Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Joe Pascavage

As designers; we’ve all been there when you find yourself asking things like; “Well maybe I should add more depth to this button?”

/* add drop shadow here – v7 */
{box-shadow: 5px 10px #888888;}

Or… “Is the background looking a bit dull?”

/* insert gradient here – final v2 */
{background: linear-gradient(-37deg, red, yellow);}

The list can, and will undoubtedly go on if you don’t check yourself. So when is it best to decide to leave well enough alone? First let’s realize what’s happening when we come across these layered masterpieces:

“There are times where the extra flourish is actually a burden. Because when everything is embellished, and when everything shouts for my attention; then nothing is important.” ~Aaron Walter

I picked up the above quote when watching the documentary film “Design Disruptors”. Aaron’s description is 💯 dead accurate.

Of course we all want our designs to look slick—trust me when I say I get it. Undoubtedly, you sometimes need to add a lot of the extra detail in order to work through great ideas — but you then need to have the maturity to remove most of these things to make something impactful so that people will remember. When we begin to layer in too much extra flourish the experience can frequently deteriorate or become unimportant.

A good designer will know when to sacrifice the ornamentation because they understand what it means to communicate clearly and effectively with a well-defined visual vocabulary; and not just to their audience but amongst their peers as well. Too many of us are conditioned early on to design within a vacuum, and team projects are typically one-off assignments in our schooling, unfortunately. I believe this has unknowingly created bad habits for some designers in the workforce. We protect and finesse our “babies” to a point where we become blind to when we are being inefficient.

To frame this with a real example, I will use myself as a scapegoat:

Exhibit A

In ‘Exhibit A’ you see what was to be an app icon (circa 2013/pre-flat design era). Pretty awesome looking I know 😉. Take notice to the dimension, and the deliberate attempt in realism. I was creating a work-of-art, and not what should have been a valuable device used in navigation. Two obvious problems: 1) I created this icon in the exact canvas you see here and not in context and 2) I didn’t correct the approach after the fact because I was too attached to it. I defended what I knew could have been better because of how much time was invested into the over-embellishment.

This topic of course goes much deeper than UI being over-the-top. Check out this second example, ‘Exhibit B’, from Ben Chase:

Exhibit B

Ever come across an interesting news headline while perusing social media on mobile, but find it’s impossible to read or follow once the link opens? Ben notes; “The reading experience is completely disrupted. There are multiple points where no article content is visible on the page.”

None of the examples mentioned are how you design. It’s our duty as designers to not only look at the execution — but to remedy all the things we might get wrong along the way.

“It’s not pixels, it’s not the nitty-gritty or using Photoshop or whatever tool. It’s the act of intentionally solving problems.” ~Julie Zhuo

If you now find yourself reflecting here and you see you may be falling into this rut more frequently than you like, try to ask yourself this: Am I 1) confident in the experience I’ve been assigned to design/solve, or 2) understanding that it’s not a piece of artwork I’m creating? If the answer to either of these questions is leaving you uncertain, then seek feedback among your design circle and trust that your curiosity will be welcomed.

As designers — it’s OK to walk out in front of a crowd and say you don’t have the answers if you believe you’re not going to quit until you find them. So as you see yourself diving into that next level of optimization or opening up a new project brief for the day—consider if you’re designing about experiences that stem from something that people actually need and want. It’s not about does it have drop-shadows, is it pretty, or is it skeuomorphic. It’s more about ones connection that they have to it all.

Thanks for reading. Please be certain to give a clap if you liked this post! ✌🏼

The extra flourish 🎊🌈🎉 was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The extra flourish

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