A case against boring designs

and the journey of shaping the future of digital beauty

This article explores the evolution of chair design, drawing parallels between historical principles and contemporary digital design while urging designers to rediscover and prioritise the often neglected aspect of beauty in their work with 10 practical steps.

From interesting chairs to boring grids

Why are there so many chairs out there? We see it almost anywhere in the human world, from our homes to public areas. Yet there are so many ways to enjoy a chair. That’s because history has given us an abundance of various designs.

The chair

And it’s not so much about determining the best functionality of sitting, which would be the main purpose of having a chair. Rather, according to art historian Agata Toromanoff, some chairs are made to explore new manufacturing methods or apply certain techniques. Other chairs “serve as a rite of passage,” like credentials for an audience. These chair designers are none other than architects and industrial designers. Though they may not necessarily have furniture design expertise, many of them do it anyway as a form of personal expression.

Regardless, just like buildings, a chair must have certain qualities to qualify. They need to be functional to fulfil their objective. Secondly, a chair needs to be stable to withstand weight. This includes the choice of material to increase its lifespan and repeated use. Lastly, a chair should be appealing enough to invite a person to sit on it. Beauty, comfort, and delight are some emotions when it comes to chairs.

When I mention these three qualities of a chair, those with an interest in ancient architecture will remember the Vitruvian Triad: stability, utility, and beauty. These attributes, derived by Roman architect Vitruvius, were just the beginning of what makes a well-designed object through order and proportion. It led to other theories, such as the Vitruvian Man: the body inscribed in the circle and the square (the fundamental geometric patterns of the cosmic order.) These were the early days of the creation of organised schemes or methods, also known as systems.

Incidentally, the image of a three-legged stool can also be used as a concept for completeness. While acting independently, the stool relies on each of its legs to function properly. Lose one of the legs, and the stool collapses. Use it on any uneven terrain, and the stool outperforms the four-legged chair in terms of its stability (more on that can be found here). Thus, combining the Vitruvian Triad with the imagery of the three-legged stool makes sense. Good design requires stability, utility, and beauty to be complete.

The cult of boredom

Except we are fast approaching a time where we are losing one of the Vitruvian Triad qualities. Up until the 20th century, design was done in an ornamental manner. Whether it was the likeness of nature or the use of a certain style, these designs were commonly associated with the bourgeois, giving a sense of unwanted affluence and materialism. The Third Industrial Revolution and the World Wars gave rise to mass production. It also created a group of thinkers who rejected ornamentalism. One of these groups were the modernist architects and designers of their time. Among them, one man stood out above all: Le Corbusier.

Known for his lofty principles, Le Corbusier was one of the pioneers who laid the foundation of modern architecture. These were some of the beliefs he had in his manifesto:

1. Decorations should be abolished: ‘[Decoration] is suited to simple races, peasants, and savages... The peasant loves ornaments and decorates his walls.’

2. Cities should be built around straight lines: ‘A modern city lives by the straight line... It is the proper thing for the heart of a city. The curve is ruinous, difficult and dangerous; it is a paralysing thing.’

3. Buildings should be designed for mass production: ‘If houses were constructed by industrial mass production, like chassis, unexpected but sane and defensible forms would soon appear, and a new aesthetic would be formulated with astonishing precision.’

4. All buildings and places should be designed predominantly with straight lines and right angles: ‘We rarely care to look at the silhouette of houses seen against the sky; the sight would be too painful.’

Along with other big names of his time, Le Corbusier and fellow architects created a new industry filled with modern skyscrapers and high-rise minimalist buildings. Design students followed these principles closely by applying them later in their careers. If modernism was seen in architecture, it would ripple down to the rest of the design disciplines. Including graphic design and UX/UI.

