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.