Design a "Temporary" Chair

That chair

Have you ever looked around your home and felt overwhelmed by the amount of clutter? Perhaps you've got a pile of clothes sitting on a chair in your bedroom that just never seems to go away. You know the one - it's the "temporary" chair that you use to store your jackets when you come in from outside.

At my household, we're no strangers to this chair. It's a convenient spot to toss our jackets when we're in a hurry or too tired to hang them up in the closet. We tell ourselves that we might need them again soon for a quick walk or errand, but more often than not, they just sit there, gathering dust.

The allure of the temporary chair is easy to understand. It takes less effort to drape a jacket over its back than it does to hang it in the closet. And the chair gives us a sense of security, a feeling that our clothes will be at hand when we need them for a quick jaunt outside or an early morning appointment.

But convenience comes at a cost. The pile of clothes on the chair can quickly grow tall and unruly, creating a mess that undermines the very convenience that drew us to the chair in the first place. And so, we are left with a conundrum: how to balance our need for ease with our desire for order.

Other physical & digital things

The temporary chair is a metaphor for our relationship with all the things in our lives, physical and digital. From shoes and receipts to emails and photos, these items have different levels of utility and emotional resonance, and they require different processes for use, share, storage, and disposal.

E2E journeys

As a designer, I am intrigued by this challenge. How can we create systems and processes that help people manage their belongings in a way that is both convenient and orderly? How can we design solutions that help people build better relationships with their things, so that they can enjoy the benefits of ownership without being burdened by the clutter?

These are complex questions, but they are also exciting ones. By examining the end to end (E2E) journeys that we take with our belongings, we can develop a deeper understanding of our relationship with the objects in our lives. And with that understanding, we can begin to design solutions that are not just functional, but also emotionally resonant and aesthetically beautiful.

So the next time you see an organisation problem whether it is digital or physical things, take a moment to think about this "temporary chair" and investigate the E2E journeys.