Arrogance and Humility
Design is arrogance.
The designer says, “I know what you want better than you. Here it is.” A designer offers judgment as superior; as Henry Ford said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” (Fig. 1.)
Design is humility.
Users are experts in their own lives, lives the designer will see only if she understands their wants and needs. Design is recognition that “good” only makes sense in that context.
Look at the iPod, and then at MySpace. (Figs. 2 and 3.) The iPod’s design is so excellent, it created, then owned, a category. MySpace is famously ugly, but incredibly valuable to its users.
Neither product is better in any absolute way; neither debate can win. The iPod is an unanswerable repudiation to people who don’t believe design is arrogance; MySpace demonstrates that users prize participation, even at the expense of clarity.
Arrogance without humility is a recipe for high-concept irrelevance; humility without arrogance guarantees unending mediocrity. Figuring out how to be arrogant and humble at once, figuring out when to watch users and when to ignore them for this particular problem, for these users, today, is the problem of the designer.
Clay Shirky teaches at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program. He is the author of the forthcoming Here Comes Everybody, a book about the way social tools change society. Louise Ma is a graphic designer in New York City. She enjoys diagrams, maps, and other educative visuals.
Remarks 60 total remarks were added before the post was closed.
Erik Dahl
right on. I can't count the number of times that I've had this exact conversation with clients and other designers alike. well said.
josh althorpe
myspace is still ugly
Greg J. Smith
Well said.. but since we are talking about apple...
What about the arrogance of the iphone? That thing is Locked down, bloated and extremely overpriced and it is masquerading as next level mobile tech!
Tommy
You put into words a though I couldn't get my head around. Maby I'll be a better designer now. Thanks.
Margherita
MySpace is so ugly i can't use it.
Mig Reyes
And that's where Facebook takes my vote. User kept in mind, good design, all geared for social networking. Schwing!
dave
Function always comes first. There are loads of poorly designed websites that are fantastic. Myspace just got in there first, but it will change, or be superceded.
But arrogance also comes from the consumer. They WANT to wave their ipod's in front of others to show them how cool they are. But the ipod essentially does the same thing as lots of other products. In the end the consumer is always more arrogant that the designer.
Simon Leong
horses for courses in terms of myspace vs facebook. both have their pros and cons.
although i think i'm ignorant about what your trying to say.
all i can add which i've learnt is 'keep it simple stupid' and 'less is more' and 'if it aint broke don't fix it'.
s :-)
Josh Emerson
I agree... I've had this conversation many time with all types of people. I also agree, myspace needs a redesign!
Michael McWatters
I would like to add that clients contribute to design arrogance. On a nearly daily basis, we make recommendations, as designers and strategists, based on what we know about our clients' customers, the market, business trends, and so on. And every day, clients thank us for our advice, and often ignore it, choosing to put their internal initiatives in front of user needs.
One key to making design better overall is to help businesspeople...the people who often are the ultimate decision-makers...more accountable to the user and not the organization.
Fiona Clark
Very well put. I agree with everyone about myspace-its quite annoying to look at it. That is why I personally prefer facebook (despite all the new applications being added).
Designers can be extremely arrogant about what they do. Sometimes it takes the client to humble you by reminding you who it is you are working for.
Rich Ziade
I'm not sure if I'd agree with the term "humility." Simplified, I think its more about empathy. Humility must persist so that we can empathize on either a cultural, intellectual or emotional level.
In contrast, our humility can lead to sympathy - which is less about feeling what others feel and more about feeling bad for others.
Nabih abi habib
What is the value of a graphic designer today if he is a slave of his boss.
Graphic designers are rarely well rewarded and their opinion never really counts.
all well known designer should fight for a better recognition of this art.
Spencer Cross
Interesting thesis, Clay, and like everybody else I'm inclined to agree. However, if your argument is about making choices, I think you could've picked a better example for humility. Positing that MySpace made a conscious decision to eschew good design for the sake of user participation rather than accepting that it inherited a terrible design that was never reconsidered stretches credulity if you ask me. Maybe Google, who's stubborn refusal to polish itself up is very intentional, is a better choice?
julian
Very well said, thank you.
thejA!RU
This article is very significant to me
it holds a priceless virtue
for those designers who can find it.
Its all about a balance,
between...
Knowledge & Acknowledge,
Expertise & Empathy,
"Me" The Designer vs.
"Us" the Desirer's or Users
Without this there is not design,
you are so right...
there is merely high-concept
irrelevant theory
a transferable idea to life too!
Wonderfully said. Kudos.
Su
I think I missed something.
What was the category the iPod created?
Marten
Su: I think the MP3-player with *less* features.
Michael Holdren
I would still rather have a faster horse.
ToddG
Su: I think the MP3-player with *less* features.
