Nope, not a typo, another lovely compound noun I came across yesterday evening, intended to carry the idea that when we’ve found a just-good-enough answer, we stop searching / working on a problem. 

It was made up (or discovered, possibly) by the economist Herbert Simon - who was formerly a political scientist turned economist who pursued thinking around AI, computer science, psychology  and a whole bunch of smarts that earned him a Nobel gong - to try and explain economic behaviour and the limits of optimisation. Namely, if you keep thinking about something you’ll never get anywhere. So we apply self-limits. 

The notion of sufficiently satisfied is an odd one for a designer to try and hold close. We’re supposed to be the ones wanting to pursue issues to the point of obsessing about the very best solution. Just being satificed seems like a cop-out. An admission of reluctant acceptance. Not our culture. We like to push things right to to breaking point.

But Simon’s idea is an important one to consider. The best of all possible worlds really isn’t an option. For a start, the budget is usually finite. Your ability to sacrifice ‘personal’ (or family, or friends) time likewise. And there’s always the deadline (however elastic they prove to be. Usually the worse for any outcome if so. Nothing like the luxury of extra time to lose the game.)

I’ve heard this kind of resignation - to ‘satisficieny' - in design circles also described as snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. That you’ve lost what you set out to win as you. Didn’t. Work. Hard. Enough.

My hunch is that people with that view are likely opinion-takers not decision-makers. Near enough is sometimes good enough, not a sacrifice. Making a call on when to call something - so as not to make everyone suffer longer than we all need - is the harder thing and the sure sign of strength.

Or as some musician’s would say, that’s close enough for jazz. Or more appropriately, for typesetting that’s tight not touching.