0:32 William Lidwell enters the stage 2:06 Great Designers per discipline 4:37 Heuristics 5:05 Chart of Great Designers plotted against Heuristics 6:36 Heuristic Histogram 7:15 10 Heuristics 9:15 Elegant Simplicity over Conspicuous Featurism (#1) 18:35 Inside-out Craftsmanship over Bait-and-switch Craftsmanship (#2) 24:38 Embracing Failure over Fearing Failure (#3) 30:03 Never Leave Well Enough Alone over If it Ain't Broke Don't Fix it (#4) 35:56 Reframing Problems over Accepting Problems (#5) 42:16 Customer Doesn't Know What's Right over Customer is Always Right (#6) 51:21 Analogical Insights over Analytical Thinking (#7) 56:40 Eat Your Own Dog Food over Observe Dogs Eating Food (#8) 59:52 First Principles over Fashion Trends (#9) 1:04:29 Zealous Missionaries over Indifferent Mercenaries (#10) 1:07:02 10 Heuristics list
How great great designers think: 1. Elegant simplicity over conspicuous featurism The key to a great design is simplicity. It's easy to complicate and hard to simplify. Design should be most advanced yet most acceptable. Design goes to simplicity. Progressive reduction is when a thing becomes less and yet better. When you cut away the excess and yet make a product better. The beauty is in simplicity. 2. Inside-out craftmanship over bait-and-switch craftmanship Crasftmanship really matters. The great designers are fanatical about the execution all they way through. The quality lies in details, so try your best to make your product perfect. Don't let flaws to be normal. You can't hide flaws, one day they will finally reveal themselves. 3. Embracing failure over fearing failure Failure is just a part of a process. It's inevitable and it's going to happen again, again and again. Expect it, accept it, own it, but don't fear it. They are just steps in the journey to finding the solution. You work on it until it's right. Build a culture that's ok with failures. Fail fast! Instead of theorizing, tinkering with something for a long time and then see it crumble, realize that you're eventually going to fail many times. Get these failures out of your way and move on to success. Switch your focus to rapid prototype, so you can learn quick. 4. Never leave well enough alone over if it ain't broke don't fix it World is constantly moving forward, so your design has to constantly move with it. You are constantly changing, improving, tweeking. Constantly reinvent. Don't wait until you forced to change, change on your own terms. It's an amazing "never really well enough" proactive mindset. Fast, continious, never ending improvement. There is always a way to improve, nothing is perfect. 5. Reframing problems over accepting problems Go to the core principles of a problem. Conceive the core problem, abstract it out, reframe it. Think out of the box. Think different. Don't accept the default constraints. Ask "Why?" 6. Customer doesn't know what's right over customer is always right Always make it right for the customer. Customers can't tell what they really need. I'm making this product and I know what's best. Take both customer needs and world of possibilities into your account 7. Analogical insights over analytical thinking Almost all great designs come from analogies, not pure rigid structures. Constantly analogize. 8. Eat your own dog food over observe dogs eating food Use your own product. Look from a customer's perspective. 9. First principles over fashion trends First principles are like laws of nature, the most basic laws that govern a problem. The great designers always firstly go to first principles. Ask "What is absolutely true about this problem?" 10. Zealous missionaires over indifferent mercenaries The great designers are zealous missionaires and pitchmen. It is a skill they have to have. You need to really believe in your idea and move it. P.S: The guys that only noticed "rights" in this video have missed so much! This is guy shares extremely valuable knowledge.
Thanks so much for summarizing the key points. I was hoping that there would be some kind of downloadable document for this talk, but you've solved that problem x
I do not normally reply to comments. But I had to thank you. The video is no doubt amazing distilled chalice of wisdom and you did a great job of capturing the essence so cogently. This is going to be a poster at my desk. Thank you again.
1611 Minutes - 3028 Word and 50 pages of a word file that I made taken notes and screenshots. I have already become a better designer and I didnt get passed number 5. Now that I am finished I can see my work in a new light. 10 Ways are brilliant. Thank you.
This is a really important video and it can't get enough credit. A lot - a LOT of most important things for designers in this video. So tired of design videos that are full of what equate to "Live, Laugh, Love" messages for designers. This is video is important. Probably the most important design based video I've seen.
