Design is compromise
stephango.com
stephango.com
However, most folks (not just designers) have a difficult time with compromise, these days. It's become a value judgment (You're "weak," if you compromise).
I learned, when I was a kid, that I can't always get what I want (I think that someone even sang about it, way back then).
The art of compromise, is one of the most valuable skills I had, during my career, and I'm still at it. In fact, I was just texting with a team member, a few minutes ago, where we have to come to a compromise.
...why the downvote, please (mystery downvoter)? I can only read that as saying "No! You must not arrogantly hope to be creative and solve problems for mutual benefit! It's important that everyone be quiet and learn to suffer!"
So, what are you saying about framing everything as binary? That actually sounds like what I'm saying is bad: to be uncreative and stubborn and reject any new idea on principle, a Not Invented Here sort of mindset, even if when you thought about it you'd prefer the new idea. That stubbornness is what leads to difference-splitting.
If the intent was to share an interesting fact about the origin of the word, then that would be something I'd find interesting, but quite often tone ends up mattering as much as content, and the way you've phrased it doesn't make it clear at all that's what your intent is rather than sounding like you're saying that everyone here is ignorant except you. Whether or not that's accurate (and for the record I don't think it is, since I tend to consider a definition that doesn't fit what people actually mean as irrelevant), generally convincing people that they're wrong requires a lot of careful communication. At the end of the day, you have to decide whether you're commenting because you genuinely want to convince people of something or just because you want to say it regardless of the outcome; if you're motivated by the former, then how people react to your tone is tautologically the measure of whether you need to change it or not, and if you're motivated by the latter, you're going to have to accept that downvotes are an inevitable consequence when you're saying things that people don't agree with in a way that they don't like.
It's a valuable idea, because otherwise what you get is an established habit of bad resolutions to disputes, where it becomes normal and is seen as virtuous for everybody to settle for half-measures. The article, which is very short, might be promoting that mindset, for all I can tell. In fact it clearly states it:
> The more you tip the scale on one side, the weaker something else will be. That’s okay!
No, it isn't okay, and that's a shitty zero-sum uncreative way to view the world.
I — among others — believe that "sweet spot", "balanced", "trade-off" and even "compromise" are good enough words to describe a solution that achieves good outcomes for multiple competing goals (not just people), and I really believe that whether any of those is negative is in the eye (ear) of the beholder.
If you are instead claiming that there are no competing goals when you are eg. building a product, you might be looking only at very simple products (though I have a hard time imagining a product so simple there are at least not two goals in tension — eg. a knife and toothpick both need to balance sharpness and safety).
This is of course difficult to do, and you may give up and compromise instead. Sometimes that's understandable. It is however worse.
Sometimes, it works nicely; other times, you end up with The Abilene Paradox[0].
Group creativity is a crapshoot. Sometimes, lots of crap shoots out.
Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
But what people are stating (me included) is that in majority of cases, you are actually dealing with conflicting goals and outcomes so it is really the art of making decisions that allow you to do a good creative job within a set of needs.
So it is really more of a "yes, and" to you — with nobody disputing that you should first try to find a solution that meets multiple goals, people are finding that it's not just hard, but sometimes impossible to do so and really talking about this what we perceive to be "majority of our work" in operating within this "yes, and..." zone.
This is also why we have so many different tools for superficially the same job: from knives, forks and spoons (and yes, a spork ;-)), over accounting software, cars, shoes, clothes, phone sizes and underlying operating systems...
I mean, it'd be great if there was one tool I could use to eat my hot soup on a cold day, and shovel snow in the street, but... Yes, one could eg. imagine a way where one thing could do both where it's about eating a soup and cleaning snow (perhaps a straw-based system that sprinkles hot soup onto snow while having a junction to feed me too? :)), but the OP was using "compromise" in a way where he splits the two needs and focuses only on one.
And while this example seems far-fetched, it is not unusual in the world of software :)
I mean, sure, if you think that there's literally no way for you to improve how you communicate to more effectively convey your ideas, then yes it's because of the other people and not something you can address. One person getting the point isn't a sign that everyone else is going to though. If your goal is to be persuasive to enough people that you don't need to risk downvotes though, you might find more success from looking closer at why you failed to get the outcome you want than from trying to justify it as not your fault. As I said though, I don't have any agenda here; I didn't downvote you, and if you're happier with the outcomes you're getting rather than being open to trying to communicate differently, it doesn't bother me! Given that you seemed upset about the downvotes though, it seemed like maybe you genuinely wanted to learn what might have caused them so you could try to avoid it in the future, so I was offering what seemed like the reason to me.
> Everybody secretly knows that what they call compromises ought ideally to be creative mutual preferences, and not involve either or both of the parties having to put up with things and having their goals degraded
Not quite, I'm saying that it's not really a secret (at least not intentionally); it's just that common definition that most people understand the word to mean includes both win/win and lose/lose. It's totally understandable that this might not be your understanding of the word, since there's no way to really find out which words you might not understand the same way everyone else does, short of looking up every single word in a recent dictionary, which isn't a particularly fun way to spend time.
