Fred Brooks Quotes

Design must be functional, and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics without any reliance on gimmicks that have to be explained.

It turns out it's not rocket science to design a sacred space.

The critical thing in developing software is not the program, it's the design. It is translating understanding of user needs into something that can be realized as a computer program.

There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.

Videogames are indeed design: They're sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars.

The proper study of mankind is the science of design.

I often ask myself, 'What would design be like if objects were made of a single part? Would we return to a better state of creation?'

Design is important because chaos is so hard.

In design it is important to shoe the effect of an action. ... Feedback is critical.

The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.

A well-designed and humane interface does not have to be split into beginner and expert subsystems.

The combination of threads, remote-procedure-call interfaces, and heavyweight object-oriented design is especially dangerous... if you are ever invited onto a project that is supposed to feature all three, fleeing in terror might well be an appropriate reaction.

Good design makes a product understandable.

One of the most significant design principles is to omit the unimportant in order to emphasize the important.

Navigation is about wayfinding, you can't treat it as separate because many other things run parallel with it. If you look at studies in wayfinding, everything from exhibit design to building the cathedrals, it's about creating a complete system. It's about looking at the whole.

Simple and intuitive design is what inspires and drives me.

The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.

... the designer of a new system must not only be the implementor and the first large-scale user; the designer should also write the first user manual. ... If I had not participated fully in all these activities, literally hundreds of improvements would never have been made, because I would never have thought of them or perceived why they were important.

Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well made sentence and it should only express one idea at a time.

But, most important, we must not become as base and treacherous as our enemies.

I love well-designed products that combine form and functionality.

The "Be good" concept also comes up when we design our products. We want them to have positive social effects.

I always had some kind of creative side and technical side, and I thought architecture might be the way to combine them, so I went to architecture school in New York.

It is more important to detect corruption than fiction.

A design style is defined by a set of microdecisions. A clear style reflects a consistent set. A clear style may not be a good style; a muddled one never is.