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No, designers aren't crazy. You just don't understand a very fundamental concept of design. It even applies to engineering. It's okay—many people have the same

No, designers aren't crazy. You just don't understand a very fundamental concept of design. It even applies to engineering. It's okay—many people have the same frustrations as you do. But those who care about the details achieve truly high quality results overall. It extends to all areas of the design, not just to the parts you can't see. In the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," there's a scene in a dark room where Roger Rabbit (an animated character) flies across the room, knocks a hanging lamp around, and the lighting becomes so dynamic that all the shadows move around including the animated character's shadow. Here's the scene in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EUPwsD64GI This was such a small detail that it would have been forgivable if the animators had left it out entirely: if they had not moved the lamp, kept the shadow steady, no one would have really noticed the difference. It would have been 100 times easier to animate and the effect wouldn't really have been that different. But they did it anyway. The term was later coined, and "bump the lamp" is used throughout Disney (and probably other organizations) to mean something akin to "go the extra mile"—but I see it as having a special significance to design. You're right, most people won't notice. By that logic, you could cut corners a lot of other places too. You could be lax about button colors matching exactly, or per-pixel sharpness on the map and buttons. No one would probably notice. But if you go for every detail like it was the most important detail, you have the possibility of reaching a level of design quality that is superlative, and some people will notice. Others will not notice directly, but will see that the piece exudes style and quality subconsciously, due to the attention to small details. If you carry this into other areas of your work—programming, customer service, market strategy, marketing, and more—then you have a chance to create something of true quality. If you don't pay attention to detail at that level, well, you might have the chance to actually get something done. Yes, it's a balance, like everything else. But you have to know that it won't be quite as good, and understand that yes, you are sacrificing something, even if you can't see it.