Played this to my 13year old son who wants to be a product designer, gotta say its one of the best i have seen.. Design has many properties, each serves its own purpose, and this talk Explains that well
Mostly with the simplicity stuff this is what I think. The problem which this theory that the future is simpler is that there is a finite amount that you can simplify these everyday objects and it gets to a certain point where there is no humanity left in the design and we have such a set number of principles that we could program a computer to design the new iPhone and that is not a future that I want to champion He’s making a lot of generalizations too, I find these big talks love this kind of talk. “Nobody like this. Everybody finds this more pleasant” people don’t work like that. There are thousands of albums and works of art that most people don’t like but a small sect of people find them life changingly good and this sect is ignored by this minimalist school of thought. One gigantic flaw in his entire base is he is looking solely at what has worked before to figure out what will work in the future. He is basing the future off of the past. If I’ve learned anything it’s that people and time and art are incredibly unpredictable and trying to find a throughline is not only impossible, it’s unhelpful. When these people did what they did many of them were the first to do it. If they followed this way of thinking that assumes what worked before always works in the now they would never have done what they did. We need to learn from the past but we cannot just keep reiterating what has already been mastered.
I'm 24 and still believe (some might say naively) that I will influence the world at a grand scale. This video shows how greatness eludes us when trying to achieve it, but analyzing greatness in hindsight, is almost, somewhat quantifiable. The idea of balance comes across the most to me in this video, where its always a constant balance between two things in each heuristic. But this balance can only be achieved by understanding the scale varies in each scenario. Sometimes less needs to be more to achieve balance (or the perception there of) and other times less is a bore to achieve balance. If we understand how the scale is tipped for a given scenario, the greats before us has given us the insight into how to achieve balance.
2000th Liker here! A really really "well designed" talk. I usually lose interest over 20 mins into such long talks but William has given a truly arresting talk that made me relish it till the very end!
I think that all of this invaluable information is an awesome resource for all king of people who not just design, but create. Thank you very much for the kindness of share all this knowledge to us.
Watching this Great lecture for a number of years, now I'm clearly understand that the most crucial design rule is missed - one must always use timestamps in RU-vid videos
ThankYou! I can see the design principles applied even in the organization of the presentation. It is a huge pack of useful information. Really appreciate, thank you.
Just 13 minutes into the video and I must say this rings true. I find myself pausing and looking up some of the things he says ( can't just buy everything, RIGHT?). Mind opening to say the least, I'll definitely share with my fellow Arch undergrads
This was Fantastic and Really opened my eyes. it wasn't just some "motivational you can do it" attitude. It was a educational video that really helped my build something new and different for my business. Great Share!
Amazing talk! I enjoyed it so much! Very inspirational and interesting! Makes me proud to be designer as well as makes me feel how responsible I am for what I do.
Thank you, Janne! William Lidwell is such an intelligent and lovely person. He was a great guest at Struktur Event. His talk continues to inspire people years later. So glad this talk was helpful and we hope you can find more inspirational content on our channel!
I do all of this naturally but I have two severe mental disorders and a few moderate ones. Also analysis and analogy goes hand in hand. The more data/images you have in your mind means you can make more analogies and connections that you never reali,Ed were there. Observing and recording is critical lmao da vinci had so many notebooks of analysis.
I encourage a full listen! But if you need to review, as I have, I took note of the times. :) 1. Elegant simplicity over conspicuous featurism- 9:15 2. Inside-out craftsmanship over bait-and-switch craftsmanship- 18:39 3. Embracing failure over fearing failure- 24:33 4. Never leave well enough alone over if it ain't broke don't fix it- 30:04 5. Re-framing problems over accepting problems- 35:56 6. Customer doesn't know what's right over customer is always right- 42:16 7. Analogical insights over analytical thinking- 51:21 8. Eat your own dog food over observe dogs eating food- 56:37 9. First principles over fashion trends- 59:48 10. Zealous missionaries over indifferent mercenaries- 1:04:27
Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right? I'm sure this is a great video, but after about the 1200th right, I couldn't take it anymore.
Great content. Would read his knowledge in book form, but I can't get more than half way through this video because of this obnoxious repetitive RIGHT.
i think this is great advice but to not allow a transcript keeps it from being truely accesible which i think is pretty ironic considering the topic of the video.
He lost me with the table...progressive reduction? He reinvented not the inside of "an apple pro" he reinvented the look of an SMD resistor or capacitor!
This guy couldn't be an architect. A practicing architect knows that building codes require sound foundations, and structures. A house with brick veneer only on the front does not indicate that it has a bad foundation. The building code insures that it is structurally sound. The veneer does not go all the way around the house because the price point in that neighborhood will not support the extra cost for full veneer. Plywood on the back of a cabinet is structurally superior to solid wood, and you wouldn't see much difference if it is good quality hardwood plywood. I prefer a plywood back on a chest of drawers.
..."a spiritual mushy way"...? What does this mean? What is he implying?I do not like this condescension......if I were a snowflake, I might say, I am triggered and someone just hurt my feelings.... right?
