40+FAB Blog

Perfect or functional?

I like perfect, but functional is better. Who would actually choose the latter?

I have been in the process of developing a product for the men’s accessories market over the last few months. The product is meant to solve a particular problem for men. As we went through the design phase we came up with a killer design which we all acknowledged was just perfect. When the prototypes were made, it worked like a charm even though the finishing was a bit rough. We then produced the final design and it was smooth shining and a stunning sight to behold, we thought we had arrived. The problem was because it was so smooth, it lost the friction required to work and as good as it looked it was no longer meeting it’s design purpose from a functional perspective. So we went back to the drawing board to pull out some of that ‘perfection’ and put back more of the function.

Have you come up against that dilemma? Sometimes what we believe to be perfect for our use may turn out to be useless functionally. It is great when perfect and functional align in the same thing, but if they don’t, then be free from all pressure and go for what will work.