Most software designers/devs are not in control of a mature softwares design. Its something I think we tend to assume incorrectly. We talk about mature software design as though theres a great deal of willpower involved, attributing poor designs to stubborn creators and great design to listening to users. I would say the only time this is true is when we see a software break from its own traditions (usually to peoples dismay). So who controls design? The software itself (which the developers had control over, but only initially) and the hidden force of the community. Theres no better example than ZBrush here of lack of control over design. We like to assume its weird because the developers/designers want to force their ideas on us, but I would say its very much opposite. Pixologic is far more helpless than in charge of the evolving design. Why can I speak so confidently on their behalf/defense? Because look at their company name itself: Pixologic, and their original mission statement of focusing on 2.5D painting with depth using their pixol technology. That digital image painting technology is hardly in alignment with their focus anymore. Even their own company name and the vision behind it doesnt match what they are mostly doing. Iimagine if Photoshop had a canvas with depth, a 2.5D pixol one. And they made this one tool to stamp/bake 3D objects into the canvas where you could load an OBJ and place 3D stuff on there. Except they wanted to allow people to edit the shape of these brushes a little bit with some basic sculpting tools, so their brush-editing features expanded to editing the 3D object with a button called Edit Brush. People were so ecstatic with that 3D brush editing quality that they kept expanding to where you end up getting hair and fur, zspheres, even polygonal modeling in that Edit Brush mode. And this theoretical Photoshop just grew and grew to the point where 90% of the developer and user focus was in using a digital painting software that actually had people spending more time editing brushes than painting with them. Thats Pixologics story. Its not a story of design willpower; Its one of creating a whirlwind that just took developers down a completely unanticipated route. Their ultimate design control ended up boiling down, past conception, to fitting a lot of square pegs through round holes. And they did an amazingly good job doing that considering the circumstances, but it is hardly a designed software, conceived up front, to do what it is now ultimately doing. Its not an example of willpower, rather the lack of it. While not all mature software has had to fit as many square pegs through round holes as Pixologic (whose very name reflects the irony), most had to do this far more often than most people think. So its not worth assuming the developers/designers have a lot of willpower here -- theyre just going with the flow, and thats not a designed route, its an evolutionary one.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:10:47 +0000
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