There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this is just one.

My friend Shawn and I were having a conversation the other day about cranky designers. He mentioned the experience of living with a hotshot designer ex-girlfriend who was critical about all the products they chose to place in their home. Critical, perhaps, isn’t the right word. Let’s go with disgusted.

I see evidence of this from all kinds of designers, self-included. Take the movie Objectified, a documentary about the process and significance of product design (industrial design). One of the common emotions you’ll see designers such as Marc Newson express is disgust. Designers find annoyance in poorly thought out solutions and seek to redefine these solutions in harmony with their needs. Frustration, annoyance, disgust, discontent, vexation… these are negative reactions that lead to innovative solutions.

I like one of Roger von Oech’s many excellent creative thinking tools as a means of getting over apathy or an overly high tolerance for pain. He says, be dissatisfied:

Disastisfaction is beneficial to the creative process. Otherwise you lose the prod you need to spot potential problems and opportunities. Success can make us complacent. We think, “everything’s fine. why change anything?”

Too often in software I think we settle, or – even worse – fall in love with our creative babies. We’ll make excuses for the shoddy parts and become defensive when we receive criticism. This goes both ways. Perhaps you’ve let a fear of upsetting the group or incumbent developers prevent you from discomfiting a design that creates discomfort? I know I have.

Disgust is a valid emotion, and you should pay attention to it. Even so, you may want to consider how you express your disgust within your pod. While you owe it to your customer to not become an apologist for crappy design, you either (1) owe a measure of respect to your team or (2) should be looking for a new gig. Consider the feelings of people that might have more time, blood, sweat and tears invested in that thing you’re about to rip apart, even if your ire is justified, irrefutable. A dollop of respect will help you affect positive change like nothing else.

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