Unveiling the secrets of expert software designers, we delve into eight transformative habits that set them apart. This illustrated guide offers a unique perspective into the world of software design, providing valuable insights for both novices and seasoned professionals.
The best designers employ specific habits, learned practices, and observed principles
Some may be familiar with these practices, some are easily put in practice, and some have immediate impact.
- A constant, however, is that expert software designers are keenly aware of these practices and draw on them when the situation calls for it.
Experts see error as opportunity
Design regularly involves error: things that “go amiss,” misunderstandings, obstacles, wrong turns, emergent issues.
- Experts embrace error as an inherent part of design and take time to explore both the failure and the context around it.
Experts involve the user
They deliberately involve users in the design process, studying them, talking to them, engaging them in testing intermediate designs, and even asking them to take an active role on the design team.
Experts look around
Just as architects walk cities to examine and take inspiration from existing buildings, software experts examine the designs of other software to “see how they did it”
Experts design elegant abstractions
A good abstraction makes evident what is important, both in what it does and how it does it
- Through a single lens, it communicates the problem it solves and the machinery of its solution
- Experts are not satisfied with just any abstraction, they deliberately seek elegant, concise, and clear abstractions
Experts reshape the problem space
Look for alternative ways to understand what the problem is.
Experts think about what they are not designing
Focus on what a design is not intended to accomplish
Experts focus on the essence
Every design problem has an essence – a core set of considerations that must be understood and “nailed” in the design solution for it to solve the problem successfully
Experts simulate continually
Experts imagine how a design will work
