On Game Design - Game Design Theory - page 23

Understanding Design
Design: a plan or drawing made of an object before it is created that
illustrates its form, function, or mechanics.
One of the most important aspects of learning game design is coming
to a better understanding of the essence of design itself. For many of us,
design can be one of those words that we use but never take the time to
fully understand. Design is important, and detailed standards for what
constitutes good design are paramount for all designers, whether they're
designing cell phones, dresses, houses, or digital games. Good design is
many things, and there isn't complete agreement on what those things
are, but here are four characteristics to consider.
Useful. A good design solves some problem—whether that prob-
lem was one we knew about or not. We often find ourselves won-
dering how we lived for so long without Well-Designed Product
X only a short time after acquiring it.
Beautiful. A good design has a certain kind of beauty to it. This
doesn't have to be a visual beauty; it can be an abstract sort of
beauty like that of the rules of Tetris . Game rulesets are often very
beautiful in the sense that they fit together very well and at the
same time unfold into incredible networks of possibilities.
Easy to use and learn. A good design almost “uses� itself. The
user doesn't struggle and hit brick walls; a great design provides
a smooth experience from start to finish The “It Just Works� ad-
vertising campaign Apple used to sell Macintosh computers was
an attempt to sell people on the idea that Macs exhibited this
property of great design.
Efficient. A good design does a lot with a little. Great painters
know how to express their vision in as few strokes as possible.
Great poets know how to say what they want in as few words as
possible.
I think that there is one word, though, that sums up all of the above:
elegance . In short, design is doing something well, which doesn't seem
all that helpful by itself. But we should all try to take apart the essence of
design and find out for ourselves what makes something “done well� in
terms that apply to all of the arts. We should all strive to formulate clear
guidelines for what will make our work valuable to human beings.
Minimalism
There was a movement (associated largely with the 1960s and early
1970s) called minimalism that still lives on today. Its core tenet was that