Make It Work vs. Make It Good
a day ago
- Making something work (developer mindset) often earns immediate praise because success is binary, while making something good (designer mindset) is harder and less celebrated because it appears obvious in hindsight.
- The example of making a website responsive shows that achieving basic functionality (e.g., via media queries) is easy to get approval for, but delivering a truly good experience (fast, accessible, intuitive, cross-device) requires extensive effort.
- The process typically has two stages: 'make it work' (the first 90%) and 'make it good' (the remaining 10%), where the latter demands nuanced, subjective, and multi-disciplinary work that lacks simple consensus on when to reward.