The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Designs

Let’s take a quick minute and dive into your childhood memories, before school started for you. What do you remember most? Perhaps it was you mother maybe teaching you how to read, or maybe all of the fun times that you’ve had with your earliest friends. But I bet there’s one thing that all of us can agree on in what we remember most in our childhoods. And what is it that I’m referring to, you may ask? I am referring to those times when you were an avid creator. For instance, you may have been an expert at Lego building. I know that I myself was one. I even remember how at one time I wanted to show my mom the one of the best Lego car models I had made, and just before I showed her, I tripped and fell, smashing the car to pieces - I remember how angry I was that day. Anyways, it is probably impossible for you to not think of at least one thing that you did as a child that was creative in some way. Though you might think of those things as being quite useless by now, based on the fact that a more left-brained mindset is prominent in today’s society. This can be seen by recent surveys, which have shown a dramatic decline through many people’s progression through school in his or her aspire to be artistic. But there are exceptions to that “rule.”

Though it is often said time and time again by teachers that just, say, drawing pictures won’t get you anywhere in life, there are partial exceptions. For example, there are some high-paying jobs out there for, say, the design of products. Though these occupations also push left-brained requirements, there’s a predominant push in the right-brained direction. Though these occupations may sound like they’re made for the few who are artistic, they really aren’t, and will soon be considered for the many just as, say, accounting used to be. Let me elaborate. You see, on the my first point, of how these occupations really are specifically for artists, I am referring to a systematic approach to design that I’ll mention later that can make design seem more like a left-brained profession. On my second point, of how left-brained professions are disappearing, let me tell you this one fact: computers are taking over many of the jobs that are completely left-brained, like accounting. From that, one can deduce that careers of more a creative and thus design-oriented physique will eventually become the dominate foundation in the workforce. With that said, it looks like you’ll have to be a good designer in some way, shape, or form, or you’ll pretty much be out of a job within a few decades. But lucky for you I’ll help you with design by setting up some guidelines on design…

So, you want get into a job that involves design, eh? But you’re pretty much clueless about design? Well, you’ve to the right place. So, let’s start off with the basics. What is design? In a nutshell, it is basically how something is created that determines its niche both from the perspective of people and its intended usage. So, what really fulfills these niches?

1. A Good Design is a Social Worker Design

And by social worker, I mean that the design should work well for people. For example, it should be easy to use. It should just “make sense” to the user whose using it: in other words, things that are required for interaction should be placed right where they’re “expected.” It should also do things like appealing to as many as possible. For example, would you find a, say, MP3 player that has a blocky form to be appealing? Odds are that you’d say no, if not NO.

2. A Good Design is a Functional Design

A good design should also perform exactly what it’s meant for. It should get the desired job done as much as possible. The job(s) that the design is, well, designed for should also be as efficient in the process, too. For example, one wouldn’t want some laptop design that drains the battery maybe two hours, all the while dealing with no performance on the computer at the same time. A good design should also refrain from doing what it’s not meant to do as much as possible. For example, cars aren’t really meant to start rusting, but some do anyway, due to their poor designs.

In a nutshell, good designs are designs that are both preferred by people when interacting with them, as well as good at performing their intended purpose and not performing unintended actions.