Designing "decent in the dark"

I read a great post this week by UK designer Rupert Warries about an aspirational product he’d been excited to finally acquire.  Unfortunately, one small ergonomic detail led not just to his disappointment with the product itself, but ultimately a questioning of the quality of the brand as a whole.

In college I had a design professor who stressed the importance of taking the extra time to get all the little details right, even ones that might never be noticed at all.  He called it designing ‘decent in the dark’.

The subtle tactile pattern on an ergonomic grip.  The smooth inner surface of a crankset only a mechanic will touch.  The elegantly designed rear panel of an appliance which will likely never be seen once installed.  The smooth but definitive click of a well-made closure, giving audible and tactile cues of security.

Such details may not factor into the purchase decision, and may never be acknowledged at all.  But they can go a long way towards an overall feeling of quality, and can paint a strong image of your brand - positive or negative - as Rupert describes.

A side benefit - as perception of quality is a distinctly human experience, attention to designing such details with care should give us humans an advantage over the AI design bots coming for our jobs.  (Hopefully.)

I try to work ‘decent in the dark’ not just in the products themselves, but also the manner in which the work is delivered.  Like cleaning CAD models to their purest state not because it will be visible in any surface, but to make the work of tooling engineers that little bit easier.  (Plus, some OCD on my part.)