When I first began dabbling in design, I went and picked up a copy of Robin Williams' . If you are a snooty designer, you may hold up your nose, but I did and still do like the way that Williams approaches the subject. But I don't mean to debate that here. What I am more interested in is just a bit of personal whimsy in extending an acronym that comes out of Williams' book.

If you aren't familiar with her work, Williams distills design theory into four basic principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. She points out that this creates a "memorable--but very inappropriate" acronym. Well, hell. One person's inappropriate is another person's "ya gotta love it." (grin)

Anyways, one day I was doodling in class, and noticed that the two principles that my typography professor was constantly reinforcing--audience and purpose--happened to be the last two letters of CRAP. I started thinking about what the other letters could stand for that might complement these, and as of right now, have come up with constraints and requirements.

I comment about this now, as this issue of business needs or constraints has been recently discussed within the context of user-centered design. For example, in this article by Jeff Lash on the myth of user-centered IA and this interview with Peter Merholz and Nathan Shedroff.

I suppose that after decades of BCD (business-centered design:), where the user was a faint afterthought, if it was a thought at all, there may be a tendency to feel that the pendulum needs to swing all the way to the other side to compensate. But we would be well served by counteracting this tendency. Those of us in these various interdependent, interdisciplinary fields will be far more successful if we collaborate with business, rather than set up some new Mars vs Venus "just can't communicate" fodder!

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