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Number
36: January 21, 2004
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This week in Katydid:
Design
versus Build - Which is Best?
This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Apple
Macintosh personal computer. The launch
of the Mac was a watershed moment in computing and in marketing. Few
products garner the kind of loyalty Apple enjoys. Much of that loyalty
is due the simplicity and clarity of its design. The tradeoffs between
designs for the IBM and Mac personal computers exemplify the two
development modes: design versus build.
My first computer was an Apple
II Plus and I got it in 1981 about two years after they were first
released (behind the curve even then). It cost about $700 then and we
couldn't afford the optional floppy drive. The Apple II Plus was
the first Apple to load Microsoft BASIC on boot. The older computers
started up in assembly language – they did not have an auto-start ROM
chip. The II Plus had 48K RAM (not megabytes – bytes) and I had to save
and load all my programs and files from a cassette tape plugged into the
back with RCA cables.
The same year I received my Apple, IBM came out with their first
small computer, the 5150,
and coined the term Personal Computer. I didn't get to use an IBM PC
until 1983 when the Accounting Director of the company I worked for sat
me down in front of a brand new PC XT and showed me my future. I used
that little computer to take all the data that came out of our IBM
System 36 computers and convert them into graphical reports in Lotus
1-2-3 version 1 (yes, I was post-VisiCalc).
I remember at that time visiting the Apple store and seeing the Lisa,
which had this funny box attached to the computer by a cord. When you
moved the box around on the table, an arrow moved around the screen. And
the screen was all pictures representing programs and files. The Lisa
was the first personal computer with a graphical
user interface (GUI).
I fell in love with the Lisa then because it was so easy to
understand, but like any romance there was a side I could never reach. I
understood the PC, the tiers and layers of programs. I could take one
apart and put it back together. With the GUI, I realized that a part of
the system was closed off to me, and I might never get to know it.
Jef
Raskin created the Mac. (Steve Jobs took over later and went on to
great fame.) Though the pioneering work of creating a GUI came from
Xerox PARC, the Mac extended and popularized the design.
Raskin developed the Mac in a design mode. He started from the
outside in. He asked himself what a person would want to do – how a
person would interact with a deaf, mute machine – and used the simplest
of languages – pointing, dragging, and dropping.
Then, Raskin moved all those arcane, technical systems into the
background. He even closed the cabinet, so that users couldn't get into
the box even if they wanted. This was no longer a personal computer; it
was a computing appliance.
By contrast, the computers that came from the IBM legacy were
developed using the build mode. They asked, "What could we build
from what we have?" These were the hobbyists and tinkerers. Each
generation experimented with the processors and chips they had. This
created cycles of bigger and bigger boxes as each generation added more
components – followed by a wave of contraction as standard components
got sucked into the motherboard and processor design.
Imagine building a house. The designer looks at who will live in that
house. Do they have children? Will the family grow? What is their
personal style? What are their unique needs? The designer draws up plans
and a team builds the house to specifications. It's a perfect fit for
that family.
The build-oriented developer looks at what's available. If there are
trees, the builder chops them down. If there is mud, the builder makes
bricks. If the builder lives alone, there's one room. If the builder
needs more room, he goes outside and uses what's there.
Living in the builder's house is full of dangers – you have to
remember to duck under that doorway, and step around the hole where the
original support beam used to be – but you get used to it.
Living in the designed house is perfect as long as your needs don't
change significantly. Then you'd have to go and build a new house, or
live with the limitations of the one you have.
Enthusiasts of Windows and Apple computers like to expound on which
system is best. I'd love to be able to pronounce that design is best,
but it's not. Neither is build. The truth is we are always moving
between one mode and another and stealing what works. I admire great
design, but I use what works. I want both, but often not badly enough to
pay for it.
Small companies can rarely afford to come out of the gate with a
completely new design. To do it right the first time takes a tremendous
amount of research with no way of knowing whether what you build will
work right or find its audience.
The Lisa
is a perfect example. It was too expensive to be a personal computer and
didn't look enough like a computer for business to accept it. Another
example is the Segway
Human Transporter – a beautiful solution to a problem few people
have.
Most new products get built. They're thrown together and thrown out
when they fail. It's less expensive and easier – in the short term – to
recover and move onto the next thing. These products evolve in fits and
starts. Then you (or your competitor) finally says, "That works
great but it sure would be nice if it fit in the palm of my hand."
Then you redesign the product from the outside in and rebuild from the
ground up. All the design questions have been answered in the early
phases and all you need to be is brave (or innovative) enough to let go
of how you see the product now.
The Mac has the strongest market-share in artistic professions:
desktop publishing, graphic design, printing, music, and film The
Windows-based computers thrive nearly everywhere else. One group needs a
powerful, efficient system that gets out of their way. The other needs
an inexpensive, adaptive system that does many things well. Both systems
arrived at their design by different paths, and both fit the needs of
their audience perfectly.
As you go about your business, keep in mind the different ways you
can approach the same problem. If you're in build mode then realize the
limitations – it won't be perfect, but you will have something to show
soon enough. If you're in design mode, then realize it will take longer
to get results, but they will be outstanding. If you're stuck, then
maybe you should try the other approach.
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Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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