Cabel Sasser of Panic Software has this to say about shucking design conventions and daring to go your own way:
One of my internal mantras for the design of Coda was to not do something just because “that’s how it’s done”. I tried to force myself upon the discomfort of making calls that contradict tradition. This wasn’t always successful, and it’s far easier said than done. But while Panic has traditionally been all about the HIG, Apple has shown us time and time again that there’s more to life than hard-line metrics and by-the-book guidelines. I wanted to push our boundaries a little bit — apply a little bit of “Delicious Moderation”, if you will.
The concept of a valiant effort (or noble failure), the spirit that drives idea of “Hey, why not?” or “Let’s see if we can make it happen,” or quite simply “Yes, and” instead of “No” seems to be forgotten these days — or maybe it’s just the view from down here in my particular trench. That being said, I think we could all stand to see things from Cabel’s perspective more often:
But there’s one problem, of many potential problems, about forging your own path as a designer: you might encounter a Three Pixel Conundrum. You may come up with a cool idea, but you may never expect that three pixels will spring up and make your very simple idea a technical nightmare. That then becomes a engineering/design issue, and that means you need to choose your battles carefully, carefully weighing where an engineer is coming from but also considering what’s best for the app and for the user. The engineers will not appreciate this three-pixel stupidity, because there will probably be, oh, actual features they should be implementing instead, while you’re sitting around worried about this seemingly-unnecessary fancy toolbar that you love oh-so-much. But you know the app will be better for it. So, is such a thing worth pushing for? There’s no easy answer, just a gut feeling, you’ll know your dudes better than I do. I chose this battle. I knew that the guys here ultimately care about the little things, and I knew that despite the frustrations they encountered, my gut didn’t want to give up and let something that I never liked in the first place, even if it came from Apple, live longer it should just because it’s “the way it looks”.(emphasis mine)
I think I should print this out and hang it on a wall in my cubicle.
