Ben Byriel

I'm an MSc student of Digital Design & Communication at the IT University of Copenhagen. This tumblr is a scrapbook of stuff I'm reading, looking at, listening to and thinking about.

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Jan Chipchase on The Service Design Show

The Service Design Show is an excellent podcast. This episode with Jan Chipchase, is a special treat. He's a design researcher extraordinaire, founder of Studio D, and author of the recently released The Field Study Handbook.

He highlights the criticality of design-intent, which he feels isn't talked about enough:

"A lot of organisations I've seen that adopt human-centered design, they assume there will be a positive outcome... I don’t think there’s enough questioning of intent of why people are doing it - both on a personal level and then on an organisational level point as well. Human-centered design can be used for good and it can be used for evil, depending on how it's applied. For me the why-to is critically important. If you don't have that in place, you could be doing more harm than good."

On what he wishes will be the impact of the book (which he describes as a how-to/why-to guide), he again talks about intent, responsibility and the greater good:

"I wanna step away from the corporate consulting bullshit that is prevalent in the industry, in terms of human-centered. It's a pretty frank assessment of where we are. And I've tried to de-buzzwordify a lot of the things that are in there. Also at the same time I would like there to be people that have aligned their intent to the greater good and understand their responsibility of going out into the world and affecting change for customers and users. I would like to equip them to do that in the best possible way."

I'm gonna go do what I should have done months ago—buy his book.

[ben-byriel]

In Silicon Valley I use to think being too "human" was a weakness. Too empathetic, too emotional, too vulnerable, too feminine. Now I wear "human" was a badge of honor. The future lies in humanists building a human layer on top of technology.

— Bo Ren (@Bosefina) November 9, 2017

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[ben-byriel]

This will do

Muji, a Japanese brand and retailer of everything from household items to pre-manufactured houses, has made a worldwide name of it self thanks to its radical approach to design. Its full Japanese name, Mujirushi Ryohin, translates into “no-brand quality goods”, and has often used the slogan "Muji is enough". Their design is centered around utility, quality materials, efficient manufacturing and absence of decoration.

To quote their the chain's US about page:

[...] we do not make objects to entice responses of strong affinity, like, “This is what I really want” or, “I must have this.” MUJI's goal is to give customers a rational satisfaction, expressed not with, “This is what I really want” but with “This will do.” “This is what I really want” expresses both faint egoism and discord, while “This will do” expresses conciliatory reasoning. In fact, it may even incorporate resignation and a little dissatisfaction. MUJI's goal is to sweep away that slight dissatisfaction, and raise the level of the response, “This will do” to one filled with clarity and confidence.

Everything they make is actually really aesthetically pleasing in its simplicity, and I do find myself really wanting a lot of their stuff (I wish they had a store in Copenhagen). 

Muji is almost the reverse of the Danish-gone-international chain Flying Tiger Copenhagen, whose products are eye-catching, but almost always of very low production quality (their pencils can barely write and their headphones can barely play music) . 

Can the broader design community learn something from Muji’s “this will do” approach to design?  

[ben-byriel]

Dieter Rams’s 10 principles of good design

In the 70′s the famous industrial designer Dieter Rams formulated ten principles he believed defined good design: 

1. Good design is innovative. The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself. 

2. Good design makes a product useful. A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

3. Good design is aesthetic. The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4. Good design makes a product understandable. It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5. Good design is unobtrusive. Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

6. Good design is honest. It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept. 

7. Good design is long-lasting. It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society. 

8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.

9. Good design is environmentally-friendly. Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

10. Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

I generally agree with all of these, except maybe the one about innovation. Not all design can be innovative, and not all should be. Sometimes a conservative or traditional solution has merit, and the hunt for the new can quickly distract us from more worthy goals (think of our current, absurd thirst for “disruption”). As Rams wrote himself, innovation “[...]  can never be an end in itself”. 

Many of these principles seem to be in focus today, but often we seem to forget 6, 7 and 9. How many digital products and services sell themselves on promises they cannot keep? Why is it that so few digital products are designed for long term ownership? Why isen’t sustainability yet a requirement of everything we design? (The answer, of course, is capitalism). All designers now know that things should be pretty and user friendly. But we still have a way to go.