Design is a search problem – Matt Ström-Awn

Sul design come ricerca di una soluzione e sui modi diversi di cercarla.

[…] as designers, we’re all just trying to find the right solution in a vast multiverse of possibilities. The solution exists, and we typically know it when we see it. So most of what we call ‘design’ is groping around a dark room looking for a black cat. Different designers take different approaches. Some are changing their approaches with the advent of generative AI, but at the end of the day, design is a search problem.

Si parla anche di beam search, il metodo che valuta tutte le direzioni possibili, ne tiene le tre migliori e scarta il resto: a Matt Ström-Awn ricorda il «fammi vedere qualche opzione» dei clienti in agenzia.

Here’s the problem: beam search often fails to find the best solution! It depends entirely on the width of your beam and the quality of your heuristic. For example, if the desired state is hiding behind a low-scoring upstream branch, the algorithm might never find it.

When I learned the shortcomings of beam search — that simply checking a few options and picking the best one might not lead to the best solution — my feelings about my option-hungry clients were validated.