Re: the definition, that's exactly what I said in the first place! "Often people don't make the distinction and call both things compromises", I said. I'm promoting making the distinction because I think it matters, a lot.
The idea that there should be a semantic distinction certainly is more interesting than my original interpretation of what you said; I'd need more time to figure out whether I agree with it or not, but this type of philosophical discussion is definitely the type of thing I enjoy (and I suspect you're right that it's also something that a lot of people here would similarly be interested in discussing).
I am not saying that the "original" definition of "concessions on both sides" is strange at all though — merely that this was the original (first) meaning of the word, but that it is today used for both indicating a successful idea that meets multiple goals when they are re-evaluated by their spirit, and a set of concessions that meet some but not all of the original goals or their spirit.
It's really strange how some people unconsciously try to push the idea that the only possible and acceptable feedback comes from those that only reinforce your own personal opinions. Not even Jesus was this sure about himself.
Exactly.
This whole discussion is baffling. For the "compromise is lose-lose" mentality to even have a chance of being valid, you first must believe that your own personal opinions and incomplete information represents the optimal and ideal solution. This is clearly never true. Why do people believe they are infallible and hold perfect information?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Always_Get_What_Yo...
I think its just as important to realize ideas themselves can be conflicted or contradictory, and that practical action requires compromise. Many seductive ideas may not be well-formed if you really dig deeply enough. It's not just economic or political pragmatism. Even the solo designer/thinker needs to compromise such untested ideas in search of a realizable system.
The OP here talks about a compromise between two ideas, which means that it could be a single person making trade-offs based on their conscious choices about where the (bigger) value is.
The negative connotation is also mostly personal — it's like glass half-full or half-empty question: one can say that in a compromise, two people/ideas are going away with some of their desire/value unfulfilled, or that both are going away with some of their desire/value fulfilled.
If it was empty and you filled it half way, it’s half full. If it was full and you drank half, it’s half empty.
In reality you always have to compromise if you aim to achieve more than one thing at once. Wanna deliver a quality product and earn money? Then you will have to compromise between the quality and the revenue in some ways. Granted if you search hard you may be able to find ways (=compromises) that are more win-win on both fronts than others, this search is the task of any good designer.
But that means you have to have at least have to have a slither of understanding of the search space.
I think you got it exactly backwards. I'll explain why.
Your bias (and the blogger's) rears its head by the way you chose words such as "compromise" to discuss design processes. Words reflect and shape thought processes, and by choosing words such as "compromise" or "concession" you are already framing the process as a battle of wills. Design instead works with affordances, patterns, constraints and tradeoffs. None of these require you to argue or disagree with others, or others with you. Your goal is to seek the best design given your tradeoffs, and there is no single optimal way to pull this off. Seeking consensus doesn't require battling out people's opinions.
So why do people choose to use conflict-driven words to describe the process? Do you carry a conflict-driven mindset when tackling a design problem? I mean, look at the way you frame the process: someone comes with feedback and opinions, and your gut response is that you feel compelled to fight them? That warrants some soul searching.
More often than not, a compromise means that the problem wasn't scoped out well enough, and it ends up partially solving a problem that didn't need solving.
Edit: I do think it's about trade-offs though. Choosing to solve one problem, acknowledging another problem will be disregarded.
These types of things are ubiquitous when designing and building products — how do you communicate to your users, how much you communicate and how much you automate, how do you target slightly different users (new customer vs old one used to old patterns in your product), what use-case is the most important one (by customer type, customer numbers, and how commonly they do something...), etc.
If not, and compromise is just stuff like "add yet another floating ad footer to make the c-suite happy," then absolutely it should be the last tool.
If you avoid making strong decisions that’s usually also a trade-off since you trade let’s say peace of mind / not alienating people with having a sharp spike.
I often urge people to do deliberate trade-offs instead of just waiting it out.
That's supposing you have a well defined intended audience. Many people see it as a prerequisite, that's also how we ended up with the personas during research.
I'd argue there are many designs that should go beyond a specific intended audience and allow for larger reach and minimize alienating people. My reasoning is that in part we're just not good at properly analyzing requirements (it's just hard) and people's needs are also volatile. Trying to design the perfect things for a narrow target often results in something just really bad.
As a concrete example, mouse makers targeting specific hand size and shape for specific actions usually end up with a worse product even for their intended audience. Having more leeway to hold it differently, change the way you use it e.g. depending on the time of the day or task at hand is just more comfortable. The best mouses on the market are pretty forgiving and flexible. Heck, the most clamored pointing devices (Apple trackpads and Kensington style trackballs) are completely hand agnostic.
But constraints are not fixed, you can optimize, discover new techniques and change the space of requirements.
For example thanks to computer scientists we get better and better algorithms for compression, and thanks to hardware companies we get new / faster chips with different models to do new kinds of computation
Thus, you can move the compromise space, by working harder
There might be a deeper point being communicated, not sure, but I see no issue here.
Higher-level design often involves dissolving apparent tensions or opposites through layering or more sophisticated mechanisms, while preserving the benefits of both.
Example ->
Proposition: "Phew, we have to choose between convenience and security."
