Vapid Development
Just because blog posting is technically effortless doesn’t mean it should be intellectually so. I’m not railing against fluffy posts about trivial matters—I love fluff and trivia. What I am railing against is the all to common practice of posting a thin pretense of insight that crumples under the lightest scrutiny—I’ve labeled these twinkies in an earlier post–and the throngs of praising sheep who eat it up (“oh the emporer’s delicate fabric is beautiful!”). In other words I’m railing against the design world’s vapid blather with delusions of meaning.
For example, Kathy Sierra’s “Does the US suck at design?” offers us the following thesis: a culture of design is about aesthetics and style, and such cultures flourish only outside the US. The corollary to this is that design culture withers in the US.
She demonstrates her thesis with the following 4 points of evidence:
1. Western Europe has good graffiti
2. Barcelona has gorgeous women
3. Architecture outside the US is older
4. And Swiss and New Zealand currency is more colorful
To begin with the foundation of her very premise, that design equals style, is so naïve, so unsophisticated, so misguided that it seems more appropriate coming from an accounting manager whose oatmeal cubicle walls proclaim “Hang in There” with kittens dangling from trees, than someone who positions themselves as some kind of authority on design.
But even if each of these premises were true, they still would not support Sierra’s thesis. Unfortunately this level of reasoning is all too common in the design world. And we designers wonder why we aren’t given the credit we think we deserve—perhaps we are. So, not only is Sierra’s logic incredibly faulty (her conclusion just doesn’t follow from her premises) but her premises are themselves demonstrably wrong (at least to the level of rigor shown in her post). So because I’m in a combative mood and have some time, let’s tackle each one …
Western Europe has good graffiti. Well, since Sierra offers no more than loose personal opinion to demonstrate veracity here’s some counter personal opinion. I too have been to Western Europe (actually only a few select cities, so I can hardly claim expertise over such a large and diverse area). The only place where I was impressed by the graffiti was in Barcelona (many of my pics to the right feature Barcelona’s graffiti). It is more clever, subversive, political, curious, amusing, absurd and smarter than any I’ve seen over here. However in terms of visual aesthetics and style (the metrics Sierra uses) I found it plain and uninspiring, certainly nothing like the Technicolor tag explosions you’ll find adorning some of the less well heeled buildings in such an unassuming city as Dallas.
Strike one!
Barcelona has gorgeous women. I found this particularly funny. My girlfriend and I spent a couple of weeks in Barcelona. We absolutely loved the city (especially its witty graffiti) but were quite surprised by how consistently unattractive the women were physically—and the viral mullets and wrestling boots they all wore at that time didn’t help the matter.
Now, as a heterosexual male in the prime of life with no weird fetishes that would land him jail I can say with absolute certainty that Manhattan may have the highest density of physically attractive women in the world (the world that I’ve seen anyway). And I’m not talking about fake plastic models here; I’m talking about regular women who live in the city going about their daily business. Barcelona ain’t even near that ballpark.
Steeee-rike two!!
Architecture outside the US is older. Can’t argue with that, but I can make a giant red herring salad out of it.
Foul!
Swiss and New Zealand currency is more colorful. While also true I could write pages on how facile and misguided this reasoning is, but I’ll opt for brevity instead.
Sierra complains about how dull and similar US dollar bills are. She further complains about how unusable they are, giving them an F. I have used money all of my life, and I have never myself, nor witnessed anyone else, ever having any difficulty using US dollars bills. I hardly think a product with a centuries’ old track record of successful use deserves an F for usability. To be fair, her comment about adding non-visual cues to bills for the blind is probably a great idea.
The greenback’s usability is (the blind notwithstanding) simply not a problem. And John Carroll says one of the greatest mistakes design can make is to solve the wrong problem.