edent 14y ago
That makes a lot of sense. I'd not heard about that particular phrase before - but I can see exactly what you're talking about.
skrebbel 14y ago
I see where you're coming from, but to me all you're writing is an excuse for unlimited perfectionism. Perfectionism rocks of you're among the lucky few who're in a situation where you can get away with it. In most circumstances, however, there's a product to ship, with the end of the money in sight. I mean, in terms of the 80/20 rule (the last 20% of quality costs 80% of the time), we're not talking about turning an 80% thing (i.e. typical in-house enterprise software) into a 90% thing here. Hell, even going for 95% is something I believe we should all go for, and fight our colleagues, bosses and project managers, and customers for. But the OP's example is more like turning 99.5% into 99.8%.
- calinet6 14y ago
  Probably very true, hence my final sentence on balance (admittedly a feeble nod to rationality, but still). Personally, I believe that much of the value created lies in the final 20% that takes 80% of the time. If what you say is true, near anyone can create something that's 80% of the way there. It's your job to get as close to 100% as you can realistically, while balancing time and money and value. It's not an argument for unlimited perfectionism; it's an argument for quality. The higher you can get, the better you will produce, and the more you will succeed. And don't just limit this to product quality; extend it to everything you do (including customer service, including planning and resource management, including hiring and culture) and you'll create a company that has a chance of being better than the others. Perfect? No. But if you're not striving for creating something of quality (in other words, of value) then what are you doing, exactly? Edit: There's a caveat here, I think. It may not be your job to worry about every design detail down to the pixel. It doesn't have to be. You can find someone who can help you produce what you need at the level of quality you desire (like the designer the OP is talking about, presumably) and you can worry about all the little details of running your company. Details that I'm guessing a designer might not understand or care about, but you do.
  - ZephyrP 14y ago
    Why do you believe the value created lies in the final 20%? Very few (though some exceptions are notable) derive their earnings from the value at the 'long tail'
jenius 14y ago
I read this article and immediately jumped into the comments, praying that there would be a comment like this - thank you. Very well put -- details are what separate an amateur from a master. To add what little I can to this, the reason that drives me to go to these lengths is the craft. Design, like code, is a craft. A good craftsman just does not leave mistakes in their work purposely. Whenever I do this it slowly drives me crazy until I either go back and fix it, or drop the project entirely (if there are a lot of mistakes and/or things I don't really like), usually citing some reason like 'it's too messy' or 'i lost interest'. For me, design and programming are not all about a/b testing, 100% time efficiency, etc. A lot of it is about art -- making something you know is great and shipping it. When you know something is wrong with your work as an artist, it will bother you until it's fixed.
- calinet6 14y ago
  "Details are what separate an amateur from a master." -- even more well put! Thanks.
- tsunamifury 14y ago
  Have you considered that not every piece of software needs to be a masterwork? I am a lead designer, and I know that not every piece needs to be a masterwork, but ever piece of software does need to ship.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    I don't understand where people are getting the idea that we are to ignore balance, constraints, and reality in deciding how to complete a project. Absolutely not the case. We're talking about quality specifically, and why someone might choose to pay attention to finer details versus ignoring them. Your reasons for ignoring details might be perfectly valid and entirely appropriate. The project may not call for artistry and mastery. All very good points for a different discussion. Don't think for a moment that those who believe high quality is an important factor are implying that it is absolutely necessary. That is simply a false dilemma.
    - 14y ago
msutherl 14y ago
When I inspect a cathedral, that is perfectly considered at every level of detail, I know more powerfully than at any other time that life is worth living.
ender7 14y ago
In my experience, the assumption that "most people won't notice" is usually incorrect. The fact of the matter is that people usually do notice, if only subconsciously. If you show someone a clip from a Disney movie and a clip from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, they will be able to tell that the animation quality is much crappier in the latter. They won't be able to tell you why, but on a visceral level they will be able to feel the difference. [1] This visceral feeling of "quality" is what gives Apple's brand such cachet. Sure, their skeumorphism can be tacky, but it's never slapdash. Their apps always run at the highest framerates, and their touch interactions and animations have always been tweaked to a level that their competitors can't match. Now, if you asked someone what the difference was between Mobile Safari on an iPad Mini and Chrome on a Nexus 7, no one would say "the scrolling is much smoother on the iPad, and the variance in framerate is much lower as well, which