Uh no, the category is "MP3-player that millions of people would actually buy and be able to use." Prior to the iPod the market was barely in existence numbers-wise.
I still sort of miss my Sony cassette walkman...
Cody Robbins
I would rather have any horse at all.
Charles Roper
To all those who are saying "MySpace needs a redesign", you've missed the point of the article; you're erring too far on the side of arrogance. Clearly the millions of users who use MySpace every day are more than happy with its looks. Instead of all chorusing "MySpace is ugly" (a comment which in itself is a cliché and a form of mediocrity), try and learn from MySpace's extraordinary success; ponder on it, deconstruct it, rebuild it, and perhaps have the balls, self-confidence and ingenuity to create something ugly, but successful. A tricky challenge indeed.
Mark Robinson
The fact that MySpace is ugly isn't really important.
It's a poorly designed user interface.
It's difficult to use.
The iPod has an intuitive user interface.
It's very easy to use.
Ease of use IS design.
One could even argue that MySpace is arrogant and the iPod is humble.
Tom Dolan
Charles R = well said. MySpace doesn't need a redesign, (reengineering maybe), but anyone who says that doesn't understand MySpace or the 200 words above. It's akin to saying, "the copy machine needs a redesign, everything that comes out of it is ugly." MySpace isn't a branded destination, it's a platform. It's ugly, just like most of the output of most copy machines, because what goes into it isn't styled by professionals. For the most part, that's fine. People find plenty of ways to productively and enjoyably use copy machines without designer help.
What's key here (as Mr. Ford said so well) is that designers need to remember that the audience is not always (in fact they're rarely) good at articulating their own wants and needs. It's not the [arrogant] designer's job to impose their personal viewpoint on the masses (indeed, that trends towards style-heavy irrelevance), but rather to more skillfully percieve, interpet, and deliver what the public really wants than what you can divine from just listening to or watching them. This isn't arrogance; it's a designer doing their job well.
Robert
Very very simplified version of things – Arrogance and humility, not.
Find a hook to get people to send their money and time on it.
•Ford won because it was cheaper than all others.
•IPOD won because the Fed had just crash Napster, and MP3s could not handle that pesky license problem.
•Myspace got chatty teens to invest time in it and not allow them to take their product out.
•Microsoft won because it got non-computer business people to feel like computer geeks.
Joe Fusco
Arrogance + Humility = Collaboration, Teamwork, Synthesis, Solutions (= Great Design)
Tom Dolan
Robert--sorry, you're a bit off. With all due respect:
The point re: Ford is they invented a market for the automobile where no need for one was expressed. Innovators can't wait for the public to demand something. Visionaries provide it at the right time.
The iPod's success has little to do with the legal woes of Napster. The iTunes store didn't come until well after the success of the device. I'd wager many (if not most) of iPod owners still get their music elsewhere. The more-than-intuitive (one might even say 'delightful') UI experience and industrial design made the iPod a success.
Shane
It's an anomoly, it is ugle, slow, buggy, difficult to use, & the list could go on. It will only take more time before the same idea but smartly designed will take over, one like "Facebook" or "Virb."
Facebook is already growing rapidly...
Furthermore about this article in general, it is dead on, and an intresting read. I see this topic being discussed all the time on blogs, and it is always one that intrests me. I am always searching for the answer, and what is the correct amount of arrogance and humility to have. It's definetly a very very fine line.
Michael Boyle
I actually think the iPod (especially the original) is a great example of this balance. Make something your users would want, but make the user choose from a limited number of well thought out configurations. The original one always made me think of Ford that way: you can have any color as long as it's white.
Matthew McVickar
This article is fantastic and, judging from the response so far, thought-provoking. I have some issues with the comparison of the iPod and MySpace, though: I don't think they're opposites, for one, and I do think that the iPod is objectively better than MySpace, as it is a popular and well-designed thing that combines functionality and form beautifully, whereas MySpace only gets the functionality right (well, sort of).
I also don't think that good design is necessarily arrogance, and I worry that that mode of thinking is symptomatic of a larger trend that misunderstands the importance of well-designed things.
My thoughts on this exceed 200 words, but there's more on my blog.
Roger Dodger
I would guess that the success of all three of these products can be better described from the historian's rather than the designer's perspective.
- Apple saw early on that prices of hard drives was becoming low enough to use them for portable high capacity mp3 players.
- Myspace was one of the earlier sites to make a usable merging of existing website concepts. Easier to customize than things like Geocities, more features than standard blogging sites.
- Ford used established mass production methods and applied them to automobiles in the right place at the right time.
Maybe humility is accepting how little influence the individual designer of an individual product has on its success (if that product is a new technology.)