Grids made boring

Arising from the small nation of Switzerland came a specific need to cater to three different languages in the 1920s: German, French, and Italian. While the conventional page layout in printed books came as a single column, Swiss designers were exploring different ways to standardise and harmonise information. Thus, the grid system was born, where, for the first time, white spaces were used as a dynamic component. Subsequently, more complex grid systems were created in the digital era, leading to grid foundations applied to UX/UI in any good design system.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with grids, rectangles, and straight lines, as can be seen in any design practice. The problem lies in the obsession with sticking to a set of rules without thinking or pushing boundaries. And when left to a gang of staunch zealots about modernist practices, a cult of boredom comes about. The three-legged stool has lost one of its legs, which is called beauty.

The case against boring designs

Empirical research and our design perception

As the old saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In this case, we got to ask the question: in whose eyes are we seeing beauty? Would it be the designer, or the user? Empirical research has led us to interesting discoveries. Professor David Halpern, CEO of the Behavioural Insights Team, conducted the study in 1987 to determine how repeated exposure to an image (or a doctrine) changes perception. What he did was gather a group of volunteer students to review photographs of unfamiliar people and buildings in order to rate them based on attractiveness. Among the volunteers were architects.

The experiment revealed an interesting discovery. While everyone had similar views on which people were attractive, the architecture and non-architecture students had opposing views when the same process came to buildings. The architecture students’ favourite building was everyone else’s least favourite, and vice versa. The longer architecture students have been studying, the worse the disconnect is with the other students over what was an attractive building. Twenty-five years later, the experiments conducted by a separate group of researchers replicated the same result, establishing the distortion between the designer’s definition of beauty.

At this point, product designers may be quick to compare themselves against their architecture friends and feel vindicated for being more user-centric. However, allow me to ask the following questions:

1. Besides running usability testing with users, to what extent would we ask our users about beauty? If you were to give a percentage score in terms of time spent with users on the topics of utility, stability, and beauty, how many of us would dedicate time to in-depth discussions on beauty?
2. How many of us will experiment with new interactions or choose to fall back on conventions? No doubt seasoned practitioners have more experience with aesthetics; are there guardrails that allow exploration from junior designers or from parallel design communities? Do we have mechanisms that inform us when ivory towers of self-preservation are created?
3. Are we too comfortable with the status quo of how things have been over the past years? Since the genesis of flat design, we have seen a proliferation of straight lines in grids and flat components, but also an extinguishing of anything else. Have we become too prescriptive over a certain style that kills anything new from sprouting? (refer to Le Corbusier’s second belief.)

Rediscovering digital beauty

English designer Thomas Heatherwick has largely influenced this article with his latest book, Humanise. With a strong call to action for designers to rethink how we produce our designs for users, he shared some of his work, such as the Hive, as well as other inspirational references from long-time heroes, including Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and Casa Mila.

In the digital product world, Airbnb would be one possible reference. Design CEO Brian Chesky is leading a design revival, which can be felt on Airbnb with the latest releases of photo tours and guest rating reviews. Here is a snippet of Airbnb’s new aesthetic:

Flat design is over or ending… I think we’re going to move back into a world with colour, texture, dimensionality, and more haptic feedback, but I don’t think it’s going to be skeuomorphism, where it pretends to be a wood grain to reference a dashboard or leather. I think it’s going to have a sense of dimension. I think the reason why is that we’re spending more time on screens, and we want the screens to replicate some of what we see in the natural environment. Light, texture. I think (our new aesthetic) is going to be more intuitive and playful. — Brian Chesky

Airbnb is intentional about adding a signature touch to its interfaces. They have embraced the use of dimensions in an elegant and balanced manner. More importantly, they are likely to win the hearts of various communities because they are not sticking to the status quo.

10 practical steps

We, too, have the ability to be like Brian Chesky, Thomas Heatherwick, and even Vitruvius. Here are some quick steps to getting started:

1. Gather emerging trends in beauty and aesthetics from more than one source

Consider tapping into various channels and platforms to know what the latest trends are. Because the Internet is so wide, not everything resides on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or Dribbble.

Try alternative sources, such as LinkedIn, Medium, or Substack. Sometimes, a trip down to the bookstore is worthwhile. It gets even better if you have a local bookstore specialising in design. Yes, visual examples are more obscure, but they are likely to contain more explanation for readers who will not swipe content in a few seconds.

