KNEE JERK DESIGN

As should be clear by now, representational drawing is by definition based on the exclusion of information. Opaque objects hide what’s behind them. And what you can’t see, you can’t process.

Kahneman, in Thinking Fast and Slow,  page 87, gives us a fun abbreviation to this concept of hidden information. He calls it WYSIATI, which stands for what you see is all there is. Which is of course an extrapolation of WYSIWYG from the early days of computing; what you see is what you get.

When information is scarce, we humans have a tendency to jump to conclusions. And we do have a very good ability to jump to conclusions. For our purposes, let’s call this Knee Jerk Design.

As you might expect, Knee Jerk Design is rampant. The less information that we have as designers, the greater our propensity to fill in the blanks. We are trained to do this. Why do you think there is such mediocrity in the design world?  Drawing a gable roof in many contexts is knee jerk.  Based on the theory of WYSIATI, designers employ knee jerk solutions. And they do this because they accept their placement in an environment with scarce and incomplete information.

Alternatively, studies have shown that the more information is readily available, the more accurate and complete will be the person’s understanding of what is going on. I submit that transparency in our drawings creates a mindset in which information is easily available.

The quantity and the quality of the information available to a designer is increased. Their confidence level is thus increased. There is less missing evidence. There is greater consistency to the information. There is less knee jerk.  With nothing hidden, all of these traits are magnified. And the result is that we will be better designers who produce better design solutions.