Naive design: "Let's find a watered-down compromise."
Good design: "Let's layer security on top of convenience by designing the system so users don't have to choose, or water either one down."
Great companies have a history of dissolving apparent contradictions under a single roof via good design.
The choices made that lead to the 737max disaster are a great example of what happens when NO isnt allowed to be an option.
But values conflicts with each other. You can't value more than a few at the same time. E.g. If you make a decision which is good for your employee who is struggling (value employee), it may not be a good decision for your client who is already delayed (value client/speed). Etc..
It was written in Ye Time Beefore Ye iffowne, so mobile UI was really limited.
It's all about compromise. How to prioritize, and how to develop UI that was usable and affordable, while still maintaining some design integrity. It also talks a lot about how to work with others, and come up with compromises that work well.
[0] https://jenson.org/The-Simplicity-Shift.pdf (Downloads a PDF -short read).
Creating a product and touting how secure it is while some jackass manager continually cuts the budget for security fixes? It’s self-defeating to throw up your hands and say “oh, we had to compromise.”
The reality is that decision-making is about power. If you are continually losing all the tradeoffs, that says all you need to know.
Sometimes power is in the hands of people who use it in ways that will tank the company, all while everyone else “compromises” so we all ride the express train to a failure.
Other terms are in use, like "balance" or "trade-off" from the OP or... But I believe the message is clear in that the OP believes majority of design is about balancing opposing forces and their tension and they call that compromising.
"How can I maximize my widgets-produced-in-six-months output given that I'm constrained by having $x budget?" - constraint that could give you a different solution than higher or lower budget.
"How can I maximize my widgets-produced-in-six months output AND my customer satisfaction given that I'm constrained by having $x budget" - now you have to compromise one or the other.
Here I'm talking about the physical design of how the widget is made as it's the first super-concrete example that popped to mind, but almost any sort of design operates in a similar multiple-goals world.
Compromise is stuff like what I'm going through, right now. The user needs to know that a set of locations on a map, can also be displayed as a sortable list, but the affordances for that access are not working with the overall design. It's extremely easy to add a button, but it messes with the screen layout.
We'll figure it out, but we can't ignore it. It's too important to our users, so we may have to make a graphical compromise. It's really tempting to think that "stupid users should know better," but that's a fairly destructive mindset.
Design for others can be different than needing to impose your design on others.
The article means it as tradeoff rather than concession, so the argument is "to avoid design by committee you have to compromise on purpose."
Of course, what “good results” are depends entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish, which is why picking the right tool for the job is so important.
https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-your-product-is...
How Designers Work – Making Sense of Authentic Cognitive Activities - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352065
All the very successful-yet-failing companies were unable to understand these compromises, and each was overturned by a newcomer that could (usually due to necessity, of course)
Design is one of the clearest examples, since it's filled with decisions about stuff, but just picking how you type which keyboard you use everything is a compromise. If perfect things existed everything and everyone would have naturally converged on it over enough time, but we rarely seem to see that happen outside monopolies built on network effects or extreme subsidisation.
Of course, _some_ things require compromise. But many things do not. Assuming false dichotomies is a fairly common fallacy that no one is immune from.
The first time I want into this was when MS word would let you drag icons off the toolbar if you pressed slightly too long. suddenly your toolbar loses a feature because you accidentally dragged the icon off which was the gesture for removing the icon. Absolutely no one needed that shortcut gesture. People who wanted to customize, which is rare, could have dug into some customization setting. Instead, for every one person that wanted to edit their toolbar, 100 others got frustrated when their app stopped functioning
Unfortunately designed love these bad designs. Mac and iOS are full of them. I did some gesture just a few days ago that magically pulled the left shortcuts off the finder. Something I never wanted to do.
So many of my family member have lost the picture of their loved ones on their iPhone lock screen because of the stupid gesture to set it as it’s too easy to do by accident. Leaving as a settings option only would be much better.
Same with the charging clocks that appear and their stupid swipe to change. Several times a week, reaching for the phone when I wake up, the clock gets swapped even though I have a choice I want and then I have to go spend time putting it back. Worse, it’s not even intuitive because up/down change one thing and left/right change another. No user needs this shortcut. It probably exists so the clock designer can check all their designs. No fucks given what’s good for users. I’m sure they misinterpret their metrics as positive feedback
However, I also think it's a bit of a meta-commentary.
Ultimately it boils down to definition of the word "compromise", so a better article is one that establishes those semantics first.
It's pretending there isn't one.
Every product optimizes for something. The interesting question is what it chose to sacrifice.
Understanding this seems to be essential for leaders in general.
Creativity came after limitations
People often mistake thank freedom grants creativity
> Compromise is neither good nor bad, it’s something we do every day.
because compromise usually means "the wrong answer because an imbecile is necessary for consensus"
A benevolent and competent Authoritiarian is the best form of governance, everyone is just worried about the successor. But that nirvana period functions well due to no compromise and the right choices being made in quick succession.
It's AI slop.
Edit: as pointed to me, it says 2018. I'd be damned. Guess that makes it merely part of the "LinkedIn post" training set pushing AI towards such style!