Basic Criteria for Judging Good and Bad Design

When creating designs or when commissioning a design from a studio and reviewing it, you need to judge whether the design is good or bad.

This is an unavoidable theme when learning design.

To serve as a reference, in this article I will explain the basic criteria for good and bad design from my perspective.

Basic Concepts of Good Design vs. Bad Design

For example, would you say these two chair designs are good design or bad design?

Two chairs

It’s difficult to judge, isn’t it?

That’s because it depends on the purpose and the user.

The wooden chair on the left may be a good design for a wood‑themed room or office, but for someone who plays video games for hours it might become painful to sit on.

The office chair on the right may be well designed for an office, but it might not be a good fit for a wedding venue.

As discussed in Design Definition & Purpose, design is done to achieve a specific goal, so the fundamental idea is that good or bad design judgments change depending on the purpose and the user.

Characteristics of Good Design vs. Bad Design

Building on the basic concept, let’s look at the characteristics of good design and bad design.

Functionality

Good Design	Bad Design
Fulfills its intended purpose	Fails to fulfill its purpose
Includes all necessary features	Lacks essential features
Intuitive to operate	Difficult to understand how to use

Aesthetics

Good Design	Bad Design
Has visual harmony	Lacks visual harmony
Well balanced	Poorly balanced
Feels contemporary	Feels outdated

Usability

Good Design	Bad Design
Intuitive to use	Users don’t know how to use it
Low learning curve	High learning curve

Accessibility

Good Design	Bad Design
Usable by everyone	Usable only by some people
Considers color‑vision deficiencies	Ignores color‑vision deficiencies

Consistency

Good Design	Bad Design
Unified design rules	Inconsistent design rules
Identical elements look the same	Identical elements look different
Consistent brand image	Inconsistent brand image

So far we’ve covered principles that apply to any kind of design.

From here, it’s best to dive deeper based on specific criteria for each design domain.

Common Design Mistakes

Finally, here are some mistakes often made when creating designs.

Sometimes they’re intentional, but in other cases it’s important to recognize them:

• Focusing only on appearance
  • Beautiful but hard‑to‑use designs
  • Designs that ignore functionality
• Chasing trends
  • Forcing in trendy styles
  • Designs that don’t fit the brand
• Ignoring the user
  • Deciding based only on designer preference
  • Not listening to user feedback
• Ignoring consistency
  • Different designs on each page
  • Lack of visual cohesion

Summary

Here’s a recap of this article: