Thread by @MorelloNMST

I had an interesting conversation this week about the concept of "taste" in design. Specifically, the idea that designers should have good taste to be good designers.

I disagree with this, but maybe not for the obvious reasons. Let's discuss taste.

The problem with "good taste" is that it doesn't mean anything on its own. My belief is that good taste is simply a weak definition for the combination of things we *do* want .

So I'm gonna try to break down the elements of good taste and demystify it a bit.

1) Player empathy. Knowing and being able to understand the audience(s), the meaning behind their needs and frustrations, and what does and doesn't really matter.

It goes beyond just knowing the common requests - say rollback netcode or good anticheat. Those matter, but..

A lot of the reason we need the empathy is to go beyond the surface level and boil that up to the why (surprise!). There are a lot of needs that are based on patterns player experience but don't have the language to communicate well, or things that might almost be subconscious.

I also think you need to be well-played in the space.

You don't need to be a high-level expert, but it's tough to design for a space you have no experience in at all. Seeing examples - first hand will give you queues of how it all works, and you'll be more informed.

A note for players; your designers don't all need to be masters of the game to make the game.

You want that insight somewhere on your team; someone that has experience for that *section* of the audience, but if the best designers were the best players, we'd see that shift more.

2) Being critical of your own preferences and taste.

Paradoxically, maybe, having good taste means always questioning it. Do I *like that* or is it *good for what I'm doing?*

This is something I think is surprisingly rare - not just in design, but humans

It's where I see a lot of would-be designers need the most room to work. In reality, this is just bias management - but for your own likes and dislikes. Being able to see the positive in things you really hate, or find the flaws in your favorite games is a start.

I'm always suspicious of anyone doesn't self-reflect and share issues with their taste.

It's also easy to see where those calls are made in a game that did not line up with players but definitely were "the lead like this movie that came out at that time." (Subtweet intentional)

3) Good "squint".

This is shorthand for the ability to see something incomplete, or in progress and understand where it's likely to go.

What problems can be solved with more iteration, and what problems are directional?

What problems players have are foundational vs iterative?

This comes down to abstraction and experience, generally.

For would-be designers, though, abstraction is a skill you can work on now. Trying to remove the descriptors, theme and visuals from something and understanding why things work..or don't.

(I could do an entire lecture on this subject alone - maybe I'll do something if there's enough interest)

I've met plenty of very experienced designers who cannot squint, and need to take something all the way to see if it works or not.

This is really challenging for consistently good design, and reasonable timelines.

So, do I think designers should have "good taste"? Yes - but that puts the onus on us to know and communicate what that means. Without definition, it's a recipe for wild subjectivity, preference-based design and even cronyism or nepotism as people use it to hire their buddies.

Taste is also not only the things listed here; I'm a mechanics/systems person and see this as a way to navigate problems in that space. Other sub-disciplines, like level or narrative, might define it differently. Studios have different approaches too.

Work to understand and define it for yourself, and help your team and studio understand if if you're in the biz already.

It'll save you - no lie - hundreds of hours of time and heartache.