Bad Design #22 - it's not just about you

It is very easy for product designers to get caught up in their own widgets, it's just normal to do so. A lot of passion is behind the creation of a product and hence so is the focus. But just like people are part of a society, products are part of a society too. In this particular case I am talking about the society of products.

"You know we live in a society"

Designers need to remember that their products will be interacting with other products.

Therefore they need to take this into consideration. They may not know all of the products that their particular widget will interact with, but there are some interactions that are a given. If the 'research', and subsequently the 'testing', have been completed thoroughly, then these "given" interactions will be known. But if they have not, then we get problems like this:

Surely this interaction was an obvious problem that should have been discovered at the testing phase. But it wasn't. There are many reasons why this could have happened. But there are also many reasons why this should not have happened. Usability, research, testing, understanding product interactions, understanding product use from start to finish... it's all part of design. Miss a step, or do a step halfheartedly and you get problems.

I shouldn't need to rearrange my power board to accommodate your inconsiderate plug.

Problem: Yes

Avoidable: Yes

Solutions: They already exist. But more importantly,

understand your product's life cycle.

CitizenRod is an entrepreneur, industrial designer, artist, and thinker. Follow his design commentary on Medium, his rants at citizenrod.com, his artwork at rodrigoantoniomunoz.com, and his startup at Maate.it.