Since design is style in Sierra’s world, let’s dig into the US dollar’s visual design. But let’s avoid the subjectivity trap of aesthetics, and focus on something more stable like semiotics What Sierra calls “dull” is actually quite powerful. The bills’ conservative visual design communicates a strong, unrelenting, historically unbroken continuity with the nation’s fiduciary stability and commitment.
Similar to what the Rock of Gibralter communicates for Prudential, the dollar bill’s visual designs communicates gravity, trust, permanence and importance, the kinds of feelings old banks used to radiate with their marbled floors and Doric columns. They were temples.
Stamps can be all colorful and whimsical, because they are small, insignificant, single-dosage, disposable currency. But money is permanent, money is forever, money is too important, and the US dollar bills look the part. Save the colour for Monopoly.
And those same old dead white guys, the guys who founded the US as both a polity and as revolutionary political idea stand behind that dollar just as they stand behind the constitution, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Its all about trust, trust that this bill is worth something, and will always continue to be worth something. What the hell does a coloured penguin represent?
Stiiiike three–you’re out!
I’m actually not trying to convince you that I’m right on any of these points. Rather I’m trying to show that there are equally (and I think much more) valid opinions that contradict the ones Sierra serves up in her dizzyingly anemic logic.
Oh, and I almost for got my favourite where she says “[t]hen again, all those MySpace pages could be a real setback…” demonstrating a monumental incapacity to see beyond self-reference and betraying an absolute solipsistic miscomprehension of what makes MySpace so incredibly fantastic at what its does. Its like old folks in the 50s complaining about rock-and-roll–its a good sign that culture has left you behind in the loving arms of irrelevance.
Sierra’s ‘evidence’ so rooted in the vicissitudes of personal subjectivity maybe be interesting in a getting-to-know-you sort of way, but it is by no means support for a contentious or meaningful claim. Unfortunately this level or reasoning is epidemic in design and it is killing our profession’s credibility in the business world.
Thanks but no thanks Kathy, you can keep your twinkies.
July 16th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
[second attempt… I think something went wrong with the first comment]
Well, you’ve certainly demonstrated your intellectual superiority — no arguments from me there.
I noticed that your post is *very* emotional, which is surprising given the value you (rightfully) place on logic. One thing neuroscience knows for certain is that strong emotions and rational thought are almost mutually exclusive. I appreciate that you’re angry about my post–and about the people who post a “thin pretense of insight”, and given your misperceptions about it–I can understand that. But I believe that if you had written your response from a less angry view–or simply ASKED me what I was thinking before you leaped to conclusions, you might have had a different perspective.
Your comments are good ones… hard to argue with your points. But you based them on some really bad assumptions. You extrapolated wildly (and in this case, inaccurately) about what I actually meant, and based your aguments on these wrong assumptions.
I’ll take the blame for the misperceptions–I tend to forget that not everyone who reads my blog is one of my regular readers, and that some people might take a single blog post out of context. Fair enough… it’s my job to make my intentions clear, and occasionally people do either take me too literally or too seriously (both of which happened here, I think) when they don’t know me or my blog. That’s a useful reminder for me, so I consider this helpful feedback.
I think your response may have started to go wrong here:
“…offers us the following thesis: a culture of design is about aesthetics and style, and such cultures flourish only outside the US. The corollary to this is that design culture withers in the US.”
This was a blog post! There was no “thesis”… this was my somewhat festive how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation-and-here’s-what-I-noticed thing. I would have thought that the Barcelona-girls-are-hot line was a bright flag that this was a few fun observations and not a peer-reviewed journal piece… Fortunately, I was only trying to spark some interesting and useful conversations with a few observations (and the comments of others were amazing and informative).
Then you said:
“She demonstrates her thesis with the following 4 points of evidence:”
Not a thesis, but OK… what I actually said was “a few more small examples”
And I’m not sure “small examples” is the same as “points of evidence”, but again… I’m not an academic writer (obviously!) and I’ll try to be more careful.