contributes to a feeling of responsiveness and playfulness", but those features still contribute dramatically to the "feeling" you get when using one of the two devices. Now, sometimes it really doesn't matter. The example in the OP seems particularly silly. However, don't underestimate the value of "bumping the lamp" when it comes to design or interaction development. People will notice. [1] The answer to the "why" has many parts, but mostly involves the fact that Disney animation runs at 24fps while HB cartoons ran at 12fps or even 6fps. Disney animation involves characters that are carefully articulated and that move realistically and with a sense of weight behind them. Also, the general quality of animation and camera work was just better -- look, there are a lot of reasons. They all add up to the difference between Scooby Doo and The Little Mermaid.
- bcoates 14y ago
  But for all its lazy repeated backgrounds and bongo-drum running Scooby Doo has lasting cultural relevance and The Little Mermaid is all but forgotten, despite being decades newer? It sounds like they optimized for the wrong thing.
  - pixelbath 14y ago
    Anybody with a daughter can tell you The Little Mermaid is anything but forgotten.
chacham15 14y ago
A fundamental point IMO that you are missing is that there are a few differences between a work of art and a programs UI. 1. A work of art is created by definition to be beautiful. While a beautiful UI is awesome and definitely something to strive for, it is not the end goal. 2. A UI can be changed after its release. Unlike art, you can release a UI and then later change details that are important. 3. Most companies do not have the manpower or time to actually get to the place where the entire product is pixel-perfect. pg's mantra is: "release early." This means that not everything is going to be perfect and you have to decide what corners can be cut and which cannot. (You cannot simply state, I am going to cut NO corners). 4. A UI is likely to change. When you first release a UI you dont really know how it is going to be used. Therefore, as the OP suggests the improvement from 95%-98% really does seem like a pre-optimization. That said, the UI should make the experience easier in that it aids the function. I would take it a little beyond that where you want something attractive to look at, but it doesnt necessarily need to be in the v1. As the UI matures over time beauty in design becomes a more important goal.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  "A work of art is created by definition to be beautiful." Why is the always treated as truth whenever non-artists discuss art? This is a backwards, 19th century era concept. Art broke out of this generalization over a hundred years ago.
  - chacham15 14y ago
    Let me rephrase: A work of art is created to be looked at.
jaredcwhite 14y ago
Awesome comment. And thanks for the info on the Roger Rabbit bit, that's fancinating. I agree with you that pixel-perfection seems like a waste of time to a non-designer ("who the heck is going to notice?!?!" is the common refrain), but I think of it like this: no, people probably won't notice one, maybe two deviations from an ideal asthetic or consistancy. But those add up fast, and pretty soon you have an interface that's a mishmash of font sizes, colors, textures/no textures, etc., and people do notice. They notice because a competitor has gone the extra mile and paid attention to detail, and now they're crushing it and you're looking like a second-rate, half-baked wannabe. Design quality is every bit a competitive advantage in not only consumer software, but even enterprise software now.
nnq 14y ago
As a coder & semi-pro-designer I reached the conclusion that little bad/ugly things add up (or even multiply!), eventually resulting in something that looks bad/ugly even to average-joe on a greasy sunlit screen. If a badly scaled rounded rectangle is mixed with bad font scaling/rendering and on the next iteration a bad color-scheme decision, the ugliness of the whole is more than the ugliness of the parts added up. It sounds vague and artsy but that's how I find it: "harmless" little ugly things add up to an aesthetic carnage. Yes, it's "premature optimization" if you look at things like a programmer, but the "designer mind" can't really separate "optimization" from "just getting things to work".
- ProblemFactory 14y ago
  > It sounds vague and artsy but that's how I find it: "harmless" little ugly things add up to an aesthetic carnage. Yes, it's "premature optimization" if you look at things like a programmer, but the "designer mind" can't really separate "optimization" from "just getting things to work". The same sort of technical ugliness and lack of optimization happens in plenty of programs. In theory, one should never optimise prematurely, and get the application working first. Only at the end profile the speed, find the one single slow loop or algorithm, and optimise that. But plenty of applications acquire slowness not due to one core slow algorithm, but a lack of concern for even trivial optimisations everywhere. You end up with something like Eclipse where a keypress can take multiple seconds to appear, or a "cancel" button might take minutes to stop whatever task. And there is no place to optimise, because the inefficiencies are spread out by tiny bits everywhere.
  - nnq 14y ago
    This is definitely and interesting take on software optimization...
    - ZephyrP 14y ago
      It is pretty much a direct quote from one of the greatest minds of Computer Science, I wouldn't characterize it as interesting or unusual in any way.

