Most Software Is Designed by Accident

Mud huts and subterranean burrows are designed albeit without much conscious thought by the demands of rock and thatch. Similarly, all software is designed by the arcane demands of programming languages and databases. Tradition is the strongest influence in the design of all of these media. The biggest difference is that the builder-designer of the hut will also be its primary occupant, whereas programmers typically don't use the software they design.

What really happens in most programming shops is that there is no one on staff who has a clue about designing for end users. However, these same clueless people are far from clueless about program design, and they have strong opinions about what they like, personally. So they do what they do, designing the interaction for themselves, subject to what is easiest and most enjoyable to code, and imagine that they are actually designing for users. While it seems to the programmer that lots of design is getting done, it is only lots of program design, and very little end-user design.

Because the lack of design is a form of design, whenever anyone makes decisions about program behavior, he is assuming the role of interaction designer. When a marketing executive insists that a favorite feature be included in the product, she is designing. When a programmer implements a pet behavior in the product, he is designing.

The difference between good design and this kind of inadvertent, mud-hut design isn't so much the tools used or the type of gizmos, but the motivation. The real interaction designer's decisions are based on what the user is trying to achieve. Ersatz designers' decisions are based on any number of other random rationales. Personal preferences, familiarity, fear of the unknown, directives from Microsoft, and miscues from colleagues all play a surprisingly large role. Most often, though, their decisions are based on what is easiest for them to create.