Great Designs

by: Anastasia Stanislawa Malicka

Introduction

Throughout millennia, our efforts to establish a separation from and domination over the natural environment, is marked with landmarks showcasing human ingenuity and desire to create great things. They constitute the foundation of our present civilization, which is constantly evolving and establishing new milestones for the next generations to admire. The ability to incorporate both, the physical and the divine aspects in their designs is what makes some of the ancient structures timeless that continue to inspire us. They challenge us to even greater creativity, not only in their artistic expression, but also in our sophistication to advance our progress. We are faced with a unique challenge, not only to design for fulfillment of our needs, but also to accomplish it responsibly, respecting our natural resources which are integral to sustain our life.

In the Design of Everyday Things and the Interaction Design, there are many approaches that are proposed to achieve great designs. Some of the characteristics, such as discoverability and understanding are essential to any good design. Our experiences with the new product designs can be optimized by fundamental principles of interaction. They include concepts such as affordances, signifiers, constraints, mapping, and feedback. All of the above concepts can help us to achieve our design objectives, focusing on improving human experiences with new products. However, the next challenge in our future designs is not only to consider human experiences, but also to consider how our designs impact other, non-users of our designs, and our environment in which we co-exist.

The User Experience

Every day we interact with many products, designed to improve our ability to function and advance in increasingly diverse societies. Some of the simple items such as coffee makers or blenders are part of our everyday routine, not requiring a lot cognitive effort to operate and they offer us a lot of enjoyment to operate. There are some more complex products that drastically evolved our communication ability. They include cell phones, laptops, tablets and apple or android watches. They make us accessible 24/7 and becoming more complex to operate, requiring a lot of cognitive effort, especially in populations not considered as their primary target users.

The user experience includes the users’ overall impressions and feelings associated with the use of the new product. It should be based on a good understanding of people in the context in which they live, work, and learn. However, that is not always the case leading to many products’ recall or malfunction, not to mention triggering a lot of frustration among their users. There is a greater emphasis on introduction of more new products to the market at the faster pace than to address diverse needs of various populations. This is especially true relating to accommodating needs of people with various disabilities or aging population. The message is very clear, if you are not part of our primary target population, you are on the margin list and the new products are not designed to address your special needs. With the future introduction of implantable technologies, initially for medical applications, then for life-style augmentations, are most likely to amplify such disparities in user experiences. The irony is that the greatest need for such an innovative products’ is among the sub-population that could realize the greatest value from it, however they are not considered in the new product design concepts. If this type of approach was used within the pharmaceutical sector, we would be introducing new cancer treatments among health population. 

There is another aspect that needs to be considered when designing and introducing new technologies. There are sub-populations where their sensitivity relating to how we interact is different from the rest of the population. This includes different ethnic and religious groups. So far, none of the manufactures launched any specific products to address their diverse needs and expectations, forcing them to adopt to the rest of general public norms. It is surprising that none of the above groups raised any public awareness about the violations of their social norms and ethics.

Additional complexity associated with the future design concepts is their impact on the global environment. The amount of new electronic products is escalating and their frequent updates trigger a new environmental threat, adding to the existing problems contributing to global pollution. The future designs need to include more environmentally-friendly approach to developing new products. They have to consider their long-term impact on our environment, as well as their functionality and value they generate to their customers. There are not many design concepts that allow us to look at their social and environmental impact over the long-term. This lack of responsible approach to our new product development process is evident with many global crises we are struggling with presently and this trend is most likely to escalate as our focus remains on profitability and creating short-term user satisfaction.    

Reference

Norman, D. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things. [Revised & expanded edition]. Basic Books. New York, NY.

Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H. (2019). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. 5th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, IN.