Mario Pagliaro's Newsletter, June 14, 2007:

Chris Bangle vs. Jakob Nielsen?

Summary:
Elegance and style of products (Bangle) should always go along with ease of use and functionality (Nielsen).

ŤEine Wurst, drei Größe -- one sausage, three different lengthsť. This is how the German press traditionally derided the BMW conservative approach to car design.

Then in 1992, the company owned by the conservative Quandt family of Germany hired Chris Bangle, a Californian designer who will designed the 1 Series, 3 Series, MINI, 5 Series, 6 Series, 7 Series, and Z4 roadster, i.e., the most successful cars ever to be marketed by this old manufacturer of fine cars.

The BMW 7 designed by Chris Bangle ŤMy wife had the misfortune of getting a BMW 745i two years ago" argues usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Nielsen describes a series of failure in the navigation system iconcluding that "We'll probably never buy BMW again, despite the fact that my wife was previously one of the company's most loyal customersť.

But, really, must this apparent conflict between design and ease of use continue to exist? Do elegant objects need to be complex?

Bangle? "I can't help hating him"

Bangle of course hit the taste of people grown in the sad, gray days of the Cold-War; there are those who "can't help hating" him and, even better, those who think that the "man has a way with lines that just do not please the eye."

However, the eyes of most people worldwide do please his designs. Thanks to Bangle's revolutionary design, in fact, BMW has become one of the most profitable world's carmaker and in 2004, Bangle became the chief of design for the overall BMW Group overseeing also the design of its celebrated motorcycles.

Today Bangle leads some 300 design engineers and artists, color experts, ergonomic specialists, materials and computer scientists all of whom work in the company's Designworks/USA subsidiary in southern California.

Nielsen? "A dictator"

Similarly, Nielsen's usability guidelines for websites are all too often taken as a limitation to creativity; boring stuff and so on. Putting it coincisely ŤNielsen does not seem to personally value aesthetics and that shows in his workť.

All to the contrary, usability rules define a framework within which inspiration and creativity lead to objects (including immaterial objects such an interface, i.e.. a website) that are elegant and user friendly; beautiful and useful. Exactly in the very spirit of great architecture.

In other words, good architecture complements good engineering and both serve the primary purpose of creating beautiful and useful objects for the people.

Bauhaus: 1920s

These topics were central in the 1920s Germany's intellectual debate. The Bauhaus scholars clearly showed through their magnificent work how elegance and simplicity are actually allies supporting the idea that mass-production is reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit.

These people were genius designers and true Socialists who designed houses for the proletariat of Wien, for instance. And not houses for billionaires.

Given a certain budget, elegance, comfort, reliability and ease of use are what will make you buy a car. They are the quality requirements a manufacturer has to meet if it wants people in affluent societies (where the good profits reside) to purchase its products.

For example, I recently rented a car produced in Italy. The design is original and pleasant. Yet, the seat belts almost did not work and the suspensions were so rigid that we could feel in the back every bump in the road beneath us.

My 9-years old French car still has excellent seat belts; it does not hurt me when driving due to poor suspensions and it makes little noise. On getting a new car, I know it will be a new model of the same France-based manufacturer.

Purchase of a product -- and thus successful competition -- is driven by quality; and communication about it.

Change the requirements of your products integrating elegance and ease of use -- beauty and functionality -- and you will succeed. ŤTo paraphrase Michelangelo -- Bangle says-- we try to reveal the figure within the stone... that's what a designer does when he confronts that block of clayť.

Once again, to provide our organizational leaders with the competences needed to lead the innovation process we shall need to include in management education the foundations of this formidable science called ergonomy.

Further information

The management course L'Impresa Snella.

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