edent 14y ago

That makes a lot of sense. I'd not heard about that particular phrase before - but I can see exactly what you're talking about.

skrebbel 14y ago

I see where you're coming from, but to me all you're writing is an excuse for unlimited perfectionism. Perfectionism rocks of you're among the lucky few who're in a situation where you can get away with it. In most circumstances, however, there's a product to ship, with the end of the money in sight. I mean, in terms of the 80/20 rule (the last 20% of quality costs 80% of the time), we're not talking about turning an 80% thing (i.e. typical in-house enterprise software) into a 90% thing here. Hell, even going for 95% is something I believe we should all go for, and fight our colleagues, bosses and project managers, and customers for. But the OP's example is more like turning 99.5% into 99.8%.

calinet6 14y ago
Probably very true, hence my final sentence on balance (admittedly a feeble nod to rationality, but still). Personally, I believe that much of the value created lies in the final 20% that takes 80% of the time. If what you say is true, near anyone can create something that's 80% of the way there. It's your job to get as close to 100% as you can realistically, while balancing time and money and value. It's not an argument for unlimited perfectionism; it's an argument for quality. The higher you can get, the better you will produce, and the more you will succeed. And don't just limit this to product quality; extend it to everything you do (including customer service, including planning and resource management, including hiring and culture) and you'll create a company that has a chance of being better than the others. Perfect? No. But if you're not striving for creating something of quality (in other words, of value) then what are you doing, exactly? Edit: There's a caveat here, I think. It may not be your job to worry about every design detail down to the pixel. It doesn't have to be. You can find someone who can help you produce what you need at the level of quality you desire (like the designer the OP is talking about, presumably) and you can worry about all the little details of running your company. Details that I'm guessing a designer might not understand or care about, but you do.
- ZephyrP 14y ago
  Why do you believe the value created lies in the final 20%? Very few (though some exceptions are notable) derive their earnings from the value at the 'long tail'

jenius 14y ago

I read this article and immediately jumped into the comments, praying that there would be a comment like this - thank you. Very well put -- details are what separate an amateur from a master. To add what little I can to this, the reason that drives me to go to these lengths is the craft. Design, like code, is a craft. A good craftsman just does not leave mistakes in their work purposely. Whenever I do this it slowly drives me crazy until I either go back and fix it, or drop the project entirely (if there are a lot of mistakes and/or things I don't really like), usually citing some reason like 'it's too messy' or 'i lost interest'. For me, design and programming are not all about a/b testing, 100% time efficiency, etc. A lot of it is about art -- making something you know is great and shipping it. When you know something is wrong with your work as an artist, it will bother you until it's fixed.

calinet6 14y ago
"Details are what separate an amateur from a master." -- even more well put! Thanks.
tsunamifury 14y ago
Have you considered that not every piece of software needs to be a masterwork? I am a lead designer, and I know that not every piece needs to be a masterwork, but ever piece of software does need to ship.
- calinet6 14y ago
  I don't understand where people are getting the idea that we are to ignore balance, constraints, and reality in deciding how to complete a project. Absolutely not the case. We're talking about quality specifically, and why someone might choose to pay attention to finer details versus ignoring them. Your reasons for ignoring details might be perfectly valid and entirely appropriate. The project may not call for artistry and mastery. All very good points for a different discussion. Don't think for a moment that those who believe high quality is an important factor are implying that it is absolutely necessary. That is simply a false dilemma.
  - 14y ago

msutherl 14y ago

When I inspect a cathedral, that is perfectly considered at every level of detail, I know more powerfully than at any other time that life is worth living.

ender7 14y ago

In my experience, the assumption that "most people won't notice" is usually incorrect. The fact of the matter is that people usually do notice, if only subconsciously. If you show someone a clip from a Disney movie and a clip from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, they will be able to tell that the animation quality is much crappier in the latter. They won't be able to tell you why, but on a visceral level they will be able to feel the difference. [1] This visceral feeling of "quality" is what gives Apple's brand such cachet. Sure, their skeumorphism can be tacky, but it's never slapdash. Their apps always run at the highest framerates, and their touch interactions and animations have always been tweaked to a level that their competitors can't match. Now, if you asked someone what the difference was between Mobile Safari on an iPad Mini and Chrome on a Nexus 7, no one would say "the scrolling is much smoother on the iPad, and the variance in framerate is much lower as well, which contributes to a feeling of responsiveness and playfulness", but those features still contribute dramatically to the "feeling" you get when using one of the two devices. Now, sometimes it really doesn't matter. The example in the OP seems particularly silly. However, don't underestimate the value of "bumping the lamp" when it comes to design or interaction development. People will notice. [1] The answer to the "why" has many parts, but mostly involves the fact that Disney animation runs at 24fps while HB cartoons ran at 12fps or even 6fps. Disney animation involves characters that are carefully articulated and that move realistically and with a sense of weight behind them. Also, the general quality of animation and camera work was just better -- look, there are a lot of reasons. They all add up to the difference between Scooby Doo and The Little Mermaid.

