Design by Adjective
Design by Adjective is terminal to projects (whether graphics or programming) only when the client is unwilling to take the time to transform the generalized goals into specific requirements. There is nothing wrong with wanting a project to be "cool", "cutting edge" (or even "slow" and "difficult to use" - whatever floats your boat) as an initial statement of intent as long as the client is willing to work with the designer or architect to transform the initial intention into a set of measurable design goals.
A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t have anything in your project specification that you don’t have an agreed acceptance test for (what IS easy to use – how do you agree if an application is easy to use?!). If a client wants to include “design guidelines” to support a detailed set of functional requirements as guideposts (e.g. we’d rather make it quick to learn than easy to customize) that is fine, but make sure any contract clearly states that the guidelines are not deliverables or with a certain subset of clients you’re going to have a long, hard acceptance phase . . . “But my DOG couldn’t use it. Do you know how big a potential audience the dog market is? Seriously underserved too . . .”
Got the concept from a great review by Joel Spolsky. Thanks Joel!
It goes on to say that specific goals should include 4 elements:
-action verb
-outcome
-deadline
-cost
Incidentally, the other listed factors of effective goal setting are: goal difficulty (aim for difficult but obtainable), goal feedback, participating in goal setting (those doing the work should ideally participate in setting the goals), and competition. Clearly, not all need to be present.
Of course, on the "easy to use" point you raised in the other post, I have found that sometimes the concept of irreducible complexity comes to bear.
Great comments - many thanks!