April Holle
Thank you for this article. Being in web design for the last five years I've seen usability become a center stage in the web. I think it's wonderful that we are so concerned about the users we provide for. That in mind we also have a responsibility to providing that wonderful user experience in a well designed manner. In my experience those two sometimes come into conflict with eachother and one ultimately has to win out over the other. Great article. Thanks!
jimbo_dk
Great article. Another example would be the Nokia phone user interface (at least in this part of the world). Like the iPod it created a category of it's own so much so that it's become a sort of standard to judge other phones by.
Nelson
Brilliant quote from Henry Ford. It simply resumes our effort to explain clients why they have to trust in us.
n!ck
Is the iPod a good example of arrogance?
Why not stick with the Ford Model-T reference and leave less pondering?
Look at the Herman Miller Aeron Chair. It defied the traditional executive office chair, much like the Model-T defied traditional means of transportation. Its sleek, transparent ergonomic design was different. It wasn’t made of large padded cushions. Its designers created something that people would physically benefit from – just like not having to ride a horse everyday.
Nathan Walton
Extremely well-put.
Continually sacrificing design vision at the feet of public request does, as you say, bring mediocrity. Totally ignoring this input, however, brings utter irrelevance.
Good food for self-evaluation : ) Thanks!
Arne Richter
Yes, users are experts in their own lives. They also know (deep down anyway), that they are totally lacking in taste.
The design of the ipod is arrogant, because it is selling taste to those who do not have any.
And that is the great thing about arrogant design: It advertises itsself.
I guess my point is, that you need a specific society to enable even the possibility of arrogant design: The great mediocre Mass-Media-Society of today. If our society changes into something different (which one might argue), then the arrogant aspect of design is dead (or even dying right now).
David Rhoden
I think the deal with myspace is that they've (unarrogantly) given control of the look and feel to the users through all the skins that are available. The problem: how do you redesign without breaking thousands of sites?
david flaherty
Myspace would be better if it functioned better and had easy to use features like the Ipod. Clearly it functions well to a point. It's slow, hard to customize.
ndabe
I agree with Charles Roper! I'm ardent fan of the current line of BMW vehicles and they fully encapsulate what you said. They're dramatic design and looks caused a stir, with most calling them 'ugly' and yet they have become successfull! What a wonderful idea! To design something undeniably practical and visionary but ugly and to gradually turn its ugliness to beauty. Could only work with a design project that is a series or collection.
Greg B
Myspace is excellent design if it was designed to "make something that people can and will use and that will generate revenue". Myspace is poor design if it was designed to "Flatter ID students' preconceptions of what the tasteless masses would want if their tastes weren't so hopelessly pedestrian. *haughty snif*"
"Good design" never exists in a vacuum; you can only evaluate design according to specific metrics (i.e. aesthetics, function, desirability, sustainability, profitability, spirituality).
For example, if the iPod is such a great design, why is the first thing sold alongside it a case? In its very use it has to be protected. The iPod has an amazing interface, so that is designed well, and it induces desire in consumers, so that facet is designed well, but in practice, perhaps the emperor is not as well-clothed as we may think.
Re: "In the end the consumer is always more arrogant that the designer."
This is just a ridiculous claim.
Re: [Users] also know (deep down anyway), that they are totally lacking in taste.
Get over yourself, my dear.
Tanner Christensen
Design is problem solving. Nothing more.
Kevin Lo
Though I agree with the jist of this. I think there's an oversimplification (and I know that's the point of this site) into humility/arrogance, especially in relationship to the examples provided.
Myspace was pretty revolutionary, but it's dying, and dying quickly. Why? Because of facebook, and facebook's much more "user-friendly" if "arrogantly controlled" design.
Joey Funk
WHO DOES #2 WORK FOR!?!?!
Tom Laird
There's several interesting remarks in this string... I agree with some, but think many are off the mark as they are mixing various views that are prodominantly on "product design" in with "graphic design" -- then lumping those under the broader category of "design."
While both have cross-over aspects to them, they are still definitively different from each other and should be approached that way.
Now... Am I arrogant for expressing that view
or presenting this as an issue? I hope not.
But should that matter? I hope not.
Personally, I think humility should be cultivated in all areas of one's life (and in the world in general.) Have I failed?
Sometimes I think "graphic design" amounts to so much naval-gazing. I like a more "engineer-like" approach to it... Answering 3 things.
Does it meet or exceed the user functionality required? Is is complete, concise, and correct? Does it matter?
Design may involve "arrogance" or good design may require "humility." But GREAT design, to me, is in providing a GREAT experience.
So, the reason the iPod requires a separate case is the "need" it REALLY meets is that people LIKE experiencing customizing stuff to make it "theirs."
There, that's 200.
jimmy
Remember the word "good". Everyone knows what it means but it's easy to forget. The ipod isn't humble neither I'm sure are it's creators. It is however bloody good and so unfortunatly are the creations of a lot of arrogant designers. We still all love "good" stuff though wether the designers are pretentious pricks or not.
