First impressions are powerful.
We all have them, and many of us including yours truly make judgements/decisions based on these powerful but fleeting emotions.
The recent online shopping experience was such an experience. Seeing the image of a model with “the” dress, it seemed perfect and then promptly followed with hitting the buy button.
Opening the box with the anticipation of the perfect dress did not translate to the “perfection” I hoped for.
Of course, not having the 0-sized body or shape has something to do (ok a lot to do) with the dress being less than perfect. In addition to my own inadequacy in fitting into the dress, several things looked different from what I saw when I ordered the dress.
The material, colour, or even the design, etc looked all different/less quality material than what I saw on the screen.
This kind of perfection at first glance followed by buyer’s remorse feelings happens often in my profession, architecture.
Flipping through the design magazines left me with a similarly disappointing experience; first impressed with the wow images of beautifully captured beautiful building images and then a completely different (disappointing often) experience when seeing them with my own eyes.
Years ago, the chance of running into a building that won many design awards on the streets of a European city was a letdown. Sure, it was the same building I first saw in a magazine, but seeing it with my own eyes, the building did not look the same.
It did not give me the feeling of majestic sense main entrance of the building, or the airy feelings I saw on the glossy magazine cover I saw many years ago.
There are two famous words in architecture profession: Design Excellence.
These are the words that were drilled into my architecture school education and followed into my professional life for many years.
During all those years, I (and probably many architects) thought of Design Excellence as something you achieve/arrive at like getting to the perfect moment to take “the picture” of the glory.
Being ready to submit those perfect images to design awards or publications to be admired by many design professionals would be the state of Design Excellence.
However, the definition of Design Excellence is transforming into something new, different like everything else in our fast-changing world.
Definition of Design Excellence
The word, excellence has been uttered in every facet of our lives, however, when we are faced with the explicit definition of the word, we start murmuring the implicit words like superior, good, better, etc. It is not easy to explicitly state what those words mean.
According to a dictionary definition of the word, excellence is stated as; the quality of being outstanding or extremely good- ex. a centre of academic excellence.
Even with these somewhat fuzzy descriptions of the word, we understand the word means the state, result, and outcome…in other words, it is about the fixed/finished state.
To be excellent, you need to arrive at whatever destinations; getting an A on the math test, having clear yes/no answers, black/ white or wrong/ right outcomes, etc.
However, many things in life do not work in these binary ways.
Design is one of those fields that cannot be explicitly stated or even decided. It encompasses varying opinions, feelings, preferences…things that take time to “arrive at”
In my architecture profession, the words, Design Excellence get thrown a lot. The design competition submissions, project portfolio brochures, or even hand-drawn rough sketches to convey ideas to employees get judged under the fuzzy criteria of Design Excellence.
As my university professor “explicitly” stated “Architecture is not Art” sentiment, Design Excellence should weigh much more on end users’ experience, not just the final product, buildings, or more accurately the aesthetics of buildings.
For a long time, we architects focused on the beauty (final outcome) of the project in the name of Design Excellence.
The problem of focusing on project (rather than experience)
Like many architects, I enjoy going through the beautiful images (never the written texts) of building projects in glossy design magazines.
While admiring the beautiful images and also being envious of the architects who were given the type of project, as well as even a huge budget to create such a project, it did not occur to me how these buildings are received by people who visited the buildings.
- What would these people think of those projects?
- Would they feel the same way as the architect who designed the building?
- Would they agree with the design community’s sentiment on design excellence?
We went through many social and technological changes in the last few years, especially during and the post impacts of the Pandemic.
Even with the difficulties of going through such change, there is one positive (if not uncomfortable) element that surfaced; questioning our belief system.
Questioning our old beliefs/status quo (ex. Design Excellence) working in the new era is a necessary step in understanding the world coherently.
The article, Exactly What is Design Excellence and do we have it? explores our understanding (or lack thereof) in this new world we live in.
Solely focusing on the state (form, aesthetics) of design projects instead of the value(function) provided for the end users would be amiss in measuring Design Excellence.
End users dictate what excellence is
It is not designers who get to decide on the excellence, it is the end users.
Unlike my architecture design community, the tech industry understands this well. Coming up with their design products and selling and promoting them to buyers/end users requires an understanding of how the product is going to be used.
Like many designers, I also make the mistake of designing with I/my/me sentiments:
- How would I feel in this space?
- How would I arrange furniture in certain shapes of rooms?
- What kitchen tile to select to create a calming feel I am after?
Design is indeed a subjective field.
At the outset, putting myself in these questions is also true and necessary in any design work.
However, without examining those questions (more accurately assumptions) in the context of others, they stay as just “one” person’s opinions, rather than the ultimate destination of Design Excellence.
Moving away from the emphasis on subjective and individualistic preferences such as beauty/aesthetics/tastes is a sustainable approach to judging our built environment.
Recent reading from the American Institutes of Architects’s definition of Design Excellence underscores such significance; judging architects’ work with future-focused/social qualities: sustainable, resilient and inclusive design.
Final Thought
Design Excellence guidelines should come from end users, not from designers.
Even with this obvious statement, implementing such a practice is not always practical or even useful. To get the true sense of a building design excellence state, it takes years for end users to…well, to use.
Without the time, history, the building gets judged mainly through a first impression angle, aka aesthetics of the building.
As my recent online shopping experience shows, deciding on the quality of a dress by only visual images was a disappointment I would not like to repeat. On the other hand, how I could have “experienced” the dress without paying for it is definitely a question…
Until the day technology allows us to “try” clothes before buying them, I will stick to the tried and true method of physical shopping:-)
Life Outside of Design Studio 