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The polish paradox || Matt Ström-Awn, designer-leader

matthewstrom.com · 1,160 words · saved by 1 readers

Polish is a word that gets thrown out in conversations about craft, quality, and beauty. We talk about it at the end of the design process, before the work goes out the door: let’s polish this up. Let’s do a polish sprint. Could this use more polish? A tweet (xeet?) on my timeline asked: “what does polish in an app mean? fancy animations? clear consistent design patterns? hierarchy and colour? all the above?” I thought about it for a moment and got a familiar itch in the back of my brain. It’s a feeling that I associate with a zen kōan that goes (paraphrased): "A monk asked a zen master, ‘Does a dog have Buddha-nature?’ The master answered ‘無’. 無 (pronounced ‘wú’ in Mandarin or ‘mu’ in Japanese) literally translates to ‘not,’ as in ‘i have not done my chores today.’ It’s a negation of something, and in the koan’s case, it’s the master’s way of saying — paradoxically — that there’s no point in answering the question. In the case of the tweet, my 無-sense was tingling as I wrote a respons

Polish is a word that gets thrown out in conversations about craft, quality, and beauty. We talk about it at the end of the design process, before the work goes out the door: let’s polish this up. Let’s do a polish sprint. Could this use more polish? what does polish in an app mean? fancy animations? clear consistent design patterns? hierarchy and colour? all the above? - sulley (@svlleyy) April 16, 2024 A tweet (xeet?) on my timeline asked: “what does polish in an app mean? fancy animations? clear consistent design patterns? hierarchy and colour? all the above?” I thought about it for a momen

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