Jay
pablum-
Design is a burrito. Design is a tomato.
Rouxfus
Arrogance and humility are mutually exclusive properties of the human character. Arrogance without humility is arrogance. Humility without arrogance is humility. The more arrogant you are, the less humble you are. The more humble you are, the less arrogant you are. Arrogance, or pride is a cardinal sin, and a deadly one; humility is the corresponding virtue.
C.f.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues
drx
Someone can provide a link to this legendary one article on the web about design that doesn't mention the iPod?
Paul Bloch
I'd like to make a clarification that in the example you gave arrogance is not the right word, hierarchy and authority would be better fit. Arrogance is the absence of humility , which in this context would mean you make assumptions about yourself and other's that aren't grounded in reality. Hierarchy, being an expert,a designer with a higher or more objective view is is only arrogant when you assume a false egoic sense of superiority as a result of it. Which is to say that expertise without humility is ego. Humility without hierarchy is ego. Which is to say they both would be inauthentic forms of both hierarchy and humility. In my experience you need both for both to actually be real and meaningful, without one or the other it's just pretense.
Nate
Personally I'm not sure MySpace needs a Martha Stewart. The kitchy-ness of the social network lends it personality. There's something about being able to design as badly as you want to.
And the iPod - it's funny that it's touted as such a perfect design solution. Perfect in that it defined an industry - yes. Perfect in that it is cool to hold, look at and use - yes. But not so perfect in that you can't easily replace batteries...and I still have the hardest time turning it off.
Sacca
Clay's writing always amazes me.
Big Dick
Well, I personaly think that MySpace is ugly, which is why I never plan to use it.
Mister Snitch!
“I know what you want better than you. Here it is.”
No. The designer (writer, communicator, etc.) says "I have certain knowledge and skills that you do not have, and will apply them to your problem". A designer who makes the statement you describe is not listening to the client. Sadly, your statement is so deeply embedded into the culture of design that it apparently passes muster as fact.
You DO NOT understand what the client wants better than your client. A great deal of detective work is before you, a process by which you BOTH come to better understand the client's needs. The designer, in fact, will never know the client's needs better than (s)he him(her)self. All the designer can do is help raise the client's awareness of both his (her) needs and of the limitations of the possible solutions.
This article was poorly thought out. It attempts to take on a clever form, but fails in actual substance. I can only hope the writer's design work does not suffer from the same shortcomings.
Robert S.
Arguably, MySpace's design *is* arrogant. Their intrusive advertising and habit of shuffling the navigation for updates of midlding importance arguably speaks to a sizable disregard for the user, more than humility. Ironically, MySpace seems to be rather brazenly looking to Facebook for answers nowadays.
I like Google as an exmaple, too.
Also, perhaps "confidence" would be a better substitute for "arrogance"?
Bouki
The approach of "design is arrogance" is a bit arrogant in itself - not to mention contrived.
• Myspace is successful because everyone goes there and everyone wants it. It has nothing to do with design. It's ugly but who cares? - it's the dysfunctional nature of it that makes it bad design.
• Model T = assembly line. This design is beautiful because it was sculpted by the necessity of the assembly line, which generated profits.
• iPod, arrogance? this has got to be one of the most user-influenced products EVER.
The best high-concept work is supposed to be irrelevant to everyone except for the target audience. That is why it can appear smug or universally irrelevant as sinuated.
I still belive that with design and art it's all about context. In this situation, it's knowing (not just being aware of) your client and their audience. People who write articles / generate axioms like this contribute to the walls that make up the paradigms we're operating under. (paradigm = confines) Look at how many 'rules' people spout out when they read this article.
I'll take it with a *pinch* of salt.
Graham Cox
The ultimate in arrogant design is Starck's Juicy Salif. It's almost completely non-functional, as well as overpriced. Humiity obviously never came into that one! But then again he is an arrogant prick, so it's not a big surprise.
Von Glitschka
I think the article assumes a designer informing a client/user is "Arrogance". The client/user might label it as such most times but I'd call it "Competence" being wrongly defined as "Arrogance" because of the clients/Users "Ignorance".
anon
What kind of profession considers itself abstractly in terms of humility/arrogance? Does anyone else find this absurd?
Doctor: arrogant -- don't tell me what to do with my body.
Musician: humble -- makes what she likes + hopefully others will like it too.
Artist: arrogant -- makes what others don't like and claims she doesn't even like it herself.
Cashier: arrogant -- I wanted paper, not plastic, thank you.
Teacher: humble -- you get paid how much to take care of what?
Banker: arrogant -- how many lives did you screw with those loans?
Feel free to write how doctors are humble, musicians are arrogant, etc.
---
This might have just been clearer if the statement was: we should care about context and sometimes the highfalutin academic design critique + conversation is also an important part of the context.