At South-by-Southwest I attended talk given by Jennifer Fraser on Vitruvius who was the first Roman architect to write about the craft. I saw some invariant patterns of good design that could be useful as we design information systems. The warning I must underline is that building physics-based systems are different than building information-based systems, at least this is true in March of 2008. Rival goods are not the same as non-Rival goods.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was born ~80 BC and died 25 BC. Regardless of his abilities as an architect, he lives today because he was the person who wrote about the craft and documented the essence the architecture of his time. If being referenced some 2000+ years later is not enough of a value proposition to get you to document your contribution, I don’t know what is.
Jennifer referenced De architectura (Latin: “On architecture”) which consisted of 10 scrolls and “The Ten Books on Architecture” which is the translation and available on books.google.com. Vitruvius said that well-designed buildings must exhibit three qualities: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. Respectively, utility, attractiveness, stability.
Looking at information system design, these qualities are also beneficial. What is interesting in Jennifer’s presentation is that applications at some moment in time can be mapped to a vector in a firmitas, utilitas, and venustas space.
For example, an application can be at position ‘X’ when it is in demo format and ultimately its goal is to move to position ‘Z’. There are times when an application would be not as attractive or has low utility but is ultra stable like ‘Y’; its goal over time is to get to position ‘Z’.
Another thing that was clear was how Vitruvius understood his users. He had an intimate understanding of who would occupy the dwelling and what tasks they would perform on a daily basis. Up front in the design was a serious considerations for private and public spaces. I can see how this has a parallel with information system.
Vitruvius is quoted as saying “The eye is always in search of beauty” and who can argue that. We should set our design goals high and demand beauty, utility, and stable system.
—tk