Many of my initial explorations reside in Medium publications, such as UX Collective. They can also reside in weird and wonderful places. One recent exploration led me to Sketchfab, which prides itself on 3D and AR viewing. It is a fascinating digital library with tonnes of 3D references.

2. Create a moodboard to organise your thoughts

The moodboard is a visual assembly of handpicked content that helps form the general concept of the final design outcome. It is often overlooked, especially in UX/UI, as there are mental shortcuts, tight deadlines, or existing design systems that a team uses.

However, when there is a small time investment given to moodboard creation, the chances of completing it with additional detailing can be much quicker.

Besides the way something looks, consider how the visual makes you feel by identifying the emotion attached to it. Chances are, you will need to cross-check your emotions with other uses too (more on that later)

3. Go deep with beauty, along with the rest

Define what beauty means to both your users and yourself. While user research is a familiar exercise for product designers, consider adding questions on wonder, inspiration, awe, and beauty to your discussion guide.

Invite your users to show visual examples or tell stories, more than just shoving a clickable prototype for usability.

At the same time, balance the thinking around the three Vitruvian Triads of stability, utility, and beauty. Only by addressing all aspects holistically can our users appreciate the depth of the design.

4. Set aside your 20% to experiment with the new

Have you created your goals for the new year? There is still time and space to put aside a small amount of time to personally grow. Interestingly, these side quests are where true innovation begins. On the topic of interest, consider trying out new tools that push the boundaries of digital interfaces.

One tool worth exploring is Spline, probably slated to be the Figma of 3D making. Not only is it web-based, but it also has the ability to export codes into React projects. Unlike its predecessors, this tool encourages collaboration with fellow designers and developers too.

*Womp is another free web 3D software. I would highly recommend trying this out if you are new to 3D modelling, as it shows the basic concepts of forming shapes.

5. Test and learn how people react to your screens

Two situations may occur. The first could be a knee-jerk rejection, preferring to stick to what they are familiar with. This phenomenon is known as Jakob’s Law, where users prefer your site (or design) to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. On the other hand, a user may gravitate towards your solution with positive feelings. The second phenomenon is known as the Aesthetic-usability Effect, where users often perceive aesthetically pleasing designs to be more usable.

In either case, your objective is not to accept judgements about your outputs. Rather, it is to better understand their reactions so that you can iterate on your designs.

6. Five-second impressions at different scales

In his book, Thomas Heatherwick introduces the humanise rule, which states that a building should be able to hold your attention for the time it takes to pass by it. Additionally, he gave three distances: 40m (city), 20m (street), and 2m (door).

This same rule is familiar in UX/UI, which is also known as five-second testing, a user research method used to determine users’ first impressions of a design. Memory retention is very important for recalling important information. Additionally, any pleasurable experience gives the mind the benefit of remembering the moment so that it can revisit it again.

Heatherwick suggests that we pay attention to these details at different levels. Likewise, the digital interface should consider running 5-second tests on screens, right down to patterns and components.

7. Apply principles from the natural world and from best practices

Yes, flat design has helped UX/UI flourish greatly, so let’s recognise the contribution it has given to the world. At the same time, new technologies will help shape the future of interfaces. Consider what the natural world has already established and how other design disciplines are already applying it to their work.

Like Chesky has suggested, understanding texturing, light, colour, orientation, and dimensions will improve the overall expression of the work. There are plenty of good examples out there, some of which do not require 3D modelling skills. One such example is applying elevation, as shared in Google’s material design.

8. At the same time, use your designerly judgement

Avoid going all out with one idea, which led to the demise of companies using skeuomorphism. Rather than redesigning the entire car with the leather dashboard in a digital world, ask yourself: What elements deserve more attention to encourage users to admire and remember the moment? Acknowledging the rules is an important foundation, but questioning norms would be the next step towards mastery. (Be careful not to do it in reverse order because you will end up being baseless.)

