Design Perspective

As I was sitting in an Airport terminal at Philadelphia International reading John Maeda’s book Simplicity I realized a new aspect of design that I had never really thought of before. Maeda writes “The average person spends at least an hour a day waiting in line. Add to this the uncountable seconds, minutes, weeks spent waiting for something that may have no line at all… As a child the idea of waiting is something foreign and simply intolerable. But waiting is what we do in the adult world. We do it all the time” (30.) I, at the time was doing just that, waiting for my plane to arrive, waiting to be in Providence, waiting to see all of my friends, and waiting for classes to start back up. The idea of waiting is an integral part of our lives, which drives us to search for the next event than might come our way.

As the speed of the Internet increases and digital media becomes more efficient we expect to find all information in a moment’s notice, we are in a search to reduce the amount of time we spend waiting for answers. You can type in a topic on Google search and a second later have ten thousand websites with different solutions. With such efficient delivery of information available to the masses we have become a fast paced and impatient society, always looking for the next thing to conquer.

The field of design has also become very fast paced. Last year in design principles studio the most played song on everyone’s computers and iPods was Kanye West’s “Stronger.” This song very much encapsulates the current popular approach to design. The opening of the song reads “Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger” The concept that good design is being able to design in the least amount of time possible and it must improve upon the existing design. The mental attitude towards the design process has become fueled by this fast paced attitude. This attitude has greatly been influenced by mass production of products. As the time it takes to design a product is reduced in order to make cost points, larger corporations are not so much concerned if their products are good but rather how much they are going to make per unit. This assembly line attitude had pervaded into the design.

While it is important to design for manufacturability, and affordability, I believe that is also important to keep in mind the Avant Guard aspects of design as well. Together they fuel each other. High end design often leads to the exploration of new forms and materials that otherwise may not have been seen. Right now many products using smart materials are being developed but because the technology is relatively new and unknown the products are in a very high price range. The introduction to these smart materials is at a high cost, but the more and more the materials become used in products the cheaper the that material will become, and eventually that technology will be available for everyone.

The touch screen is a part of technology that has done just that. When the touch screen was first evolved it was used mostly by larger corporations that could afford to buy touch screens to replace the traditional cash register. I good example of commercial use of a touch screen Is Wawa’s intuitive touch screen ordering system in which you can order and customize your own deli sandwich. The use of this system, installed in 1999, has increased the efficiency of the Wawa deli nearly doubling their sales and efficiency. As the common person became more familiar with using the intuitive touch screen menu touch screen technology began to develop for personal use. HP has come out with the new Touch Smart PC which is a computer run by touching the screen of the computer. This technology is still not affordable to everyone, as this computer at base cost will set you back $1300. The touch screen has become more affordable in the apple Iphone. At a reasonable price it has become available to the masses. When designing, it is important to keep in mind both designing for the masses and designing for the Avant Guard. However as a designer it is important to make a distinction as to which you are designing for.

In my current advanced studio, service design, we have been designing concepts of how a specific service would work to enhance the users experience. The idea of designing not only objects but of designing the use of a service and the different touch points that influence the users opinion has become our focus of design. As a designer I am just beginning to contemplate, how I design, and what aspects are the most important to me. I have realized that to me this idea of human interaction and experience has always been very important to me. My first taste of designing truly on a larger scale for human interaction was last year in the Exhibit design project. In which we were asked to research a design history object, and create an experience that clearly modeled the and presented information in a understandable way. The idea of how someone would interact with a display and how to gain a viewers attention was something we had not covered previously in DP.

As far as my own design perspective is considered I am a young designer and have not fully had a chance to define my role as designer. I know that I like to design more abstractly for experience, because at the end of the day, if the experience that a user has with any product is not a good one then they are extremely unlikely to actually buy that product, or use that service again. The idea of designing more of an idea, something that you cannot physically touch is intriguing and inspiring. How can I as a designer make the waiting and experiences one has more enjoyable?