Design Sojourn has a post on Design rules...
the thing about rules are they can be broken... and people like Jonathan Ive do just that... having mastered them first. One of the problem with embedding design into an organisation is that it is a cultural issue... if strong sustainable growth is 'good' then we know that innovative practices are the key. Janice KirkPatrick makes the case for design in business with clarity in her presentation
"Innovate Or Deteriorate—Design Or Die"
subtitled
which explores the changing role of design in business through each revolution.. industrial , technological information, etc.
Returning to the Design Sojourn post which I have reproduced and commented on from my Point of View below:
Good Design ~
1. is a good investment.
This originally started as “Good Design is Good Business” courtesy of
Mr. Watson. However in today’s business environment, I belief most
people understand this concept, but not many actually see it as an
investment that has tangible returns. Therefore most Return on
Investment (ROI) calculations can apply here. This means there has to
be risk assessments, planning, budget controls, and long term goals set
out. It is not, and should never be about making something look good
and flogging it for extra cash.
Comment: because Design Investment is a longer term top-line injection it can be seen as ineffective; bottom line actions reap faster but often only short term results. Working on both requires great design behaviour. A strategic view of how design can affect the business side of the organisation can be couched in terms of speed to market (starts paying back earlier), enhancing the innovation hit rate... imagine if one of our launches did much better! How to prove it... do a pilot project to generate the statistics; present the winning case... expect to take a long time to spread across organisation!
2. does not discriminate.
Good design is all encompassing and unifying. It should not just be
about the product or look. It should include every single aspect that
circulates around a product, including things like experience,
usability, packaging and branding. Design thinking can and should be
applied into all aspects of the business and organization.
Comment: Good design is inclusive, drawing people in to add energy to the motivating insight, idea, concept, prototype, story, etc., turning it into a winner.
3. does not exist in vacuum.
Nothing comes from nothing. I find the best designs are the right ones
for the context it is developed in. Good understanding of user needs, a
critical insight on a problem, and a well defined brief is vital for
producing the best designs.
Comment: And making sure we have good design processes that touch all the key players on the project... the core team itself of course but also the sponsors, orchestrators, champions and endorsers that encourage and support.
4. satisfies all requirements.
A design cannot be successful if it does not satisfies all requirements
of the business and development constraints. This is to a certain
extent about compromise, but it is also about prioritizing, and
ensuring that you win the war not the battles. Pick your fights and
learn to negotiate.
Comment: Don't fight.. persuade! Good, sorry, great design has risks.. mitigating those risks means telling the story persuasively.. fighting means you may win the battle but lose the war! (politics!)
5. is beautiful.
I don’t think too much needs to be said here, but our visual sense is
one of the strongest of our 5 senses. There is no justification for bad
design or idea. In other words you cannot polish crap. So be self
critical instead of letting the market tell you otherwise.
Comment: Design for the 5 senses, in a beautiful market it is VAKOG
that ensures a lingering experience that we talk about (see below), which is crucial because...
[See Kenco below]... maybe attractive is a better word than beauty?
6. is innovative, intuitive and clever.
The purpose here is to go beyond aesthetic or focusing too much on the
look of a product. (Just in case point 5 threw you off, heh heh!)
Comment: This definition of innovation is useful here:
also Steve Jobs comments may be relevant
7. is strategic.
This last one, I think is the most important. Design has to be at the
highest level of decision making, and part of why an organization
exists. My favorite thought is that it should have a vital function in
any organization, just like accounting or logistics.
Comment: accounting and logistics are not pervasive, most of accounting is lagging and logistics is creative in the sense of real-time decision-making. design is a more reflective social science. Maybe this model of the organisation might help...
We need good (design) processes that pull the conversation into the centre.. Tangible models help... they sit at the centre of the large triangle.
And the speed of change?.. Stewart Brand sums it up here

where the each layer changes faster than the layer below it... the gap between fashion and culture is fascinating.. it maybe why design as creating a new thing and design as culture is so difficult!
And finally....
aesthetics is defined here more widely than just the look.. and if you talk to an 'ordinary' person who has bought an iPod that is obvious so... I took this from here as my provocation
Although food is a basic and frequently experienced commodity, careful attention to the aesthetic possibilities of foodstuffs can turn eating into gastronomy. Chefs inspire our aesthetic enjoyment through the visual sense using colour and arrangement; they inspire our senses of taste and smell using spices, diversity/contrast, anticipation, seduction, and decoration/garnishes. In regard to drinking water, there are formal criteria for aesthetic value including odour, colour, total dissolved solids and clarity. There are numerical standards in the U.S. for aesthetic acceptability of these parameters.
The power of ...holistic aesthetics:
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