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Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

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Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#11

Post by kradeelav »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

Content for school kids aged 5 to 9. There isn't much out there for them. Anything interactive and imaginative. Take a look at the curriculum for ideas of what teachers want to teach, most schools have laptops, chromebooks or iPads.

Are you by chance in that industry somehow? I'm (as a designer) with an organization that's looking to break into this very kind of niche - it's almost the other end of the problem ironically; we have plenty of resources, but very little insight in how it should be applied. Are there .pdf examples online that you would point to as a good base? Would you say the content needs to be different for parents vs teachers, and if so, what would most helpful for each?

(Thanks for the comment!)

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#13

Post by kyleschiller »

We (Zenysis) are a recent YC startup using technology to help Ministries of Health prevent epidemics and distribute vaccines in developing countries. Happy to talk if you want to learn more!

EDIT: We're in public health, but compensate competitively, offer significant equity and provide top-notch benefits.

Job posting on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13727071

Designer role: http://www.zenysis.com/designer.html

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#14

Post by josmar »

City Planning software is something I've been humming over a lot and for a long time. It's a perfect problem for computation with statistics - figure out practical actionable things for cities to do when optimising for things like walkability, public transit available, available storefront-rentals, et cetera. The world is catching up on the western nations, and the millions of cities joining the global middle class can be billions of dollars more efficient. A true way to better the world. The computational parts are doable (I'll be tech cofounder if required - not a visual artist though) but how is it best used?

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#15

Post by samstave »

josmar wrote: post #14

City Planning software is something I've been humming over a lot and for a long time. It's a perfect problem for computation with statistics - figure out practical actionable things for cities to do when optimising for things like walkability, public transit available, available storefront-rentals, et cetera. The world is catching up on the western nations, and the millions of cities joining the global middle class c…

I wonder what the chinese do WRT city plannin given the amount of building they have been doing, and if walkability plays a role in their designs, and what they use for said designs.

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#17

Post by zavulon »

I work for a company called Mark43.

We make software to help police officers do their jobs more efficiently - our applications literally help save lives. There's a lot of interesting design challenges - for example, emergency dispatchers look at our CAD (computer aided dispatch) software for many hours on large monitors.. how do you design it so their eyes don't get tired?

And then cops look at the same software on their laptops, as they're driving to respond to an emergency.. how do you make a notification "suspect is armed" stand out so they notice it among all other data?

We are looking for designers to help us solve these and other problems:

Product Designer: https://www.mark43.com/careers/700918/?gh_jid=700918

Sr. Product Designer: https://www.mark43.com/careers/119568/?gh_jid=119568

(New York City)

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#18

Post by jbob2000 »

evanwolf wrote: post #5

Healthcare user experience sucks. Last century kind of sucks. Find a job at Cerner or Epic who account for more than half of all hospital information systems and help clinicians avoid tragic errors, make faster and better decisions, understand health records more clearly, capture ideas/observations/memories.

I just left a healthcare company very similar to Cerner/Epic. The healthcare user experience sucks because the parties involved want it to suck.

Older doctors are highly resistant to change and will look for any opportunity to condemn your product. The nurse's unions will stop you in your tracks for taking away duties that a nurse should be doing (we had a client tell us we couldn't auto-fill date fields with today's date, the nurses had to do that). Patients with chronic illnesses do not want to use any apps at all, they have tried program after program over the years and are sick of hospitals forcing them to hop on and off a platform every 2-3 years (our diabetes app failed in trial because users didn't want to do anything but talk to the doctor).

Give healthcare another 10 years for the generation to turn over.

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#19

Post by old-gregg »

I always wanted a (relatively) simple mobile application to navigate public transportation in different cities. Basically an interactive map for public transport. They'd be easy to read, easy to understand how connections work, etc. Every city (or even every agency within a city) uses different, and often horrible, diagrams of their lines, like MUNI vs BART in San Francisco.

This is 90% designers problem. The engineering side of this is easy. Hard to say how you'd pay money for it, but if your maps are good, some cities may agree to pay to officially use them.

Google maps kind of does this for you (if you do "directions") but I just don't understand why it doesn't work... It gets me to a subway station and I start searching for the maps on walls.

But if done well, millions of people will be thanking you every day.

Re: Ask HN: What pressing world problems should a graphic designer work on?

#20

Post by rch »

samstave wrote: post #15
josmar wrote: post #14

City Planning software is something I've been humming over a lot and for a long time. It's a perfect problem for computation with statistics - figure out practical actionable things for cities to do when optimising for things like walkability, public transit available, available storefront-rentals, et cetera. The world is catching up on the western nations, and the millions of cities joining the global middle class c…

I wonder what the chinese do WRT city plannin given the amount of building they have been doing, and if walkability plays a role in their designs, and what they use for said designs.

There's been a lot of visible experimentation, but I've not seen anything indicative of a definitive strategy. I would be curious to know if there were any lessons learned from replicating old world European towns.
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