as quickly blast Time if they were saying that a site for gays was discriminating against straight people by now providing services for them. It’s not like eHarmony is a public institution, or holding back vital services from a particular community…it’s a dating service! People generally want something that is tailored to their particular tastes when it comes to a dating service. It’s no secret that eHarmony is a more conservative site for people who are trying to find that special someone. But so what? Imagine a dating service that did nothing to be selective – how would that do anything to increase the odds of like-minded people getting together?

Rather reviewing eHarmony using objective criteria (or even subjective criteria that is somewhat rational and consistent), some disgruntled writer at Time who evidently has had some bad luck in the dating arena has chosen to take out their personal frustrations on eHarmony.com. The review has nothing to do with site functionality, its impact on the online movement, or anything else. I’m very interested to see if there is any public backlash, as well as how eHarmony will respond.

Thanks for braving my rant!

You can say what you want about the “green” movement, which has as many political overtones as a Dixie Chick concert, but some aspects of it are great. MountainSmith, a well-known manufacturer of outdoor gear, has recently announced the arrival of two new lumbar packs that are made from recycled plastic water bottles. By their estimates, it sales of these products will keep approximately 1.1 million bottles out of the landfill each year, which is great news. The sad thing is, the technology to achieve this isn’t really anything new, so I’m grateful for the political firestorm that’s yielding things like hybrid cars and recycled fabrics. Most outdoor equipment manufacturers know that they cater to an environmentally-conscious crowd, so innovations have been abundant (and well-promoted) for years, but now utilizing such techniques can generate a very real ROI from an increasingly aware public.

Of course, I didn’t see a lumbar pack recycling program mentioned anywhere…yet =).

I always like to experience visual ways of displaying complex data when the visual displays simplify and inform. The “Death and Taxes 2008” poster is a great example of this. Would I ever take the time to try and sift through the 2008 federal budget? Heck no. But would I spend 20 minutes browsing through this interactive piece? Absolutely. Regardless of what your position on the issues may be, this provides an at-a-glance view of where budgetary changes could be occurring (it was easy to spot things like new submarines being favored instead of housing for the elderly, for example).

This is more breakthrough that it may appear on the surface…what if government textbooks were replaced with interactive learning modules in high schools across the country? How much could retention rates improve?

If you click on the link, you’ll be redirected to the site where you can zoom in, zoom out, etc.

I was thinking today that aside from a trackball, which is at best an awkward, ugly, and sad little invention (sorry trackball user, if you’re still out there), the mouse really hasn’t been significantly improved since its inception. However, given the power of Google and about 10 minutes of disposable time, I found a really cool site.

While he hasn’t changed the mouse at all, a German communications student by the name of Alex Frank has dared to design an interface that removes the need for a user to click. Anything. You can navigate the entire contents of the page, submit forms, and download images all without lifting a finger (to click, that is). I strongly encourage you to check it out…and to spend at least 5 minutes getting the hang of it. After I did that, I was totally hooked (with the exception being that it was impossible to select text for copy and pasting, but hey, it’s a prototype).

In fact, I’m somewhat disappointed that I have to click “publish” now.

In case you didn’t catch the link, it’s here: http://www.dontclick.it/

This post is in response to David Armano’s post, “Thought of the Day”, in which he quotes Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Business, at the University of Toronto, saying this:

“To get more reliability (business approach), you sacrifice validity (design approach). And vice-versa.”

Wow. I have the disadvantage of taking this quote without context, but at face value I have to totally disagree Mr. Martin. I’m sure that Roger is a very intelligent and accomplished individual, but I’m not sure what his motivation is here. So somebody please correct me if I’ve got this wrong…

I think that the core of this statement is a very, very narrow definition of what design is. I know that’s the cry of our industry, right? Evidently with good reason; most people still aren’t convinced. Design isn’t pretty pictures, it’s immersion and empathy, science, statistics, usability, and communication. To me, Roger’s statement invokes sentiments of an artificial demarcation between business and design that is decades out of date and dangerously uninformed. Validity (good design), by its very nature breeds good business results. And I’m not talking about how nice something looks, I’m talking about how well it functions, which is a direct reflection of the design.

Good design has to be fueled by clear business objectives, a thorough understanding and empathy of the audience, and skillful problem solving. It’s a result of teamwork between businesspeople and designers, not competition as Roger implies. I’d love to hear feedback on what others think.

–> Clarification: David was able to offer me this context:

Hi Andy,

I read your post and I do think this may be a case of not having the context. The essance of Roger’s message was that designers speak the language of validation while business speaks the language of reliability. This causes friction and miscommunication though there are shared goals. He stresses that each camp needs to learn the language of the other and get closer to a 50/50 mix of reliability + validity. His point being that this balance leads to both good design and business.