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2.22.06
Lou Fuiano
Design and Destruction The design process is a beautiful thing. Basically, how we make and do anything is a form of design. Complex social and economic structures, communicating in conversation, even how we build a sandwich, are all forms of, and affected by, design. Norman makes a great point when he mentions "natural evolution of design". These are things that we perfect over time. Things to help make a job easier and save steps, thereby creating a better quality of life. This is where the design process has a remarkable appeal. It's a kind of magic. Magic that requires extremely hard work. I for one love the design process. I tend to start projects like a house on fire without real concern for finishing just to engage the process. On a good day, it can get you close to God... No, really! The origin of creative thought remains a mystery. Yet the design process is bristling with creative energy. In chapter five, Norman details "Models of human thought" and how it is not like logic. The process of making things draws on the "file cabinet theory" wherein we pull from many varied sources. It enables robust creative behavior. As a teenager, I always reserved the word creative for artistic people. Michealangelo and Picasso were creative people because, through art, they fabricated a new reality, a new perception, a new world. However, I later realized that this was a very narrow view. Design applies to the things we are in contact with in the here and now. In fact, design changes the here and now in a very tangible way. It affects how we dress, eat, work, live and die. So yeah, it's big business. The process of perfecting the typewriter based on mechanical constraints and user constraints is the stuff of legend. Most memorable about that story is how they had to destroy each new version to get to the final model. No small task seeing as it has held up over time to be the standard interface for how we create documents, intellectual content and various forms of communication. Of course this made me stop and think about the need to destroy in an effort to evolve. Is destruction the only way to develope. Or, more pointedly, is war a form of evolution? Seeing as humankind is a work in progress, are we not evolved enough or developed enough to be beyond a need to destroy?... but I digress. I do love to destroy things that I am working on. Sure, I just made more work for myself, but the next time around it will be better. (Except in art; often times the first thing you do is the best and last) The points in this chapter that had the most resonance were the "Forces that work against" a natural evolution in design. Things like tight schedules, small budgets and the need to market something as new, regardless if it's improved or not. Norman seems to have a delicious disdain for some designers, which is not completely unwarranted. He points out "Why designers go astray" and he takes cantankerous glee in lampooning seductive design models that baffle the user or simply don't work. However, it might be unfair to pin it all on the designer. It's more the mechanism of our economic structure that started during the industrial revolution. The manufacturers incessant need for product development > working in seamless association marketeers > who are in business to create a hook to feed our never ending product lust. When you look at it that way, it's just good clean fun and business being done. Should we fear design? Oh m'God! Notes/Chapter points THE NATURAL EVOLUTION OF DESIGN
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