Comments on: The Challenge of Taste in Design

By: Data vs Insight for UX Design

Data vs Insight for UX Design — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:51:20 +0000

[...] so we should be designing based on best practices, ideas, expertise, and even “taste.” (I have issues with the word “taste” as many people use it, but I don’t have a problem with the idea of “expert [...]

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:18:00 +0000

@chris
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment.
I think taste is definitely more complicated than “good or bad” — and it’s also more complex than merely being about surface style and aesthetic signals.
I think in any human society, there emerge various pecking-order clues about where we stand among peers, and where our work stands. Some of these things are relevant and some aren’t.
I suppose I’m just hoping we can all be smarter and more self-aware about this stuff. To have some perspective, so that it doesn’t trick us into destructive assumptions.
But yeah, there are all kinds of signifiers even behind-the-scenes ux wonks have going on, whether it’s what computer you use, or what applications you sling, or whether you buy into “persona design” or not, etc. And there are certainly signals we give our clients … best if we see them for what they are, though, as much as possible.

By: Christopher Fahey

Christopher Fahey — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:56:58 +0000

Taste isn’t a linear scale, either, although the term implies that it’s either good or bad. There are many kinds of taste — what is good taste in one world may be in poor taste in another.

(Actually, that expression — “poor taste” — also points out that there is an angle to the concept of taste that has to do with tact, good behavior, etiquette, even morality. It is said, for example, to take a sense of taste to know when you should, say, bring up someone’s family member’s illness and when not to do so.)

This is why I prefer to get more specific and talk about “class” and “style” when talking about this kind of thing. Because when we say “taste”, we generally mean one of those things.

Beirut was thinking that way, too, I think. He meant “so I can explain it to you without relying on whether or not you have the same stylistic preferences I do.”

Which brings me to your essay: Might it not be true that even wrt behind-the-scenes interaction design there are variations in individual designers’ sense of taste/class/style? Where one designer thinks users should have lots of preferences and another thinks they should simply have the features that work best? Where one designer likes wizards and another likes dashboards? Where one thinks users should be assisted from page one, and another thinks users should be allowed to explore?

We can’t say that “well, just do the research and make the recommendation based on that” any more than any other kind of designer can. We make personal preference based design decisions every day without testing their assumptions, using only our sense of style, taste, and class to go by. We don’t even discuss them. And for those many undiscussed interaction design decisions that simply come out correctly because we’ve got the right “taste”, our clients hire us because, you know, they trust us.