For example, Airbnb’s guest favourite feature reveals a good combination of beauty, utility, and stability. The beauty contains an even distribution of flat and organic elements in photos and components. The usability remains intact without the visuals being overbearing. And because the interface maintains its modularity, the feature is durable for further enhancement. Such design execution will potentially reap consumer and commercial success due to the greater attention to detail.

9. Try again if it doesn’t work

If you have done pottery before, you will know that getting the right piece takes time. The same applies for creating beauty. Alterations may lie in various areas, such as switching tools or learning to apply a new feature to your work. What I love about clay is that the material is reusable, so long as it doesn’t go to the kiln. It is also a teachable moment for you as you embrace a new way of working.

Similarly, architects and artists have hundreds of previous attempts before their final version, acting as lessons or experiments before further proceeding. As designers, it is tempting to deem our first conception as our best effort. We need to step back (point 2,8), validate (point 5,6), and have the persistence to continue.

10. Zoom in and out and constantly

The creative mind is a paradox of getting stuck. We become hyper-focused on a task when an idea sticks but loses its way without seeing the bigger picture. In the same manner, we languish when we go through a mental rut and feel stuck when the solution is near.

To overcome such a situation, one needs to factor in time for incubation to set the mind at ease with a different activity. This could either be to go on a walkabout, talk to friends, visit a place of parallel interest, or simply take a mental break.

By doing so, creatives tend to find new energy. They allow us to trigger new thoughts from a different perspective. The key message is that beauty takes time to develop.

*Time is usually the main problem with creatives in a corporate setting, where work is expected to be done. In such situations, the setting isn’t conducive to exploration, especially on the seemingly frivolous topic of beauty. Depending on the maturity of the company, speak to your team and managers about your ability to achieve 80% of the short-term gains and 20% of the long-term benefits. Some organisations also practice agile spikes. These are great ways to overcome the time needed to learn something new. Check it out here.

These suggestions are general without going into specific instructions on how to design beautifully. Instead, they are the occasional signposts that prevent us from getting lost in the woods. Which brings me back to the joy of designing—the joyful pursuit of achieving something new while relishing the process.

It’s time for digital design to fix the broken leg of the Vitruvian stool. It’s time for us to each create our own chairs to explore our expression of beauty with our users.

References

Airbnb. (2023, November 9). Airbnb 2023 Winter Release. Airbnb Newsroom. https://news.airbnb.com/en-uk/airbnb-2023-winter-release/

Babich, N. (2017, December 20). Building Better UI Designs With Layout Grids. Smashing Magazine. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/12/building-better-ui-designs-layout-grids/

Brownlee, J. (2016, August 18). Why Architects Design Chairs. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3062927/why-architects-design-chairs

Corbusier, L. (1923). Towards A New Architecture. Brewer, Warren & Putnam. (Original work published 1923)

Corbusier, L., & Etchells, F. (1929). City of Tomorrow. Rodker.

Google. (n.d.). Elevation — Material Design 3. Material Design. https://m3.material.io/styles/elevation/overview

Heatherwick, T. (2023). Humanise. Random House.

Lenny’s Podcast. (2023, November 12). Brian Chesky’s new playbook. Www.youtube.com. https://youtu.be/4ef0juAMqoE?t=2558&si=WYhLnJybXzRyUzp6

Maze. (n.d.). Five-Second Testing: Step-by-Step Guide + Example. Maze. https://maze.co/guides/ux-research/five-second-test/

Scaled Agile. (2023, March 13). Spikes. Scaled Agile Framework. https://scaledagileframework.com/spikes/

Smith, N. B. (2015, June 17). “The worst building in the world awards.” The Architects’ Journal. https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/practice/culture/the-worst-building-in-the-world-awards

Yablonski, J. (2018). Laws of UX. Lawsofux.com. https://lawsofux.com/

Yang, L. (2023, February 26). Mood Boards in UX: How and Why to Use Them. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mood-boards/