Good Enough: A Strategy, Not Mediocrity

In design, we often hear, "Done is better than perfect." But what if that idea isn't just about deadlines or shipping fast? What if it's built into how nature works?

Philosopher Daniel S. Milo explores in his book Good Enough: The Tolerance for Mediocrity in Nature and Society, challenges the popular idea that evolution rewards the strongest, fastest, or smartest. Instead, he says nature primarily rewards those just good enough to survive. You don't need perfect eyesight if you can still find food. You don't need to be the fastest if you're fast enough to escape danger. Evolution doesn't optimise, it satisfies. It keeps what works and moves on.

He argues that evolution is far less about crowning the best than preserving the adequate, the minimum viable trait that lets an organism see tomorrow. The same satisfying instinct echoes through everything humans create: from keyboards and video formats to design systems and government forms, we repeatedly ship what works, not what is mathematically optimal.

There's something freeing about this mindset. As designers, it reminds us that we don't always need to chase perfection. Sometimes "good enough" means we've solved the core problem, and that's a cue to stop. It lets us focus on what matters: outcomes, not polish.

But there's another side to this. Settling for "good enough" too early can blind us to better solutions. Systems can stay mediocre for years simply because no one questioned them. Sometimes, striving for more clarity, inclusion, and elegance pushes our work from forgettable to meaningful.

The wisdom is knowing when good enough is enough and when it's just an excuse to stop thinking.

Mediocrity in Nature

Nature is full of design decisions that are far from perfect, but they work. For example, the vertebrate eye has photoreceptors wired backwards, yet we see just fine. Evolution never fixed it because the fix wasn't worth the energy. Or the giraffe's laryngeal nerve takes a four-meter detour due to ancient anatomy. It's wildly inefficient but doesn't stop the giraffe from living.

The panda's so-called thumb is just a wrist bone adapted to grip bamboo, not elegant, but effective. In ecosystems, too, redundancy wins over precision. Multiple species do the same job, so another picks up the slack if one disappears. This is how forests regrow after fires and coral reefs bounce back from bleaching.

For designers, the message is clear: stop worshipping ideal solutions. Users don't reward elegance they can't perceive. Legacy constraints aren't going anywhere; learn to work with them. Sometimes the fastest path is repurposing what you already have. And if you want your systems to last, build them with some slack. Like nature, design thrives not on perfection but on resilience, flexibility, and being good enough.

Satisficing in Human Systems

Not every system we rely on was designed to be the best. It just had to be good enough. The QWERTY keyboard, for example, was invented in the 1860s to prevent typewriter arms from jamming. It's slower than other layouts, but it's stuck because changing it would be too complex and costly. Similarly with VHS tapes, Betamax had better picture quality, but VHS won because it recorded longer and was easier to license.

JPEG, invented in 1992, compresses images with quality loss, but it became the web's go-to format because it balanced speed, size, and "good enough" quality. Even in the startup world, the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a battle cry; don't wait for perfection, ship the simplest version that works and improve it later.

This mindset isn't new. Nobel laureate Herbert Simon described how people don't always chase the best option, but they satisfice. That means they stop looking once something meets their needs. It's why the 80/20 rule holds so much truth: 80% of impact often comes from just 20% of effort. Pushing beyond that usually delivers tiny returns.

This same thinking is now shaping sustainability, too. Low-Tech Magazine runs its website on solar power, accepting slight downtime in exchange for drastically lower carbon impact. The Fairphone 4 isn't sleek, but its modular design makes it last far longer, reducing e-waste dramatically. In all these cases, "good enough" isn't a compromise, it's a wise and strategic choice.

We often assume that better means higher resolution, faster refresh rates, and maximum comfort. But this mindset comes at a planetary cost. Cloud gaming in 4K at 120 fps sounds impressive, yet switching to local 1080p playback when the connection allows cuts energy use by 75% per hour.

Releasing a new phone every year might drive sales, but supporting modular repairs and longer software updates can save around 50 kilograms of CO₂ per device avoided.

Even in architecture, chasing 100% comfort with super-insulated glass and active cooling drives up both costs and emissions. In contrast, designing for 80% comfort days using passive shading and smart airflow can reduce HVAC energy loads by up to 60%.

We learn something simple yet powerful here: designing for enough, not everything, can lead to drastically better outcomes for the planet. Shifting our mindset from over-optimisation to appropriate sufficiency lowers both environmental impact and complexity. It's not about sacrifice but about intelligent trade-offs.

Choosing "good enough" isn't a shortcut but a form of responsibility. The one that future-proofs our designs while honouring the limits of the world we live in.

Toolbox for "Good Enough" Design

Design Checklist

Set the Minimum Bar
What's the one thing this design must do well? Example: Is the text readable from a normal distance? Does it meet contrast standards?

Know Your Limits
What's your time, energy, materials, or mental load budget? Design with those constraints in mind and not against them.

Build Just Enough
Prototype until it works well enough and then stop. Don't add features to fill space.

Test for Real-Life Situations
Try it with low internet, one-handed use, or older devices. If it holds up under stress, it's solid.

Lock It In
Once it works, freeze the spec. Protect the team from unnecessary "perfecting."

The Sufficiency Scorecard
Use such simple pass/fail list when evaluating your design:

1. Can users finish the task? (95% of testers succeed in 2 tries)
2. Is it energy-efficient? (Uses less CO₂ than the industry average)
3. Easy to fix or upgrade? (Can be done in under 10 minutes)
4. Accessible to all? (Meets WCAG AA or ISO standards)
5. No single point of failure? (Still works if one part breaks)
   
   And more! (specific to the context)

The 80/20 Canvas
Prioritise what really matters.

1. List all the features you are considering.
2. Rank them by user value vs effort to build.
3. Focus on the top 20% that deliver 80% of the impact. (Ship that first, the rest can wait.)

Great design often begins with something small, something honest. The best teams don't wait for perfection before they ship, build a simple version, release it, and learn what's actually "enough" from the real world, not just the whiteboard. These minimum viable products reveal more than endless debate ever could. Along the way, brilliant designers bake in tools that act like brakes — automated tests and code checks that catch flaws early, rather than polishing problems after the fact. It's a mindset borrowed from Jidoka in manufacturing: stop the line when something's off, fix it fast, and keep moving.

In the field, adequacy lives longer when you plan for change. Products that are easy to update or repair, like modular tech with replaceable parts, stay useful beyond their original shelf life. That's not just good for users but for the planet. If you think of every extra megabyte, horsepower, or screen brightness as a withdrawal from Earth's bank account, you'll start designing with a sharper sense of value.

Perhaps the most underrated superpower is constraint. The 12MP smartphone camera may seem modest, but it's perfectly suited for social sharing and uses far less energy and material than its ultra-high-res siblings. Sufficiency, it turns out, isn't the enemy of creativity. It's often the very thing that makes it flourish.

"Good enough" often gets a bad reputation, as if it's the same as cutting corners or not trying hard enough. But in reality, it's a quiet form of wisdom. It's knowing when something truly works and choosing not to overwork it. It takes humility to stop at adequacy, especially in a world that rewards overachievement and polish. But when designers embrace "good enough," they unlock space for what really matters: faster iteration, broader access, longer-lasting systems.

Philosopher Daniel S. Milo reminds us that even life doesn't aim for perfect form; it survives and thrives through rough fits and practical adaptations. In that spirit, stopping at "enough" isn't just efficient; it's generous. It's how we design with care for both people and the planet.

Sometimes, the most radical thing we can do is resist the urge to add more and let something work.

A blog by Mohit Yadav, Chief Designer at Wolffkraft