Have you ever wondered what good graphic design actually is? Most of us can point to websites, mobile apps or infographics that we love the look of. Equally, it’s almost too easy to find examples of graphic work that we can’t stand. But have you ever asked yourself, behind all the pretty pictures and colour gradients, what qualities turn graphic design into ‘good’ graphic design? How does the visual layer help some projects to succeed and drive others toward failure?
It took me several years to discover what it takes to deliver good graphic design. The components are certainly not as obvious as they might seem.
Who is a graphic designer anyway?
If you ask a random selection of people to describe the duties and skills that a graphic designer should have, I bet you’ll mostly hear about colours, shapes, fonts and “making things look nice”. And it’s true, these are important elements of design work, but there’s much more than that.
I believe a good designer is a bit of a business analyst, a problem solver, a solution architect, an artist and an effective communicator at the same time. You cannot start designing without a fundamental understanding of requirements. And these include not only branding constraints, but above all business and user needs. Once you understand the requirements you need to analyse, filter, prioritise and distill a clear message you would like to convey. Art skills alone are definitely not enough to achieve this task. Between ‘making things look nice’’ and “making things work well”, there is a gulf that is harder to cross than it appears. While it might seem counterintuitive to some, a background in IT or management might actually come in quite handy.
A total design experience
I love numbers, metrics, KPIs, analysis and reverse engineering. I can’t help it!
So when I see great design projects I inevitably reflect on the underlying components that made it possible. I try to break down all the ingredients, measuring their value and impact on the final outcome. The following elements of a total design experience are based on my professional experience (and probably reading too many books by Don Norman).
My reflections apply primarily to graphic design (information design in particular), but I believe that many of these conclusions are universal across all design disciplines, whether it’s branding, service design or product design.
Here is a list of areas you should include when engaging in design process:
Function
What’s the goal of the designed object or layout? What activities will be supported? What do you expect the user to do? Understanding this is the starting point of each design project that I embark on.
Utility
Is it useful? Profitable? Beneficial? Not all designs require that these questions be answered. But I’m a resolute fan of “less is more”. If a design element of a website or mobile app that I am developing does not bring utility, I’ll probably remove it from the design quite quickly (don’t worry, I’ll leave beautiful elements, because as you’ll see later in this post – attractiveness is beneficial).
Understandability
Is the design easy to understand? More importantly, is the design easy to understand for the specific target user? Are the key elements visible and discoverable?
Usability
Is it easy to use? You might think understandability and usability are very similar, but there’s a clear distinction. Think of a violin – it might be easy to understand how to use it, but extremely difficult to turn scraping a bow across its strings into transcendent sound, do you see what I mean?
Aesthetics
This is were beauty and attractiveness walk in. But the right composition, choice of colours and fonts are just one side of the picture. Nowadays scientists agree that beautiful things work better. Why? Because attractive objects or interfaces make us feel good. These positive emotions apparently make us more creative. A good mood makes us willing to tackle and overcome difficulties, be more tolerant to minor flaws and be more persistent at problem solving. Be careful though. Aesthetic perception and appreciation might be very culturally specific. It requires research and perhaps even different design options for different groups of users.
Emotions
How does the design make you feel? We all know the frustration of interacting with poorly designed interfaces and the delight from dealing with great ones. Design can bring joy, excitement and pleasure… but anger, anxiety, fear or rage are the other side of the coin. Make sure your projects convey the expected set of emotions.
Performance
How well does the design fulfil the required functions? If we’re talking about a website or a mobile app the answer to this question is rarely up to the designer. Nevertheless, it’s important to remember design elements that relate to performance itself, such as loaders, feedback messages etc.
Start with why
When discussing the structural qualities of good design, we are often confronted with the idea of an age old balancing act existing between style and substance, a battle between form and function. Traditional thought suggests that this is a zero sum game, that making a system aesthetically pleasing to look at necessarily impinges on ease of use. While this CAN be the case, it certainly doesn’t have to be. If it is the case, then it’s likely to be a stark example of bad design work.
In reconciling form and function to develop a product in which these two elements are symbiotically bonded, user experience can be dramatically enhanced. Bringing them together seamlessly is the goal. The trick to it? Begin all your design process questions with the ‘Why?’
Simon Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. It’s really important to extend this “why” factor into the design process. But what does this mean in practice?