bcoates 14y ago
But for all its lazy repeated backgrounds and bongo-drum running Scooby Doo has lasting cultural relevance and The Little Mermaid is all but forgotten, despite being decades newer? It sounds like they optimized for the wrong thing.
- pixelbath 14y ago
  Anybody with a daughter can tell you The Little Mermaid is anything but forgotten.

chacham15 14y ago

A fundamental point IMO that you are missing is that there are a few differences between a work of art and a programs UI. 1. A work of art is created by definition to be beautiful. While a beautiful UI is awesome and definitely something to strive for, it is not the end goal. 2. A UI can be changed after its release. Unlike art, you can release a UI and then later change details that are important. 3. Most companies do not have the manpower or time to actually get to the place where the entire product is pixel-perfect. pg's mantra is: "release early." This means that not everything is going to be perfect and you have to decide what corners can be cut and which cannot. (You cannot simply state, I am going to cut NO corners). 4. A UI is likely to change. When you first release a UI you dont really know how it is going to be used. Therefore, as the OP suggests the improvement from 95%-98% really does seem like a pre-optimization. That said, the UI should make the experience easier in that it aids the function. I would take it a little beyond that where you want something attractive to look at, but it doesnt necessarily need to be in the v1. As the UI matures over time beauty in design becomes a more important goal.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
"A work of art is created by definition to be beautiful." Why is the always treated as truth whenever non-artists discuss art? This is a backwards, 19th century era concept. Art broke out of this generalization over a hundred years ago.
- chacham15 14y ago
  Let me rephrase: A work of art is created to be looked at.

jaredcwhite 14y ago

Awesome comment. And thanks for the info on the Roger Rabbit bit, that's fancinating. I agree with you that pixel-perfection seems like a waste of time to a non-designer ("who the heck is going to notice?!?!" is the common refrain), but I think of it like this: no, people probably won't notice one, maybe two deviations from an ideal asthetic or consistancy. But those add up fast, and pretty soon you have an interface that's a mishmash of font sizes, colors, textures/no textures, etc., and people do notice. They notice because a competitor has gone the extra mile and paid attention to detail, and now they're crushing it and you're looking like a second-rate, half-baked wannabe. Design quality is every bit a competitive advantage in not only consumer software, but even enterprise software now.

nnq 14y ago

As a coder & semi-pro-designer I reached the conclusion that little bad/ugly things add up (or even multiply!), eventually resulting in something that looks bad/ugly even to average-joe on a greasy sunlit screen. If a badly scaled rounded rectangle is mixed with bad font scaling/rendering and on the next iteration a bad color-scheme decision, the ugliness of the whole is more than the ugliness of the parts added up. It sounds vague and artsy but that's how I find it: "harmless" little ugly things add up to an aesthetic carnage. Yes, it's "premature optimization" if you look at things like a programmer, but the "designer mind" can't really separate "optimization" from "just getting things to work".

ProblemFactory 14y ago
> It sounds vague and artsy but that's how I find it: "harmless" little ugly things add up to an aesthetic carnage. Yes, it's "premature optimization" if you look at things like a programmer, but the "designer mind" can't really separate "optimization" from "just getting things to work". The same sort of technical ugliness and lack of optimization happens in plenty of programs. In theory, one should never optimise prematurely, and get the application working first. Only at the end profile the speed, find the one single slow loop or algorithm, and optimise that. But plenty of applications acquire slowness not due to one core slow algorithm, but a lack of concern for even trivial optimisations everywhere. You end up with something like Eclipse where a keypress can take multiple seconds to appear, or a "cancel" button might take minutes to stop whatever task. And there is no place to optimise, because the inefficiencies are spread out by tiny bits everywhere.
- nnq 14y ago
  This is definitely and interesting take on software optimization...
  - ZephyrP 14y ago
    It is pretty much a direct quote from one of the greatest minds of Computer Science, I wouldn't characterize it as interesting or unusual in any way.