

Design Thinking vs. Data Thinking - KuraFire
http://farukat.es/journal/2010/09/480-design-thinking-vs-data-thinking

======
flyosity
A good article, and applicable also to why some of Google's projects succeed
and others fail. What fail? Ones that rely upon a deep understanding of social
interactions: Orkut, Buzz, Wave. These social applications/networks don't have
a specific _purpose_ they just _are_ and people can use them how they want.
Compare that to Gmail, Google Docs, AdWords. Singularly-purposed applications
that no one disagrees about how they should be used. Google is great at
solving problems, not so great at creatively thinking about situations that
may not be problems and may not have a direct solution.

~~~
bia
What about Google Maps/Google Earth? They are arguably even more ubiquitous
than Gmail and have thousands of different applications and purposes.

People use Google Maps to make new apps \- ranging from practical
[<http://www.padmapper.com/>] to artistic
[<http://thewildernessdowntown.com/>] - on a daily basis while Gmail and
Google Docs remain relatively stagnant.

------
hung
The problem I have with this article is that it describes Google's designs as
"bland" but gives no examples. What exactly is bland about which products?

The problem with too much "design thinking" is that you end up trying to
"innovate" without taking user needs into perspective. To a designer aching to
flex his design muscles, a clean and usable design probably comes off as
"bland."

I'd argue that Google is much more usable than its competitors. They don't
overdo their design, and that's a good thing.

------
Symmetry
While I distrust the author's claims to be able to reliably distinguish
devices created by data thinking and design thining irrespective of final
quality (I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation more rife with the
potential for hindsight bias) he does make a number of good points.

Perhaps the best was that if you're trying to grow a market then being like
your competitors is probably the wrong was to go about. A common expression of
mockery with a group of friends is that a company is "trying to differentiate
by embracing the dominant paradigm." These seems related.

------
zachrose
Perhaps UI design and hardware design are not directly comparable on this
basis? You can't run automated testing or user analytics on a handset.

What's more to the point, testing is for increasing a specific outcome or make
sure it happens. It's not about what Christopher Alexander would call "the
quality without a name."

