IDEAS

DESIGN AND HONESTY

a kind of manifesto following Dieter Rams

By Hank Fish

Dieter Rams, a photograph

When you talk about modern/contemporary industrial design, it is hard not to talk about Dieter Rams, a legendary designer whose half-century old work is still hugely influential to this day. If you have ever owned an apple product, you have probably experienced Rams' design language. Rams' influence is also seen in tech, kitchen appliances, bathroom appliances, furniture, and many other products. If there were saints in the design world, Rams would probably be one.

Rams is also known for his ten design principles, of which many designers have probably heard of:

1.   Good design is innovative;

2.   Good design makes a product useful;

3.   Good design is esthetic;

4.   Good design makes a product understandable;

5.   Good design is environmentally friendly;

6.   Good design is honest;

7.   Good design is long lasting;

8.   Good design is unobtrusive; 

9.   Good design is through, down to the last detail;

10. Good design is as little design as possible.

These guidelines are brilliant. However, as far as I know, bad design still exists. Just like the Ten Commandments and the flexibility of one's morals, things that we tend to agree on aren't always followed.

Thou shalt or shalt not?

Honest designs.

I would also like to point out that good design is subjective. In fact, many of the criteria Rams outlines are a matter of opinion—innovation, usefulness, aesthetic beauty, comprehension, unobtrusiveness, honesty, are all individual judgements. However, there is an objective measurement for design: commercial effectiveness.

For example, if a web designer is assigned the task to design an e-commerce site, the goal is to convert visitors to buyers. We can easily compare the effectiveness of the new design against the old design by looking at statistics of the proportion of visitors who make a purchase to those who do not. We can most likely conclude that, if the conversion rate goes up after the new design is implemented, then it is an effective design, and therefore a good design.

However, effective design does not equate to good design. Given the same example of the e-commerce site above, but with a twist: the website is designed to deceive. A scam operation is never a good design. But at what point does a sweet-talking salesperson become a sneaky con artist, an illusion become a lie? When a product's effectiveness causes harm to its users, we can say that it is not "good".

Another example of dishonest yet effective design is the layout of IKEA. The layout is intentionally confusing and opaque, effective in controlling the experience of the customer and bringing in revenue. It is more akin to a theme park's layout than the layout of a shop like Target.

Not a great design experience

In design, the word "aesthetics" not only means the appearance of an object, but also the emotional response it triggers, and that response can be manipulated. This kind of emotional manipulation is not always sinister, but shapes how a buyer experiences a store or a website. I would even go as far as saying that a design that does not elicit an emotional response may just be a boring design.

Honesty is beautiful.

I want to give an example of honest design in architecture.

Brutalism is known for its concrete material and its bare and inhumane appearance, and often the public doesn't like it. In Brutalism's defense, its style and philosophy are victims of a lot of bad apples, primarily ones who chose Brutalism for the cheap cost of concrete construction, which often lacks consideration for context and aesthetics. But in reality, good brutalist architecture is dynamic, monumental, and brutally honest, as well as quite considerate of its place in the world.

About as honest as you can get

It is true that brutalism is known for its favorite material—exposed concrete—but it's not the material which defines this style of architecture, but its proud display and refusal to hide its material and construction techniques. If you observe surfaces of many Brutalist buildings, you will see line elements throughout the straight or curved walls, a mark left by the wood boards shaped to create the mold for the poured concrete. Just as painters choose to show their brush strokes, brutalism architects choose to show its occupants the flesh and bones of the living space where they reside.

Honesty is functional.

Honesty also can be used to communicate information to the user, without explicitly stating the function of a design.

I will explain this through one of the most mundane objects—the door. Imagine a door completely flush to the wall, with no visible hinge or handles. How do you open it? If it swings open, do you push it or pull it, open it from the left or right? Perhaps the door is a sliding one, but in what direction? Perhaps the door lifts up like a garage door. Maybe it's an automatic door, which opens as you approach it, or do nothing at all and makes you feel stupid staring at a blank wall. And when you have tried all of the above interactions and the door won't budge, is it because you are interacting with it the wrong way, or is the door locked? Is it even a door at all?

Door handles are an opportunity for honest design. Many users confuse push with pull, even when they are clearly marked. However, a better way is to show the user how the door works through subconscious cues. For example, the push side of the door can have a horizontal bar offset to the opening side, while the pulling side can be a vertical grip shape, indicating the pull action. This interaction can also benefit from a transparent door, where the user can see the difference between both sides, creating sense through context.

Do you know what to do?

Many door frames can tell you which direction the door opens towards, by observing whether the frame is in front or behind the door. The door hinge is another clue. If you see a door hinge exposed in your direction, you know it opens towards your direction. Another example is the action of opening the laptop, which is also made effortless by showing the user where the hinge is, and where your finger should grab onto.

Honest design is as little design as possible.

Ever since industrialists figured out that they can sell the same product to consumers multiple times by adding small changes and "features" to the product, unnecessary designs have proliferated. We see these problematic designs in many forms: marketing strategy, gimmicky features, refreshed looks, etc. However much it benefits the retailer and manufacturers, it does not benefit the user. If, according to Rams, "good design is innovative", then designs that are recycled year over year is nothing but stagnant, or even creating an illusion of innovation—a straight up lie.

Is this the best?

Or is this?

Honest design is as little design as possible because unnecessary design creates an illusion of value, an attempt to deceive the consumer. I also would like to note that this does not mean good design is less designed, rather, well-placed designs. An example below are two remote control designs. On the left is a LG remote with seemingly way more complexity and function than the remote on the right. However, if you really examine the function of each button, there may not be as many that you end up needing as presented on the LG remote. In fact, those extra functionalities can add to the confusion and impair the intuitiveness of the experience, ending up harming the user.

Honest design is ethical.

Like any lie, designs can be used as a tool to exploit others for one's personal agenda. The story of Theranos is an example of such deception. Theranos claimed to have created a machine that can do more than 100 types of blood exams from just a few drops of blood, in a machine no bigger than a toaster. Many had doubts, but most praised Theranos for its innovation, buying into its lies. It is anyone's guess as to why so many fell for a piece of information that was so obviously "too good to be true", but speculation is perhaps one of the hardest things to resist in the world.

Great Design/Lousy Product

One of the theories for why so many people jumped onto the Theranos boat is how Theranos presented its product. Theranos drew many parallels between the legendary Apple executive Steve Jobs and its CEO Elizabeth Holmes, dressing her up as an iconoclast and innovator. There are also a lot of similarities to electronics technologies companies even though Theranos is at its core, a medical company, riding the hype train of the Silicon Valley. This association is also conveyed through the design of the machines.

This type of deception can have serious health consequences. Since the machine is not reliable and cannot perform any of the tasks it claims to perform, it is a health danger. Regardless of Holmes' success in marketing, the sheer irresponsibility makes Rams concerns all the more relevant.

Design is a responsibility.

Design is a central part of human experiences. As designers, we need to be aware of our responsibilities, and as consumers we need to hold designers accountable to their design ethics. The paradox for design ethics is that the more successful a design is, the more devastating its consequences may be, whether its impact be environmental, humanitarian, or societal. So perhaps by being honest in our designs, we can lay the foundations for responsible designs.

©Hank Fish and the CCA Arts Review