Less but better: Illustrating Dieter Rams
Dieter Rams is one of the most important designers of all time. Before I became a UX/UI designer I didn’t know who he was, but when I discovered him I was impressed by the way he worked and thought. From the first moment I heard about his “10 principles of good design”, I wanted to make him a small tribute by creating a set of icons or illustrations that displayed those principles. Now, thanks to the quarantine we are all currently living, I could at last challenge myself with this small case study that I’d been wanting to do for months.
Investigating and creative process
Before I began to illustrate each principle, I had to define the general style they would have. I wanted the global aesthetic to showcase what Dieter Rams’ principles preached, but I also wanted to take advantage of my artistic skills, so I decided to go with a single line minimal style, but playing with the thickness of the line to make them stand out. I also wanted to use a technique I use a lot: leaving incomplete or completely white spaces.
Even though in hyperrealism leaving white space is used to define very lighted surfaces (or, if the background is black, very marked shadows), in this case, I play more with the “Law of closure” of the Gestalt: a mental mechanism that makes us interpret what is incomplete or partially hidden.
- Good design is innovative
Just like Dieter Rams said, technology and design must work together to give users the best product possible, but, what does it mean to be innovative? There isn’t a figurative way to represent innovation as it is, but we know it comes from the ideas born from the “Eureka” moments of brilliant minds, so I used a light bulb to represent those new ideas and the head of a hexagonal screw on the light bulbs filament to represent technology.
2. Good design is useful.
This principle talks for itself, but whenever I see it I can’t help but think about Applied Arts, especially Art Nouveau and Art Deco (two of my favorite artistic movements), periods where they preached that every art form could be useful and accessible to everyone. But, I knew this was one of my slants as a technician of applied arts, so I decided to represent one of the most versatile yet least represented tools: the swiss army knife.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
Like I said before, just because something is useful, it doesn’t mean it can’t also be aesthetic, and that is something that Dieter Rams knew very well. This principle was one of the easiest to illustrate for me, but, yet again, I wanted to run away from my own bias as an artist. At first, I wanted to illustrate Milo’s Venus because it represents the ideal female beauty of ancient Greece, but I instead illustrated a brush, the universal symbol of art.
4. Good design is understandable.
To understand is to acknowledge something without much problem, and since I didn’t want to reuse the light bulb to represent the mind, what better way to do so than with a head? But, how to explain visually that someone understood something? When we are confused our mind is messy and our ideas disorganized. But when we begin to understand, those tend to align and organize themselves.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
Together with “As little design as possible”, this principle was the hardest one to represent. It’s obvious it talks about minimal, delicate, and tasteful design, but, how do you illustrate it? After giving it some thought and a lot of investigating, I decided to illustrate one of the most discreet and delicate designs Rams created: the on/off button, to run away from other representations that could be easily mistaken, like the classic “silence” gesture.
6. Good design is honest.
Good design isn’t pretentious or tries to trick users, so, what better way to represent honesty than a “hand to heart”? The “honest to god” gesture where you place your hand over a bible is also a common way to represent honesty. But besides it representing truth in court, honesty has a different and more personal meaning (tangible truth vs personal truth).
7. Good design is long-lasting.
Just like Dieter Rams says, it isn’t affected by the pass of time nor fads, it’s infinite. But I didn’t just want to use the infinity symbol since it would be too obvious and simple, so I encapsulated it in a diamond, the hardest and most resistant gemstone there is.
8. Good design is thorough.
As an ex Conserver and Restorer of Cultural Heritage, this principle meant many things to me: precision, attention to detail, perfection… But the first thing that comes to mind is the Golden Proportion, the artistic and aesthetic perfection that many pursue. Even though its most common representation is Fibbonaci’s Golden spiral, I wanted to respect its original creator, the greek architecture and sculptor Phidias placing the greek phi in the center of the spiral.
9. Good design is Eco-Friendly.
Being Eco-Friendly is a hot topic lately. With the summit for climate change we had months ago in Madrid, and with the huge drop we are having in contamination levels thanks to this forced confinement, users will expect more than ever to have Eco-Friendly products. And, even though you can be Eco-Friendly in many ways, I decided to represent the most recognizable and generalized way of all: a greener planet.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.
And finally, I find myself with the hardest of them all. As well as “unobtrusive”, Rams talks about a minimal design that isn’t eccentric or draws attention to itself, but, how do you represent “as little design as possible”? After a couple of google searches, I discovered what essentialism was: a discipline that especially emphasizes on the essence. Inspired by Greg McKewon’s book cover, what was there more minimal and simple than a circle (besides it representing the human soul or essence in many cultures and historic periods)?
