For this entry I come back to the subject of design yet again. Carolina, my Interaction Design instructor, asked us students to study the concepts shared by Donald Norman in his book The Design of Everyday Things. Afterwards, we were supposed to take a look at some everyday object, albeit one that does not possess a screen. The everyday thing I chose was the left-side freeway off-ramps of Washington state.
So, I presumed this exercise was to help us disconnect just a little bit from our digital ways and see what the overall conceit of good design truly is. To get just a little personal, I don’t have very much of a design background (which is one of the reasons why I am in the class) but I’m also not much of an engineer. I do have some history of web design and video game design under my professional belt, though. But, alas, I am more the beneficiary of good design than the creator. But, I am also like everyone else the victim of bad design, too. One thing about me, and it seems to be true of many people, is that we blindly accept loads of bad design and just cope with it despite the flaws. Norman spells this out in his book. For example, he talks about the doors of a Boston Hotel that sacrifice simplicity for aesthetics. How often is this a parallel for our real lives? We strive for the appearance of perfection rather than internal cohesion and understanding.
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