This one I found funny:
“…demonstrating a monumental incapacity to see beyond self-reference and betraying an absolute solipsistic miscomprehension of what makes MySpace so incredibly fantastic at what its does. Its like old folks in the 50s complaining about rock-and-roll–its a good sign that culture has left you behind in the loving arms of irrelevance.”
Wow! I’m impressed with how much you can parse out of a single line. You get bonus points for using “solipsistic”, but it does seem like that last sentence was a bit mean-spirited without adding much value. But in any case, you were dead wrong.
That was the first clue you hadn’t read my blog
And this line:
“miscomprehension of what makes MySpace so incredibly fantastic at what its does.” It looks like we’re going to have to disagree strongly on that point. Because what *I* think what makes MySpace so incredibly fantastic (we that it’s fantastic) is NOT the “aesthetic design”. Software design, yes. Culture/community design, yes. But it’s not the aesthetics that makes MySpace what it is.
If you’d like to know my thoughts on MySpace, they’re here:
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/ultrafast_relea.html
Again, given what you *thought* the post meant, and given the anger you felt about it, I can understand your responses, and they all make sense given your perspective.
BUT — there is one thing I REALLY take exception to in your post
“the throngs of praising sheep who eat it up”
It’s one thing to criticize me… I get that all the time, often well-deserved. But I draw the line when you so blatantly insult my READERS.
And some of those “sheep”, I’m afraid, are people you respect.
Your “twinkie” post contains the line:
“Check out some of the folks on my blogroll, folks like Niti Bahn, Presentation Zen, Black Sheep and Bubblegeneration, folks who shun the twinkies.”
Ironically, two of the four twinkie-shunners you mentioned are regular readers who’ve commented on my blog, and written about me on their *own* blogs many times (including a post YOU commented on!) If you really do read Presentation Zen, then I’m a little surprised you haven’t looked at his blogroll. It’s a very short list, and I’m on it.
And here are a few examples from the (I agree, VERY smart and savvy) Niti Bahn:
http://www.nitibhan.com/perspective/2006/03/paean_to_cl_tha.html
http://www.nitibhan.com/perspective/2005/11/workaholic_hour.html
http://www.nitibhan.com/perspective/2006/04/abundance_vs_sc.html
And from Presentation Zen, here’s a search result of some of the places where Garr has mentioned us. Garr and I have a mutual admiration society going, and I’m offended that you would imply that he might be a “sheep”.
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=81647189&pageid=r&mode=ALL&n=0&_charset_=&bcd=÷&query=kathy+sierra
Of course you’re free to rebut, criticize, slam anything you wish about me or my blog or my co-authors. I make a LOT of mistakes. Getting critical feedback is one of the best parts of blogging, and again, you had some excellent points.
But your response was emotional, and you indirectly criticized two people you respect, simply because they read my “twinkies”. You’re free to refer to my work as “twinkies”, but these folks are NOT SHEEP and to imply that is definitely Not Cool.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
Kathy,
It’s about critical thinking, not intellectual superiority. I’ve known some very smart and some very creative people who aren’t terribly good at critically evaluating things. And in high school I was a pretty consistent C student—so you won’t be finding much intellectual superiority with me I’m afraid.
But I do pay attention to what people say. So, for instance when you say something like “One thing neuroscience knows for certain is that strong emotions and rational thought are almost mutually exclusive.” I wonder, because it’s a very bold and certain statement, how does neuroscience “know” this? Is this really what neuroscience knows? Is there evidence? But neuroscience is related to the physical nervous system (brain, spine, nerve endings, etc) and not the system’s emergent subjective or cognitive phenomena like emotions or reason. To be honest I don’t really know either way, but right off the bat because I’m paying attention to what you say, I find myself doubting what you say.
Regardless of what neuroscience knows or not, do you really believe that emotion and reason are mutually exclusive? That you cannot be both passionate and smart? What does this say about passionate users?
