Japan is one of my favorite destinations. I always enjoy the artistry and culture of the country. On a recent visit, I reflected on 5 principles of Japanese Zen Gardens which could benefit the way we approach digital design.
In the pressures of today’s business, we may not always be able to realise these principles. But like the stone garden’s themselves, the principles are a reminder of what to aspire to, and even if these cannot be achieved every day, reflecting on these principles may make improve our daily practice.
1. Time
Stone gardens take time to create. It takes time to mold from a collection of pebbles a form that demonstrates artistry. This process cannot be rushed. It takes time. For our projects, how often do we ask for more time to produce an outcome of higher quality? Often we do not ask for more time for fear that our business may so ‘no’. However, we may be surprised how often the business is willing to trade-off time for a higher quality result.
2. Patience
These gardens take incredible patience. In this way the garden itself challenges the individual who works in it. For this, the peace of the garden must first be mirrored by the peace of the person, and out of this patience with oneself, the garden can emerge.
We need this patience with ourselves in order to create work that reflects ourselves. If we have this patience, we’ll achieve both for ourselves as well as the customers we’re creating for.
For digital projects, it’s often visible to the customer when the business has not had patience. For example, how often have you seen times when the Home Page of a website looked like a scramble of ideas, made incoherent by too many voices. A little more patience – to ask ourselves whether what we’re creating could be made more simple for our customers – helps remove confusion and introduce simplicity before the project is launched.
3. Care
Every stone has its place in a stone garden. And to achieve this requires care for the placement of every element. So often in projects we can realise an outcome without devoting attention to all the elements (whether it’s ‘time’, ‘cost’ or ‘quality’ of the result). While we will achieve an outcome, it may only be a fraction of its true potential.
Imagine what would be possible if we did work where we could give care to all the elements. We can follow this principle by introducing it in subtle ways to our projects. For example, in a recent project we tested User Interfaces with customers. We asked questions like “does this screens make sense to you, what else would you like to see on this screen, what questions does this screen create for you?”. These simple questions introduced care for our customers, and allowed us to realise changes which led to a better product. Other methods include taking time up front to carefully think through wireframe processes to put ourselves in customers’ persepctives.
4. Beauty
There have been occasions where I’ve worked with teams that have delivered digital designs that ‘wowed’ people.
In these cases, people commented on the ‘beauty’ of the design. They said things like “it has everything I need, and is still great to look at, without being complex.”
When you receive feedback like this, it encourages a different sense of pride in the work. When people visit Japanese stone gardens, it’s common to be amazed by them and to have that ‘wow’ experience as a result of their beauty.
5. Simplicity
Zen gardens are revered because of their simplicity. Pebbles, upon stones, upon larger rocks, that provide a sense of being near water, when one’s away from it. Even though they are complex, when looking at any individual element of a stone garden they provide a feeling of simplicity.
So much digital work is ‘complex’ only. In every digital interface I’ve seen, there exists the same opportunity to represent simple and complex at once – to provide the user with a sense of richness without being overwhelmed. This is the goal of the optimum experience.
Apple’s store does an incredible job of this. On the page there is richness, and at the same time the design is elegant and easy to look at.
Question: What other principles do you follow to achieve fantastic digital design? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Photo Source: “The Art of Preserving One’s Own Culture and Heritage X (KYOTO/JAPAN/TOFUKU-JI)” by Chi King
