August 8th 1999. This year Glasgow, Scotland, celebrates its status as City of Architecture and Design.

Scotland has produced its fair share of top architects in the last few centuries, most notably Thomson, Adam and Rennie-Mackintosh. The local press focus on events relating to this year of architectural celebration has brought me round to thinking about "what precisely is an architect and why do the public love them or hate them so much?" and can the software industry learn anything from all this?

This summer I have been renovating my house. You quickly find that you start to pay much more attention to other houses, renovation articles in papers, magazines on decor and property market publications. My eye is often caught by the occassional house advertised as "Architect Designed". Naturally, the real estate agent is using this as a selling point and hopes to gain a superior, premium price for the property as a result. What does it mean in reality?

My house like so many others might best be described as "builder designed". That is to say that the builder sketches out a layout for the house, has a draftsmen produce some drawings and all of a sudden the builders have plans from which they can work. The design is often pragmatic, uninspired, functional and more than likely copied from somebody else's design. Chances are that it was copied from another house which the builder saw someone else build earlier. Hence, there is nothing avant garde about a "builder designed" house.

Architect designed, on the other hand, implies that someone with grander goals has thought carefully about the house: who will use it; what will they do with it; how can it be made attractive. In short, aesthetic design, usability, ease-of-use, friendliness are all considered over and above the basic functionality required. So the suggestion goes that paying a premium for an architect designed home, will lead to a better quality of life. The home will be a more pleasant place to live.

Software

Currently the software industry suffers from a rather large quantity of "builder designed" output. Like the housing market this is no great surprise. There is afterall several comparisons. The worldwide demand is great both for housing and software. Consequently, there are a large number of people required to supply that demand. Naturally, the skill level involved will vary and the very talented and knowledgable will be in short supply.

The similarities end there. In the housing market, the buyer understands what they are buying a lot better. Most people in the street have an opinion about architecture. They can tell you what they like and they can tell you what they don't like. They can also tell you pretty quickly whether a building works and serves its purpose well. With software this is definitely not the case. Software has a hugely intangible element to it and so far the average buyer has little way of assessing whether its good or not.

The other key ingredient is also missing. Software is not so easy to copy from observation. Publicly available applications can certainly be viewed but those miriad corporate applications that are only used internally or on intranets. They are never available for review to judge the state-of-the-art or the best-of-breed designs.

Architect Designed Tag

In order to better educate the public, the industry must cultivate the concept of "architect designed" software. Such a tag would imply that an expert had been involved in a design and a process or methodology had been followed which not only leads to sound functionality but to improved aesthetics, beautiful, elegant design as well as improved usability. With better marketing, such software can be shown to fetch a premium price. The public will know when they read about the "architect designed" label that what they are buying is better quality.

To facilitate this, there will need to be groundshift in the industry as we know it. We will need to see a separation of Architects and Designers away from Builders. We will need to see many more firms like those of Alan Cooper and Larry Constantine. Firms which specialise in design and architecture, usability and research.

The industry must cultivate a culture where the ordinary man in the street, the user, has an opinion just like he does with buildings. Afterall, software is now so ubiquitious that it affects the lives of people as profoundly as the physical surroundings in which they live and work.