I agree with the last 9, but I have my quarrels with the first one. It just begs for people to make innovative designs even though the original one worked perfectly. Like a microwave oven with dozens of buttons even though the one with two dials (power, time) and the door-opener button works 99% of the time.

The first rule to me reads this way: "If your design follows the other nine rules and is not innovative it means that there is an old design that already followed the other nine rules, therefore you should stick with the old one."

Which makes sense to me, it reads like a deeper "do not reinvent the wheel".

I also agree that the first (being innovative) isn't quite right. To be innovative depends on the state of innovation of what everyone else is doing. To be innovative you have to do something new, which is different from what's already been doing. So it's implying that you have to be different to have good design. I don't agree that good design has to be different.

All the rest are spot on in my opinion.

I think we can save Rams' list by stipulating the following: design is an activity. If you don't need to innovate, you don't need design, you should be following prescribed/conventional practices. The final rule underlines the sentiment: whenever you engage in design, you should only do as much of it (innovation) as you need.

Architects, for example, are always dealing with slightly unique or novel spatial circumstances, which is why they are considered designers. Building identical suburban houses from a pattern book is not design -- and it's not innovative.

I think Rams' thoughts do all make sense if seen in this light.

But a microwave oven with dozens of buttons don't follow the other rules.

So I think you can see all ten rules as a complete set.

Yeah, but then I don't really see what purpose the first rule serves. I'd maybe put it last and rephrase it to something like "Good design is innovative when necessary".

If what you are doing is not innovative, it's not (good) design. It might be valuable but it's something else.

The comments here that disagree with Rams' first rule seem to me to be putting the cart before the horse and assuming that Rams is offering a prescriptive list for would-be designers. I think he's just describing what he thinks constitutes good design. It is not an injunction to innovate: it is an observation that "design" which does not innovate is inconsequential.

Could it be interpreted two ways?*

If the purpose of design is to solve a truly valuable problem or introduce pleasure to a process, and if these possibilities—if we're honest with ourselves—do not exist to be solved, one cannot innovate, therefore one cannot design.

A honeypot to the those who see design as surface, a challenge and call to arms to those who see it as more?

(*I'm curious if anyone knows what this type of phrase is, one that can be interpreted in two different, opposing ways. Best I can tell is _polysemy_)

It's there to fulfill the tenet that: Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Gotta cover all bases. :)

I read it as "good design is looking at a problem with new eyes": try to understand the problem and build a solution that grows from that newly acquired understanding, rather than blindly follow what has been done before.

Good design doesn’t follow necessity it leads it.. removing head phone jack as example of good (controversial) design.

Yeah, it's really good design when I cannot use my 200$ headphones with my new phone. /s

Don’t you think that’s a pretty close minded (or so it seems) perspective? See my other comment for the rest of my view! Don’t want to spam after all.

Removing the headphone jack is an example of terrible design. How does it make the product more useful?

It's implicit that "more useful" means for users - but removing the headphone jack is more useful for the manufacturer (which makes it terrible by my standards too, but not inexplicable).

See my other comment! I wasn’t necessarily talking about that (depends on what exactly you mean by that). Although that’s true too. Anything they can do to improve the product, even if it’s a trade off, can be a good thing. Shouldn’t take a narrow (or so it seems) view like that!

Removing it opens other doors, like waterproofing and more room for hardware. Thinner phone maybe too. Bruh your users into the 21st century. It’s about ditching the guys who want you to freeze in place, which I know there are many of here (not to say you in particular are one of those)

Design, as the op even says, is not just (although it definitely also is) about utilitarianism! The world of successful products should at least suggest that to you, if you won’t take it as proof.

I think you are misinterpreting 'innovative' as 'novel.' Innovative in this context means to improve on the existing state of the art, which is something Braun has historically been known for.

> Good design is unobtrusive

This one is forgotten too often. A good design brings the content forward, it doesn't hide it.

These are certainly timeless.

Good design is honest particularly catches my attention, because the design of many digital products is fundamentally about misleading the user - see for example Facebook, where users are kept in the complete dark as to why certain posts are shown to them and not others, what data about them is being collected/resold, etc.

Principles like these sound great but actually are really useless if they can't help you make decisions. Most of the day to day is trying to figure out if the design is really useful or innovative.

I find most of the Zen of Python fits well for graphical design as well as code design :)

I think you need an 11th:

Good design evolves.

What about extensibility?