Now I’ll eat a little crow. I really should have made it clear up front that my ire was not about your post specifically, but rather about a much larger trend in design writing and criticism where opinion easily masquerades as knowledge. Your post was merely the one (as innocuous as it was intended) that came along at the “I’ve had enough” moment.
Also the “sheep” comment was not meant to refer to your readers (and indeed came before I even mentioned your posting) but a general reaction to a number of clearly sloppy posts I’ve read recently that were followed by a half-a-dozen minor variations of “I agree.” Since I both try to avoid making things personal on my blog, and try to direct my criticisms to the right places my comment was way out of line (an ironic failure of my own critical evaluation skills).
The other thing I should be more careful about is using an author’s name to refer to a single piece of their writing. Such metonymies are easily misconstrued to sound like I’m criticizing all of the author’s work, or worse the author as a person. I do feel bad if anyone feels personally hurt by something I\’ve said or written, that\’s totally not my intent, and I can only appologize.
Ok I think I’m done with the crow.
A thesis is just an argument proposition, a claim, a point, a conclusion; its not just a paper written by grad students. So, many blog posts are in fact theses—they’re making a point, a point supported by reasons or evidence. The point of your post I assumed was a short lament about how Europe seems to have a stronger appreciation for style than the US. It was a point I disagreed with, weakly supported by premises that I also disagreed with, that together furthered an unfounded but common cliché (sort of like the way comedians constantly joke about the French being rude—while completely false in my experience, it has acquired an aura of fact).
I’m sorry I didn’t get a tongue-in-cheek flavour from your words—I looked again, and still didn’t find it (but I did find that you have updated your bit on MySpace after my comments, and I’m assuming as a result of my comments).
And regarding my comments on your MySpace remark. Since you framed this post’s discussion on style and aesthetics that was where I stayed—so release cycles, etc., weren’t relevant. The style and visual aesthetics of MySpace are in fact a big part of what makes it great. There is a very strong semiotic connection between the stylistics of MySpace pages and the doodles, stickers and other things with which highschool students fill their textbook covers, lockers, desks and notes. MySpace aesthetics are the aesthetics of adolescence. If MySpace were any different it wouldn’t work, and the fact that you just don’t like them was my point. (looks like I correctly read into your originally phrased remark after all).
Yes I play a little rough. And yes I am very demanding of what I read, especially from writers who I know can do better—its just a blog is no excuse because blogs are peer-reviewed journals.
Anyway, thank you for caring enough to respond at length—because I believe caring, not agreement, is a prerequisite for intelligent discussion.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:24 am
I truly hope blogs are never seen as peer-reviewed journals in any formal sense because that would destroy their freshness. Moreover, far more people have read my trivial blogging than my academically published writing and I think that’s a good thing even if they are self-selecting peers. What they think of it is up to them and whether I am convinced by them is dependent upon how they argue with me. That said, I agree with you that a lack of rigour can be infuriating, but I think that should be tested across a whole blog rather than on individual postings. Otherwise we are all vulnerable.
If I were being bitchy, I could suggest that three typos in your first paragraph connote a lack of rigour that might lead me to doubt you “right off the bat” and I could criticise your four point critique thus:
You disagree that Western Europe has good graffiti yet you loved (your verb) the graffiti of Barcelona which is definitely in Western Europe. You may not have been impressed by the aesthetics (of the limited amount you admit to having seen) but your praise still suggests to me that you thought it to be good.
You disagree that Barcelona has gorgeous women - Kathy’s use of the word hot conveyed to regular readers that this was a light-hearted remark, but even taken at face value it is undeniable that there are many gorgeous women in Barcelona. Having myself lived in London, New York and Los Angeles I would argue that genetic selection (i.e. the lure of stardom) has given LA the edge in gorgeousness. Anyway, this is all fairly specious as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is I think applicable here since we’re talking of human attraction and while I would concur with you re “fake plastic models”, many people find that look to be gorgeous.
