Design In Daily Life

Design is everywhere. Once you start learning design, you also start noticing it. Anywhere and in everything. You can‘t ignore it anymore. Then you also start analysing it, once you understand it.

It‘s really overwhelming, the society we live in. So many companies are producing the same product, but what differentiates the same product that eventually makes the same action is it‘s design, and it is very important, in order to get the customer/user to buy/use it, in other words get their attention.

In order to make a design good there are principles designers follow. The most common ones are Dieter Ram‘s 10 principles of good design.

Source: Behance.net

For this exercise I was instructed to think of 3 worst design products/services I came across and 3 best and compare them to the principles they are/are not following, according to the principles above.

Worst:

1. Train ticket machines — No matter which destination i visited, these machines are not very user friendly. They are slow and time consuming, especially if you use it for the first time, because you simply don‘t know where is the button you need and also you are not sure if what you need is exactly right (principle 4). Some machines don‘t accept all payment methods (principle 8). Also buying paper tickets or producing plastic cards are not so environmentally friendly (principle 9). In short buying a transport ticker could be frustrating.
2. Amazon Fresh service — I wanted to try Amazon Fresh for the first time. This service gets your groceries from different supermarkets and delivers them to your door. The best thing about it is that you can choose a very specific delivery time so that you’re home when it arrives and so they don‘t need to leave it at a neighbour‘s place or by the door. It‘s especially important if you order frozen or chilled groceries. Unfortunately I received rock-hard, super green, not- ready to eat bananas which took about 2 weeks to be edible, while on the website the description clearly said ripe (principle 6). Needles to say I didn‘t make another Amazon Fresh order again.
3. Amazon Smile on mobile App — There is simply none. This platform is donating part of your purchase amount to your chosen charity, which is a beautiful idea but unfortunately id does not exist in the mobile app, only on web. Sometimes I would want to make a purchase on-the-go but I don‘t because I know the donation won‘t go through (principle 8,2).

Best:

1. N26 online banking — After dealing with old fashioned banks, their branches and clerks this is quite refreshing. No need to stand in line to talk to a banker, you manage your account details from anywhere, authentication process is swift and uncomplicated, no extra fees. Never I had a bad experience with this service.
2. Spotify — It‘s no wonder so many people are using this service. It‘s innovative, I haven’t heard of something like that before and many came after them. I started using Spotify to discover new artists, genres and music and this is exactly what I got.
3. Ladder shelf — I don‘t like assembling furniture so when I ordered this shelf I prepared myself for a frustrating day of assembling this piece. I was surprised (and relieved) to find out that this arrives in one piece, no screws needed, all I needed to do was to simply pull the two center legs apart and voila , you have a standing shelf. I thank this to this day for this design.

ladder shelf example

Reviewing the good and bad examples above, you can really understand how design can impact our lives.

When a design of a product or service makes our lives harder and complicated and wastes our time, we would not want to use it. We would go out looking for something better, and THERE IS something better out there.

When a design of a product or service makes our lives easier, uncomplicated and saves us time, we would want to continue to use it and will be waiting for more innovation from that source.

This is human nature. Our species always thrives for more, and THIS makes the DESIGNER‘S job more challenging :)