The design crisis: how the rush to market affects the quality of products and services we use

Unfortunately,  the same kind of economic pressures commented in this article are resulting in a gradual loss of design and engineering quality in all industries, not only in software development. White line products, cars, houses…most sectors are affeted. And more will be…

Too Much Code: The Design Crisis

Of course, the pressures of a competitive economy still apply. With construction costs eliminated, a company that can quickly complete a design gains a market edge. Pressure on getting design done fast becomes the central push of engineering firms. Inevitably, someone not deeply familiar with the design will see an unvalidated version, see the market advantage of releasing early, and say “This looks good enough.”

Some life-or-death projects will be more diligent, but in many
cases consumers learn to suffer through the incomplete design.
Companies can always send out our magic robots to “patch” the broken
buildings and vehicles they sell. All of this points to an amazing,
counter-intuitive conclusion: our sole premise was a dramatic reduction
in construction costs, and the result is quality got worse.

January 13, 2008 · Filed Under Future, Interesting tidbits, Technology

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