Testing: Round one
Now that I had my 10 principles illustrated, I had to test them out, and what a better way than with a game? I didn’t want to overwhelm users with a very long google form, so I decided to do a homemade card sorting. Thanks to this confinement and Skype, I shared my Figma screen with the user and ask them to match each principle (and a small description below it) with the illustrations. This card sorting method limited me in the number of users willing to help (10 in total) but gave me the advantage to see their real-life reactions and thought process, giving me a lot of insights.
Even though I did expect the results that some of the illustrations got, like the mismatch between “unobtrusive” and “as little design as possible”, some did surprise me. Besides receiving some hilarious comments like: “Why is there a chicken wing with a corkscrew through it?” or “What’s wrong with that head? Does it have a bloody gash on it or something?”, I had some very important insights:
- UX/UI designers mismatched “thorough” with “aesthetic” not only because of the descriptions they had but because design tools use the brush as a more thorough editing tool, while users with an artistic background saw the golden ratio as a more mathematic and academic, while the brush is more liberal and free-spirited.
- The descriptions I placed below every principle to help out (especially with “unobtrusive” and “as little design as possible”) made the users doubt and second guess instead. The users that guessed the most correctly just read the principle.
- Even though many mistook “unobtrusive” with “ass little design as possible”, many others mistook it with “long-lasting” because it reminded them of a clocks timer. One of the users said that the infinity symbol looked like a mask, reminding them of someone who wants to hide and not be seeing.
Now I had to redesign some of the illustrations to get an overall better success rate on the next round, so I redesigned the following principles:
5. Unobtrusive
I had a Eureka moment when a user said he had seen a mask on “long-lasting”. What is there more unobtrusive than someone who doesn't want to bee seen? But I didn’t want to go with the mask look, so I went for another very common one instead: a spy with a hat and a trench coat.
8. Thorough.
I wanted to avoid at all costs for it to be mistaken with “aesthetic”, so I looked into precision tools, like compasses, magnifying glasses, or scalpels. But again, I didn’t want to be influenced by my bias as a Conserver and Restorer, so I instead illustrated a ruler and square (even though at the end of the second round I would slightly redesign it), very common and well-known precision tools that we’ve all used.
Lastly, I did a slight redesign to the swiss army knife, giving it a little nick on the blade, not only to avoid another chicken wing association, but for it to not be mistaken in the second round with “thorough”, since rulers and squares are also useful tools.
Testing: Round two
This time around, I wanted to get more results than live reactions, so I made a card sorting test with Optimal Workshop. Before the test began, I ask some questions, being the most important one “What do you do for a living?” to determine slants that designers could have that non-designers didn’t. At the end of the card sorting, I asked users to tell me if they found it hard to complete the test and what were the hardest ones to match. And, to my surprise, the test spread like wildfire, especially between the non-designers, that not only did they like to take it, but asked for more. I received more results than the free version of Optimal Workshop could register ( hence why I have only 20 results in total).
Did the results improve? Yes. The general success ratio improved, but, another problem showed up: “Understandable” only got a 50% success ratio. But why? These are the insights I got after analyzing these results:
- Even though the results for “thorough” improved, many mistook it with the swiss army knife, so I redesigned the ruler to make it more distinguishable (although I didn’t test this redesign).
- “Unobtrusive” had much better results, but “as little design as possible” stayed the same.
- During the first round this didn’t stand out to me, but the users that most mistakes had took them less than 2 minutes or more than 7 to complete it ( the average time during the first round was 3–5 minutes), with some users taking almost 10 minutes. But, why were they taking so much and failing so many?
- During this round, although I never got the chance to prove it 100%, I received a text that could answer my previous question:
“Marta, I want to repeat the test. I wasn’t able to respond how I wanted because my phone wouldn’t let me place the images where I wanted them to go.”
Could it be that users that had so many mistakes and took so much have had this same problem? I could never test this out, but I noticed that almost all of the users that took the test on their phone had more mistakes than those who took it on a pc. I also noticed that those who took the test on their phone had never done a card sorting test with Optimal Workshop before, so, could it be that taking a kind of test they’d never done before on their phone affected their results ( and therefore, affected the success rate of “understandable”)?
Conclusions
This case study is long, but there is still so much to study and talk about. What was first intended to be quick and simple turned out to be more complicated and interesting. And, even though I got a very good success ratio in all of my illustrations, it’s incredibly difficult to get everyone to understand what I intended to illustrate in the first place. It reminds me of Rorschach inkblot tests: we each perceive the stains (or in this case images) a different way, generally influenced by our education, cultural background, or life experiences. And, even though there are million ways of thinking, could I ever get the majority to understand my illustrations?
We’ll have to find out in the future.
P.S: Last but not least, I’d like to thank everyone who helped out during this case study. Without your collaboration, I wouldn’t have been able to discover what I did and be amazed by this case study.
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