The Science of Art

If you've looked at my LinkedIn profile you've probably noticed that I've changed jobs quite a bit over the years. There have been many reason for changing jobs... but usually I've moved on to grow. I've moved on because I found something that interested me more, or something that challenged me more. On a few lucky occasions I've found things that were both more interesting and more challenging.

On other occasions I have moved on because I just couldn't stand it any more. Frustration over some aspect of my working days would build up until it was obvious (to me) that I was wasting my time and my talents. Something about the company was perversely keeping me from doing my job in the way that I knew it really should be done (or so I felt at the time).

I think that all of us who work for a living have felt something like this from time to time, and that's why I found Douglas Bowman's post on his departure from Google to be so poinient. Bowman's artistic design philosophy crashed head first into Google's statistical mantra. Classic case of irreconcilable differences... Make a clean break and part as friends.

Changing jobs is a personal matter... but Bowman raises an issue of wider interest in the community of UI designers and programmers:

"Is UI Design Science or Is It Art?"

The answer is of course both... and everybody has always known that. What's changed is our radically increased ability to apply Science to our designs. Analysis of our designs used to be woefully limited to focus groups or beta testers, but as Stephan Shankland points out: Google's practice of "Choosing color shades and pixel widths on the basis of the behavior of millions of Web page users is a fascinating development to the form-follows-function school of design."

With SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions it's much simpler to roll out a minor design change and "see what happens". It's much easier to employ the Scientific method. It's much easier to test instead of speculate.

Take this new "try it and see" capability with a grain of salt - you'd need Google's millions of users to even notice the effect of subtle changes - but the promise is intriguing.

Bowman's case warns us that there's also a down side if Science is improperly applied. Demanding statistical justifications for artistic design decisions is fraught with peril... You'll drive off your best artists and you'll likely lose out on true innovation.

Inspiration seldom comes from statistical analysis... and inspiration is usually at the heart of all good designs. Statistical analysis can measure the success of a design, and it should be more widely applied. Statistical analysis helps us continually improve a design, but it's not the genesis of good design.

Art first - then Science.