Indeed, those are precisely the questions that should have been brought up, and should have stopped this in its infancy. Form doesn't follow function... form *is* function. When you set the form first, independent of the function, you've already gone off-track.
Box function: contain things, be openable, and (presumably) recloseable for storage. Existing solutions are known, familiar, and tested. Slight variations that emphasize one function or another (holding an optical disc, having slots for little-referenced but important information that shouldn't be lost, etc) are fine, and usually welcome. But a complete re-design for no reason other than *to do* a re-design?
That's not a product, it's an art project.
Hmm... this explains much about software design now that I think about it - when you treat programming as a rarified artform, you get... muck. It may be pretty to look at in some respect (usually the code, not the final user-viewed product), but everything else falls apart abysmally. You must start with function (and I don't mean just functionality, but also UI, workflows, etc), and then the form specifics will follow naturally. Not easily, necessarily, but naturally.
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Re: Disclaimer: I work for MS, and am now part of the Windows group. . .
Date: 2008-02-01 06:46 pm (UTC)Indeed, those are precisely the questions that should have been brought up, and should have stopped this in its infancy. Form doesn't follow function... form *is* function. When you set the form first, independent of the function, you've already gone off-track.
Box function: contain things, be openable, and (presumably) recloseable for storage. Existing solutions are known, familiar, and tested. Slight variations that emphasize one function or another (holding an optical disc, having slots for little-referenced but important information that shouldn't be lost, etc) are fine, and usually welcome. But a complete re-design for no reason other than *to do* a re-design?
That's not a product, it's an art project.
Hmm... this explains much about software design now that I think about it - when you treat programming as a rarified artform, you get... muck. It may be pretty to look at in some respect (usually the code, not the final user-viewed product), but everything else falls apart abysmally. You must start with function (and I don't mean just functionality, but also UI, workflows, etc), and then the form specifics will follow naturally. Not easily, necessarily, but naturally.