Some time ago I stumbled upon a video on the Apple Developer app entitled The qualities of great design. In it a chirpy presenter examined great design via audio interviews (brave move I thought for Apple, but it worked) with key designers working in the App and game space.
What was refreshing to was how considered the piece was. It took time to develop and examine the state of play and tease out the difficulties we all find in the design process. It’s not easy was a common thread. No one wants to make it look like everything they do is simple, rewarding and comes with no effort. Collaboration was another key point. For many Freelancers you work in a bit of a vacuum and bouncing ideas off the dog isn’t always the best solution.
Quality in anything is hugely subjective. What I perceive as quality might be tat to someone else. Interestingly, the key point to eventually come out of all this was not to design for ones self, bringing our own culture, likes and prejudices to the product but to be user centric. Design for the person who’s never seen this thing you’ve been working on before. Design and build for the international, this design should sell across the world and needs to be approachable to every culture and people. There may however be many specific locally derived designs which impact deeply on a local culture or community and that level of exclusivity, of ‘being in the know’ brings a level of quality and brand.
Simplicity was another major positive. We all know this, if in doubt keep it simple. Simplicity can hide many layers of complexity, the better it’s done the better the complex is hidden and simplicity shines though.
One of my favourite pieces of software is the OpenSource Blender 3D project. I’ve used Blender for years and have to admit to never really managed to wrangle it to the ground and grab it by the horns and become it’s master. It is a very capable piece of software but, and there are always buts. It’s complex to look at, the interface (though less so in version 3) is still boggling. Building virtually anything in Blender is neither that logical or easy. Leave it alone for a few months and you are right back at the start. I admire the hardened users. It even has a built in video editor. I’ve tried to cut with it but after about five mins gave up.
The opposite of this complexity is FinalCut X. Derided at launch for being too simple, over the years its developed into a powerful, easy to use pro-level editing app. There is a lot of hidden depth to FCP X but for the day to day cutting of video material it’s laughably simple, an hour being shown and anyone who needs to knife and fork footage together is up and running. Simplicity over complexity.
That’s not to say that there is a quality difference between Blender and FCP X. They are both fine apps. Stable, been around for a long time and with a large user base of loyal fans. Even though I tend to default to DaVinci Resolve which I suppose sits pretty much between complexity and simplicity.
No, quality, especially in software is something less tangible, more ephemeral. Let’s face it most software looks the same. Like most cars look the same now, it’s been a process of evolution. Everyone tends to follow the Human interface guidelines for their respective platforms. There are only a limited number of buttons, interface items available. Gone are the days of the real whacko, (I’m )thinking early days of Bryce here). Looking unlike anything you’d seen before or since on a computer. Gone too is Skeuomorphism, the rendering of interface items to reflect real-world objects like calendars, pens etc. Many younger users didn’t understand the real-world version of what was being portrayed anyway. By it’s nature Skeuomorphism must be transient only bridging the short term between real and digital.
The app I’m writing on now, iA Writer is quality in software. It’s simple to use, has a minimal interface. If you read the developers blog they went to endless efforts to develop from IBM’s Plex a font for their own purposes. At the same time it packs a real punch being both a MarkDown editor with the ability to syntax colour, idioms of writing, focus modes, PDF preview, html and PDF export and style checking all in one simple package. All my files sync across iOS and Mac. It just works and works really well. This is quality and at a respectable price.
I dislike the subscription model a lot. Cruising through the App Store if I see ‘In App Purchase’ I’m normally on my way out of there. If a trial period had been offered and if the app did indeed prove to be of value then I might be tempted. I only have a couple of software subscriptions and I hate having to admit it’s for MS Office. But with a family of five for £80 I get all the main Office apps on both Mac and iOS for everyone in the family with one licence left over. There are no add-on’s and with 1Tb storage added in I’d say that represents good value and it’s a transaction I’m grudgingly happy(ish) to enter into. The software I get for my £80 is reasonable quality. After all MS have been flogging these apps for a very long time now.
I started with Adobe Photoshop on my Mac at version 2.5 I think it was. Show me an Adobe upgrade in those days and I’d immediately wave back with my credit card. Photoshop, Illustrator et al. I felt I really connected with Adobe, they gave me tools I loved, I was able to do wondrous things I’d never imagined or which would have cost a fortune only a few years earlier, it was a great time to be creative. Then, slowly the updates became less compelling, I only upgraded every other version. Next subscription and Adobe Cloud came in. I tried it for a while, hated it and moved away. All those years of good will burned up in moments.
Thank goodness for the likes of Pixelmator and Affinity Suite. (Crafted just down the road from me in the English Midlands not Silicon Vally for once). If Adobe had just offered a paid version I may have remained loyal. Perhaps I’m just being curmudgeonly but over a working life you could be paying every month for 70 years, just imagine how much that would come to.
I’ve just cancelled a subscription to a note making MarkDown app. Not because the application wasn’t any good, it was fine but over the course of my subscribing the vaunted next version never materialised and updates were scant. I got the impression the developers had sat back in the sun and were just milking the cash–cow. Perhaps we should all exercise our annual option to kick the habit more often. It’s only drug dealer, hookers and software companies who consider their customers users after all.
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