Jó, olcsó, gyors? Gondolatok Design szemszögből.

Good, cheap, fast? Some thoughts from a designer point of view

I’m sure you know the good old phrase:

“We provide 3 kinds of service: good, cheap, fast.
You can choose 2.”

As a motion graphic designer I have 3 problems with this triplet structuring – that is, if we’re talking about a digital environment and digital solutions.

Let’s see my points:

1) UNIQUE vs TEMPLATE

I’ve always missed one aspect of the triplet, and that is the “unique” word.
Let me explain this shortly why it’s important:

We’re living in the age of digital stock elements (templates, themes), when you don’t have to start a webside development or its design development from ground zero, from scratch.
Wordpress themes and templates, and thousands of plugins could give a good base to build on and with for the professionals, so that they can build certain looks and functionality faster. Sometimes much faster.

The same goes for (not web-related) design and even animation. These areas of design have templates as well, which provides a base, sometimes “off-the-shelf” solutions.

Is this solution good, cheap and fast? It may be – that is, if “good” means “good quality” here.

But it won’t be unique.

As the main goal of template-creators is to market their templates (and maximize their sales), they make their templates rather “template-like” or general. So that the more wider target group they can reach with it.

So someone who buys a template gets a good base, that can be good (quality), cheap and fast, but in return it is not unique and may lack customization functions, partly or even fully.

This is the main compromise of using templates.

This (using a template) can be suitable for a simple and general webshop (but I’m not a webshop specialist), which is Ok.

But having such BIG compromises in case of brand communication, risking of losing the unique look and voice – can be dangerous for the brand.
Many realize this and avoid templates, or at least those templates that offer low level of customization.

The more unique look/functions we need, the more time the developer (designer, animator, etc) needs to change the template in order to suit the needs.
And that isn’t cheap and/or fast.

This is why many template-creators chose to stop making templates and instead develop and sell toolkits, that is, elements that could be used in a modular fashion.
This toolkit-approach remains a “good-cheap-fast” option as well for the customers (as long as it has lots of sales), but in this case there isn’t any ready-to-use products. The kit is just a bunch of compatible elements on the ground, and you need the skills and tools and time to build something from it (ie: a car).

Check a fascinating image of an exploded view of a car here.

Ideally it’ll need at least one professional that is (or can get) familiar with the toolkit and who can build the product using the items, according to the needs of the client.
Of course, it’s an option to go DIY (Do It Yourself) or avoid toolkits and go directly with a DIY solution, leaving the professional(s) out of the equation. But this way you lose lots of knowledge and experience (that the pro person knows). This could mean less (or complete loss of) efficiency for the end-product. And also, you lost time with a product that is bad or even dangerous for your brand and marketing.

Apart from the above, templates are not evil or bad. What is indeed bad is that many (website, content, design) developers isn’t clear with its leads or clients whether they use worldwide templates for a project.
In a globally connected economy looking/sounding unique is necessary for standing out from the crowd and the noise, a lot of times it’s uniqueness is gold – keeping the usage of templates is misleading and cheating.

Wrapping this up: Uniqueness is too important for it not to be included in the – now lacking – good-cheap-fast situation.

2) Does “Good, cheap and slow” even exist?

If we don’t use templates or themes because we’d like a unique end-result, I think there is no such thing as “good, cheap and slow”.
Many professional sell their time (and with it they also sell all of their shareable knowledge, skills and expertise), so the more unique/creative ideas and contents are needed from them – without the use of templates/theme – the more time they’ll need to develop it. This means slower. This means more expensive. Creativity, the development of unique ways and end-results take time, like this video shows it well:

3) What does the words “good”, “cheap”, and “fast” even mean?

These words are subjective words.

There is ‘good enough’, ‘pretty good’, ‘and excellent’.

What is expensive for one – might be cheap for the other.

From a snail point of view a bunny is lighting-fast, but compared to a cheetah the bunny is slow as a snail.

If we add “uniqueness” (of look, of content, of function) to this already subjective equation, we have a rather complex situation that can’t be described with words and their opposites (good-bad; cheap-expensive; fast-slow; unique-template) to drive proirities for a project and set its goals.

Recommendations

So, I have the above problems with the initial triplet.

But problems need solutions. So what do I say?

• If possible, don’t use “good-cheap-fast” triplet, because it is incomplete in itself and can even be misleading (or false). If you need to use it, include the “uniqueness” aspect as well.




• Be sure to replace or clarify subjective words as you communicate them, using more clear, precise, objective words, or if you can use numbers for something (ie: date, budget, length, weight, etc), do so.




• To avoid errors in communication don’t save time on communication.
  It is better to write or say 5 more words than to try to solve 5 problems later.

  Not just better.

  It’s cheaper and faster too.

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