Blood-sucker tasks

Design equals tasks solving.

Every single object of the design, be it in the form of a website, interface or logo, is usually a solution to a whole set of various small tasks that all together combine into one big Task. For example, the site of a company N solves such problems:

When it comes to solving the task of creating a site for the company N, it means finding a solution of all the subtasks included in this complex task.

Let’s present all tasks to be solved in a form of points located side by side. Then, let’s suppose the solution of these tasks is a circle passing through all these points or close to them.

The circle that intersects all points, or passing very close, is the ideal solution for all tasks. This solution is a real diamond, and such tasks come extremely rare, only from the best customers in the world. In reality, the points can lie so that they can not be crossed perfectly. And then the designer has two ways. First one is to not intersect some points, and then the further the circle passes from the point, the worse the task is solved. Second way is to distort the circle to force it cross all points at any cost, and then the solution no longer seems ideal. That’s what we call hacks.

The more tasks, the more likely that they will not be solved perfectly. But sometimes there are such individual tasks-parasites that instantly spoil any solution, plunge the designer's mind into a catatonic stupor, seem insoluble.

These blood-sucker tasks lie so far from all the others that they cannot be solved either in the first or in the second way. If you expand the circle and try to catch the blood-sucker, solutions to the remaining tasks will be lost. If you try to stretch the circle, then the solution will turn into an ugly monster.

Blood-sucker tasks arise because of the lack of a certain goal. Usually because of stereotypes, which are in the head of the client. The very nature of these problems suggests that they are only a redundant detail, due to a misunderstanding got into the construction set from which a filigree mechanism should be built. Blood-sucker tasks do not just interfere with the designer — it would be half bad! — they point out problems in the product being created. Blood-sucker tasks is an alarm bell for the client to ask himself: Do I know exactly what I want?

Blood-sucker tasks do not need to be solved. They must be mercilessly eliminated, as a dangerous and destructive element, not a feature of the product.

Or, if there is a doubled budget and time, we can look at the problem in a new dimension.