Final Designs Are Always the Simplest and Most Practical

A pattern I have noticed on every project I’ve worked on is that the final design that clients choose is always the simplest and most practical one. By realizing that simplicity and practicality are where designs end, designers can save time and energy from creating many designs that clients will ultimately reject. This not only makes things easier for the designer, but it allows clients to get what they want faster.

I’m not the only one who has experienced this. A behind the scenes look at 37signals’ redesign process shows that the final design they went with was the simplest and most practical. But they had to go through many design iterations to realize this.

Version 1

They started with a very simple design. They used an elegant serif typeface to clearly state what 37signals was. Although it was simple, it was not very practical. They thought that “the design was strong, but it relied too much on the person reading to figure out what 37signalsis.” So they kept going and came up with the next version.

Version 2

Their next version was more practical. They broke the page into three content blocks separated by large headlines. Users could easily scroll down the page and scan the headlines to get an understanding of 37signals. They thought that “there’s definitely something here that is working.” However, their next version is where things go awry.

Versions 3, 4, 5

Instead of staying on the path of simplicity and practicality that was working, they decided to go the opposite direction. This resulted in lots of time and energy wasted on extravagant versions that would never see the light of day.

Version 3 was big and graphic, but “not the right direction”. In other words, it wasn’t simple or practical at all. Version 4 was a map that showed their customers all over the world. But ultimately, they felt that “front and center like this makes it a bit unclear”.

In other words, it still wasn’t simple or practical. Version 5 was an ad-like design that mirrored a magazine layout. However, they felt that “the layout, though, is inflexible. It is something that they’d quickly outgrow.” None of these versions contained an ounce of simplicity or practicality.

Version 6

After fruitlessly exploring different options, they went back to version 2 that had the most simplicity and practicality so far. However, instead of making it simpler and more practical, they decided to complicate that version by adding the map idea to it. After seeing it, they thought that “the map was unclear. What is it? What are those faces doing on there?”

Version 7

They refined version 6 by making the photos bigger and adding logos to it. But they “didn’t like the map” and felt that they were “not talking about the variety of businesses that use their products.” They were still traveling in the wrong direction with no simplicity or practicality in sight.

Version 8

This is the turning point where they started to get it. Instead of continuing in the direction complex and impractical, they started to simplify the design. They removed the boxes under the company beliefs text in this version, and felt that the design was “good, but still needed to be pushed a little further.”

Version 9

They continued on their new-found path of simplicity and practicality and completely ditched the map idea. They understated the belief numbers and emphasized the headlines. They now “loved the belief section”, but they still “weren’t feeling good about the customer section.”

Version 10, 11

Instead of simplifying the customer section, they thought that complicating it with photos would make it better. Not surprisingly, the customer section was “still not right.” In the version 11, they considered killing customer section altogether. However, they felt that removing it completely was a little overboard and that the customer story was “just too good to not tell.”

Final Design

Complicating it and removing it was apparently not the solution. The solution boiled down to simplicity and practicality. They took the customer section and simplified it by unbolding the text to make it easier to read, and moving the logos to the bottom so it wouldn’t interfere with the headline.

They made it more practical by rewriting the copy to make it clearer and added thumbnail images that linked to a Customers page that expanded on customer experiences.

Conclusion

37signals’ whole redesign process was very long and inefficient. Although they ultimately arrived at the simplest and most practical version of their design, they could have reached it sooner had they realized that the final design is always the simplest and most practical.

It’s always this way with user interfaces because interfaces require human usage and understanding. Simplicity and practicality are qualities that make interfaces easy to use and understand. Designers and clients need to realize and understand this so that they can avoid dumping valuable time and money on designs that will never be used.

Many might argue that doing bad designs are useful because it helps justify the good designs. A bad design can justify a good design, but it certainly isn’t needed to do so. Good design speaks for itself if the designer can speak for it. It’s inefficient and frustrating for clients and designers to go down a path that ignores simplicity and practicality. The client ends up wasting money, and the designer ends up wasting time.

If the designer is uncertain about the simple and practical design they have and feels the need to complicate it just so they’re sure their design is accepted, then that designer does not understand how to justify his design. It is simplicity and practicality that will always win in the end. Move with its current, and you’ll have little trouble reaching a great design. Fight it, and you’ll find yourself in an uphill battle running against time.

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