24 July 2014

Mind-Mapping to Gain More with Less On Design Principles

There are many wonderful things we can learned from the internet Cloud. But we will benefit a lot more with a little more effort by drawing a mindmap about what we learned. Here is one on design principles.
Here is a good article on design, the Design Philosophies From the Masters where it gives 13 inspiring quotes about design.

13 is a bit too many for our memory retention. By drawing a mind-map about thr 13 quotes, I was forced to understand them better and ended up with only 4 principles on the tecnhique for design. Here is the mind-map for design principles:
The first two branches are strategic statements that we need to design well and design is about coveying  ideas for not just ease of understanding but also motivating enough to cause the reader to do something about it. The next four are techniques for design -

  1. go for harmony of diversity and not uniformity (let the strength of diversity show up but be not in conflict with each other but be supportive of each other).
  2. Simplicity with hidden depth and not just simplicity alone. The technique that I recommend and use is the principle of MiniMax ---- minimize the number of features we want but of the features selected, we go into greater depth to deliver the highest value.
    See also Mind Value: 10 Design Rules for the Dummies
  3. Differentiate - Be bold to be different from the common at least in just one small way.
  4. Emotional - The outcome should cause a Wow response to say I want it. There is a quote that says I don't care about what you say but I will never forget how you make me feel. 
Lim Liat (c) 24 July 2014

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