Things
To love or to hate.
Our life is surrounded by things. Things that can work in our favour or make our lives miserable. There are things that look nice but do nothing and things that work like a charm but look like sh*t.
Things that are strictly utilitarian but have been carefully designed and crafted are usually perceived as “simple” or “ordinary” by most people.
Things like a fork or a light switch just work making us forget that someone actually designed them in the first place.
It is when things don’t work that people think about bad design or bad ergonomics. Imagine a light switch that is horizontally aligned or doesn’t follow the local pattern for the ON/OFF state (for some countries ON is up, for other down). How frustrating these things can be? The most common paradigm are doors. Who doesn’t hate doors that communicate the wrong meaning? Push or pull or push or …?
The question is why? Why people make things that do not live up to our standards and make our lives more complicated and miserable instead of simpler and delightful?
In the following months, I am going to try to describe through real life examples how good and bad things can change the everyday life of people without them even noticing it. I am going to give the appreciation to good things that is taken for granted and point out the ones that make the world a worse place.
Join me!
PS: I already have a small list of things that I want to talk about. If you feel strong about anything that is poorly or well-designed, please comment below :)