You can’t argue with the Architecture is Older Outside the US statement, but then refuse to explain your red herring remark. I am not a designer but I don’t see that living in a culture of centuries of different aesthetics is a de facto stimulus for creativity. Equally it doesn’t strike me immediately that it isn’t. You may be right, but you didn’t pitch so I don’t know how the umpire would call in this situation.
You argue that semiotics are more important then aesthetics when it comes to money - this may be so, but that wasn’t the argument being made. I’m no great fan of the Swiss notes and the designs that will replace them http://www.snb.ch/d/banknoten/neue_noten/gestalter/krebs.html are even worse to my eye, but in any case the increased colourisation (is that a word?) of notes around the world IS a semiotic issue by dint of it being a move against counterfeiting which is the greatest threat to the fiduciary stability of any legal tender. Moreover you are just wrong when it comes to the usability issue - recognition of the denomination of any US note takes longer because of the similarity of design and single size of notes and by definition that makes their usability less convenient.
Now, this is all offered in good heart but you did make the error of asserting that there were other ideas (by implication your own) that were more valid than Kathy’s. My take is that on two points you were not more valid, on one you highlighted the subjectivity of the issue and on one you made a snide comment and ducked the issue.
I hope I did this in a positive, friendly and non-patronising manner.
July 17th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
John,
I suppose I was being a bit literal when I said blogs are peer-reviewed journals. They satisfy the definition of a ‘journal’ and they are reviewed by peers. I never said anything about academic. But since you and Kathy have, they are like academic peer-reviewed journals in that they often raise important issues for disciplinary communities to debate in public. The fact that blogs are less formal, and the debate exchanges occur more rapidly and can include more people doesn’t really change things.
Those pesky typos. A shameful laziness I’ve acquired from an over reliance on Word’s spell check. Thank you for passive-aggressively point it out.
I disagreed that graffiti in Western Europe is better aesthetically and stylistically—the definitions of design and evaluative criteria Kathy established up front for her original post. While I really like the graffiti in Barcelona it is absolutely not for aesthetic or stylistic reasons.
Yes, thank you, exactly my point regarding Kathy’s whole post, and why I said it was interesting in a getting-to-know-you sort of way, but not meaningful otherwise. You like vanilla, I like chocolate. Great.
I cannot and did not argue with architecture being older outside the US. As a matter of fact, I said exactly that. But the point is a red herring. Why? Well, so what the architecture outside the US is older? Unless the connection between architectural age and design culture is made (which I suspect it can be made), the fact that something is older than something else is meaningless. It\’s a kind of Monte Python reasoning (if she weighs as much as a duck she must be a witch!) While Kathy is very likely right, she doesn’t specify how that is meaningful in terms of her larger question (Does the US suck at design?–remember).
I argued about the semiotics of the aesthetics (what it means as opposed to my own taste). If meaning isn\’t the argument then we’re just talking about what Kathy likes or doesn’t and that’s a waste of bandwidth. Perhaps I gave her post more credit than it deserved.
How is semiotics (the study of signs, meaning and interpretation of meaning) related to counterfeiting? Do the socially constructed meanings of the Statue of Liberty’s torch on the $10 bill somehow hinder counterfeiting? How does a symbol’s meaning hinder counterfeiting?
Well that is highly debatable. The damage to currency value caused by a nation’s central bank printing too much of the stuff strikes me as a much greater threat. But I’m no economist.
Can you point to any evidence that supports a) denomination recognition of US dollars takes longer (longer than what you don’t say), b) this delay is consistent across a significant portion of the life-time of use, c) this delay cause real experiential or financial problems for people or companies. Or is this “just a blog post” and needn’t be trifled with things like supporting claims?
Similarity by definition make usability less convenient? On the contrary design consistency is a long established design principle that specifically improves usability. The denominations are printed large and legible, four times in each of the four corners on the front face of each bill. It seems inconceivable that someone with vision could possibly miss the denominations, or forget where they are. I may be wrong the the US dollars are fine usability-wise, but where is the evidence?
