Measuring Good & Poor Design

It is imperative to understand the difference between good and poor design to innovate. There is no such thing as right or wrong design because every designed product/service/concept always has a room full of opportunities to be improved with modification considering the user journey. Steve Kirk and Brian Johnson conducted a theoretical analysis followed by a practical workshop to understand how to measure good and poor design.

Why are design principles relevant?

The most exciting concept that I learned was understanding the relevance of design principles and not simply gulping it to practice. There are four rooms which helps you to understand its significance:

1)The room of great work

2) The room of reason

3) The room of precedent

4) The room of not knowing

Ten principles of good design by Dieter Rams:

To understand the importance of good design, we were made aware of 10 fantastic principles suggested by Dieter Rams, a German Industrial Designer. Design principles should be considered by heart for the better functionality of the design process; otherwise, the designed product will fail to communicate the right message to the user. Following are the ten principles of good design by Dieter Rams:

1. Good design is innovative

2. Good design is honest

3. Good design makes a product useful

4. Good design is long-lasting

5. Good design is aesthetic

6. Good design thorough, down to the last detail

7. Good design makes a product understandable

8. Good design is environmentally-friendly

9. Good design is unobtrusive

10. Good design is as little as possible

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Workshop - Individual Exercise:

Brief - Pick three examples of good design and three measures of poor design and examine systems, theoretical texts and diagrams which can help justify, critically position and support your good and poor design choices.

Reflective Analysis and Learnings:

In the workshop process, we all brought our good and poor design examples, followed by analysis and discussion on each object. There were so many products to look up to, and also we were introduced to 3 different designs of Lemon Squeezer for us to understand the actual concept of good and poor design.

1. During this workshop, I learnt that every user is different and even the tiny object creates a significant impact in the user’s life according to its positive or negative functionality.

2. Considering my case of choosing the non-technological product (My day to day design book) as one of the examples of good design, similarly, there were many other products chosen by my peers which were really subtle and not technological yet good design.

3. Brands names don’t imply the decision-making of good and poor design; I observed that so many objects were fulfilling the criteria of good design, which belonged to small to medium scale brands.

4. There were many objects which created the debate and contrast of thinking between 2 different users, and that analysis proved that even after so much testing of products, there would be specific scenarios in real life that will impact the user, and it’s the product to decide between it being good or poor design. For instance, I selected the Epilator - Hair removal product for women as an example of good design, and at the same time, it was not an example of a perfect plan for my peer as she suffers much voice coming out of it while using an epilator and as a result, she cannot use it while watching/hearing something for that 1-2 hour/s.

5. Sometimes the product fails if the user is not entirely aware of its full use, which is the cause generated by the communication gap between the brand and user.

6. The measuring factors for good and poor design are reliability, satisfaction, and Utility.