Even more on functional and aesthetic beauty
We’re in the whittling phase on a bunch of recent projects. This is the part of the process where a bunch of great thinking/functionality/insight/etc. gets pared down to its core essence. The job here is distillation down to only what’s completely necessary.
I love this part.
Whether its in the crafting of a strategy, interface, presentation or whatever – this is one of the bits of my job that’s the most magical to me. Thinking about it this morning I remembered Murray Gell-Mann’s speech at Ted. He talked about a similar thing in physics: elegant equations tend to be correct more often than inelegant ones. In fact, he shows how proofs were built on top of existing proofs through the process of refining the equations and paring them down to a simpler, more elegant form.
This is probably not co-incidental. As a part of nature, we will inevitably view natural forms as more elegant – we will instinctively be drawn to them. So in a way, the process of distillation is a process of uncovering beauty – and perhaps that’s what appeals to me.
I think we see this all around us. In a small way it is part of the appeal of Twitter. Expressing complex ideas within 140 characters is a bit like poetry. It’s also part of great experiences like the iPhone and Wii which have created disruptions through the process of uncovering the essential beauty of their respective categories.
In designing interactions, thinking like this comes to the fore. By and large, good interactions shouldn’t be intrusive, draw attention to themselves or distract from the larger task at hand. Sadly this tends to be completely opposite to the brief that most communications are created from.