First of all, the design needs to emerge from (and stay true to) the values of the organisation. Here’s an example. A couple of years ago I was designing interfaces for the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (institution responsible for organising the FIFA World Cup 2022). All visuals were strongly rooted in a national context (pictograms with oryxes, Qatari landmarks and Arabic traditional objects) matched with the dynamic sportive atmosphere (vivid colours, dynamic curves, motion). This was an example of a project where the values and the “why” were visible in so many details! It really is a pleasure to work with a client who understands why values matter.
If you want to find out more about the “why”, I strongly recommend Simon’s TED talk and his book “Start with why”.
Besides values, it’s important to have an understanding of the context in which graphic design will be experienced by the user. How big is the display? Is the user in a hurry? What is their mood? What will they do next?
A user-centered approach
So far, all the ingredients (beside the brand values) that I’ve looked at here have revolved around the user, their needs and feelings. An approach where designers focus on usability goals, user characteristics, environments and tasks at each stage of the design process is called user centered design. As the fields of user research and user experience are gaining popularity, many organisations have adopted user centered design as the standard design approach.
The results are fantastic! Software interfaces are becoming more and more user friendly, websites and mobile apps are more functional, corporate materials are aesthetically pleasing, informative and communicate the organisation’s values.
But does this mean a user centered approach is necessary for all design projects? Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid conducted an experiment attempting to discover what a true “people’s” art would look like. They carried out a series of user surveys to determine what Americans prefer in a painting. Conclusions from these surveys were used to create a painting entitled America’s Most Wanted Painting. Perfectly “user centered” art. And you know what? The outcome was horrible! (See for yourself). The artworks were lacking innovation and artistry. What’s more, they turned out to be disliked by the same survey respondents whose preferences where gathered to create them.
In some cases graphic design is only intended to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power. In such situation there’s no sense in evaluating function, utility, usability or performance. Nevertheless in information design (where complex and abstract content is made accessible in a simpler way) all the ingredients presented in this post as well as a user centered approach are very beneficial.
How to make it work?
Even if we are aware of all the ingredients a designer needs to incorporate in his work, it’s not always obvious how to facilitate an efficient design process within an organisation.
So what can you do?
Enable the interaction between the designer and other stakeholders
From my experience, I would say that the key to success is to let the graphic designer be part of the business process, alongside all stakeholders. It might seem pointless to invite a designer to business meetings, but give it a try – you’ll be surprised how beneficial it will be for the final design outcome.
Don’t underestimate the power of requirements
I usually spend half of my design process time on requirement gathering. I know, seems a lot. But so far this approach turned out to be successful… Each hour of requirement gathering saves me multiple hours I would need to spend on corrections and redesigning the whole project had I not developed a comprehensive understanding of the ‘why’ that requirement gathering gives me.
Include the user
I know, I showed earlier how horrible perfectly “user-centered” art is. But gathering usability feedback from users and understanding their needs is hard to do on your own.
Iterate and evaluate
No matter how skilled you are and how great the design process in your organisation is, if you close the process in one iteration, I bet there’s room for improvement. Make sure to gather feedback and refine the design until both stakeholders and users are happy with the results. Then, after some time… iterate again and make the good even better.
Multipotentialite
Multi… what?
A multipotentialite is a person who has many different interests and creative pursuits in life. (check Emilie Wapnick: Why some of us don’t have one true calling | TED Talk)
“You need to specialise”.
Maybe you’ve heard it over and over as well. Years ago a lack of ability to specialise and narrow one’s professional pursuits to a single field was a handicap. But nowadays is it still the case? We are witnessing a creative revolution where anyone can conceive of, create and launch new products. We can take MIT courses for free online and work remotely with people from all over the world. Agile cross-functional teams emerge when needed and then regroup to work on new ventures.
Great design is born where different areas such as business, engineering and art overlap; great ideas from each field cross pollinate, influencing each other often imperceptibly. I think we should embrace the opportunity to converge and exchange skills. Each project requires the quick acquisition of new skills, new additions to your professional (and personal!) toolkit. I don’t find this to be a painful burden, on the contrary, I put it forward that being a designer in the XXI century is a privilege. There is a responsibility to make the outcome as good as possible.
At the end of the day, what will matter most to this new professional conceptualisation is the ability to communicate, to solve problems, to empathise with the end users and to learn.