God forbid that one should suggest there are more valid opinions than Kathy’s! Besides that’s not what I said. I said that there were other equally valid opinions that contradict hers. I added my opinion that I thought some would likely be more valid (you know, actually supported by evidence or theory, or something). So how is this in error? Are you suggesting that stuff that contradicts Kathy is inherently invalid? Or that evidential or theoretical support in no way validates an opinion? Dude, please tell me I misunderstand you here.
July 17th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Counterfeiting is the modern equivalent of currency debasing and yes that is the worst threat to fiduciary trust. Expanding money supply would ultimately be a threat but design has nothing to do with that so it is a red herring in this case. Although it doesn’t make me an economist, I have an economics degree.
Design consistency may improve usability in most cases but I was referring solely to usability of money where each note needs to be differentiable. From my time living in US, I have many anecdotal examples of nationals and non-nationals passing over the wrong denomination. It happens.
No Kathy’s ideas are not de facto superior, I was merely making the point that you had implied that hers were wrong and I was telling you that in my opinion you had not proven so in at least three of the four examples.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Getting way way way off topic here, but that counterfeiting remark has really stuck with me because it is absolutely ridiculous. Here is a post that talks about over-zealous liquidity injections–an we\’re about to get hurt really badly by them (not countrfieting).
And here\’s a nice quote from Decca records around 1962 about the Beattles–as a analogy to Kathy\’s trouble with MySpace aesthetics:
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
Ok, I feel a bit better now.
August 29th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Hello there, eh!
I’m pretty shocked you can’t see the ugliness of american design.
Some things are good, but overall, as Kathy say’s there’s no real cultural representation, except that of money making. And, funny enough, look what you ended up talking about!
(The guitar is spanish, not american, get it straight. It’s for a dance, flamenco, Andalucia, ahem, and, it’s the corruption of the american media which has kept rock going, it certainly isn’t charming anymore.)
But, I digress, as a canadian, having spent tons of time in the states, and a european… for pete’s sake.. it’s not a competition! (It’s not even a contest.)
I was actually moderated, and so I’ve left the interaction design list, which I helped start by the way, for making some of the same comments that Kathy made. Money is not culture, and culture is at the core of design.
Most people in europe understand design. It’s NOT a result of the industrial revolution, it’s timeless, it’s creating your own artifacts, plain and simple. The last hundred years are a blip on the european concept of design. Business is new school, Design is old school.
It’s not just architecture, it’s those fork holders in the window displays. It’s everything that europeans understand about themselves, and want to represent in a piece of work. It’s an art. A fine art in fact. And, in most countries it’s not traditionally tied to progress, class or any other social notion in particular, the design can represent anything. Anything. Why profit driven design is so poor is beyond me, but I’d think maybe too many MBAs.
Why are Americans hot and bothered by a bit of critisism on the arts culture which they dreadfully ignore. It’s not your fault. I asked the irish lady in the pub to be sure, and she said, ‘yeah, sorry, they are very sensitive.’
So, take it grain of salt. If you want to define american design, you need to let the people actually do it. Nowadays, with the really amazingly stupid industrial focus, culture isn’t nearly as represented as it was when it was all done by hand.
Doing it just to compete is like cutting your culture in half. The competition lives there too.
CD Evans
August 29th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Dude, are you on meth? Or perhaps you’ve only recently learned English?
Seriously, I don’t make a habit of insulting commenters, but you’re about as coherent as the mad raving junkies in my hood.
BTW,
I wasn’t arguing with Kathy’s point so much as with her example of the abysmal level of intelligence found in design discourse. And I think you have provided us with an even better example. Thank you.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Well,
You’re as charming as Katy seems to have reckoned. (Can I call her that, boss?)
Look, you don’t, use commas, well, or, at all, from what I can tell.
So, eh, your grammar is as unflexible, as is your ability to read.
CD Evans
August 29th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Wow! I am in awe.
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