Recently I published a piece on the Ideaware blog called Good design is as little design as possible, it has turned into one of our all-star posts.
So I’ve been thinking about how this affects us as UI/UX designers and how the best players in the field do their work. Usually as designers we tackle multiple projects at once and have a lot on our plates. Turns out that either on purpose or not we tend to do the least amount of work necessary to achieve a design or experience goal.
In a sense we become lazy by optimizing. A lazy designer: Iterates Quickly Doesn’t overthink Doesn’t over design Designs with whitespace in mind Keeps a goal checklist for each feature, crosses items off quickly There’s a difference between doing your best work and using your best work.
Every blank canvas is a new opportunity to do our best work ever. But should we spend copious amounts of time to build the next big interface when the project doesn’t even call for it? I have yet to find a single project with unlimited time and budget to allow for this. The best designers just re-use their all-star ideas.
You bring them to the table when creating something new, and before you know it you are already innovating. Use that in your next project and this my designer friends, is how you both turn lazy and become a better designer.