Wearing my designer hat, you’ll notice that when designers do their own thing alone in quiet room, they tend to produce minimalist garbage. Yet when they work within a project, with other people who have actual power differentials and competing goals, what comes out is much more complex.

Which is why it’s good to look at at design both from a perspective of “effectiveness” (does it perform its purpose) as well as “efficiency” (are the participants/stakeholders satisfied with its performance). Which is why redesigning other people’s stuff is a good way to showcase one’s individual design values, but provides little insight into determining what an optimal design is by both measures of both effectiveness AND efficiency. I’d rather hear from the NY Time’s own designers on why they make their sausage the way they do.

Otherwise, it’s fun to think of working with these advice-giving designers and imagining what they would do if you, as a project manager, said “all titles must have drop shadows.”