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Everyone Deserves Great Design

everyonedeservesgreatdesign.com

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Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#11

Post by jzwinck »

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

Absolutely. Coca-Cola (the drink, not necessarily the company) is a scourge and always has been. Giving access to Coke to everyone is the last thing we should want, but it is happening.

The One World Futbol the article seems to think is good costs $40 for two, and is supposed to serve the poor? How does that make sense? The truly poor make footballs (soccer balls) from garbage; will a $20 ball do anything really positive, or will it be used as a status symbol and perhaps stolen?

Another weird thing: the article praises the Casio F91-W wristwatch which is supposedly a favorite for making bomb timers. Sure it's ubiquitous but they could have picked something without such a troublesome reputation.

There is here an idea that people in the third world ought to have what people in the first world have. In some cases they might be better off without.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#13

Post by TempleOSV207 »

Niggers like Wonderbread. You cannot get a nigger to eat wheat bread.

Tinker toys suck. Legos are awesome.

Facebook sucks. It is nonintuitive. They try to make you do shit through coersion. Crappy. Little bastard trying to make me do certain shit.

God says, "Woe to those who mislead the little ones."

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#14

Post by fungi »

Talk of "social good" seems fairly shallow when you are failing accessibility pretty spectacularly. Obvious example being not having alt tags on images (and the few that they you do have are the file name).

Feels like another agency website... with above average hyperbole.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#15

Post by chewxy »

Discussion from the last time this was posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624189

I wrote:

>I wonder what OP thinks about things like the NeoNurture?

>I find the site quite disingenuous - it really feels like a First World Problem kinda thing. Yes, the prosthetic arm is lame and a poor design, but compared to having no arm, it's much much better.

>OP argues that design should be for everyone, and lays out 4 foundations of good design. He/She missed out the most important one: economics

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#16

Post by bshimmin »

I was interested by the choice of the Casio watch as a "great product". While they are certainly iconic watches that have survived the test of time, the user-friendliness of the alarm functionality is extremely dubious to me - three completely unmarked buttons that do stuff while somewhat cryptic symbols appear on the display, all dependent on what order the buttons are pressed.

My wife used to have one of these watches and frequently would accidentally set an alarm for some random time (usually 4am) and have absolutely no idea how to stop this happening. (I don't know if it had a manual or whether she ever read it, but she certainly hasn't read her iPhone's manual and doesn't struggle to set alarms with that.)

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#17

Post by ac2u »

jzwinck wrote: post #11
Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

Absolutely. Coca-Cola (the drink, not necessarily the company) is a scourge and always has been. Giving access to Coke to everyone is the last thing we should want, but it is happening. The One World Futbol the article seems to think is good costs $40 for two, and is supposed to serve the poor? How does that make sense? The truly poor make footballs (soccer balls) from garbage ; will a $20 ball do anything really pos…

I think his point was that in some cases the idea is to let the product get out there and let the people themselves decide as consumers, rather than someone arrogantly deciding that they would "be better off without".

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#18

Post by rm445 »

jzwinck wrote: post #11
Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

Absolutely. Coca-Cola (the drink, not necessarily the company) is a scourge and always has been. Giving access to Coke to everyone is the last thing we should want, but it is happening. The One World Futbol the article seems to think is good costs $40 for two, and is supposed to serve the poor? How does that make sense? The truly poor make footballs (soccer balls) from garbage ; will a $20 ball do anything really pos…

The football clearly hasn't been fully commercialised. A durable foam moulded ball is one of those ideas that's super-obvious but requires just the right material to actually be fun to kick. Surely once the right polymer and foam density have been found it can be churned out for pennies.

Re: Everyone Deserves Great Design

#20

Post by rm445 »

Mizza wrote: post #5

Does anybody else find this rather disturbing? Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism must harmonize with social good" - bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision of the future. The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative…

You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true many social workers tend that way.

We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly, and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate resources efficiently, and that deviating too far from this in the name of fairness will become self-defeating due to excessive waste. Extremists on both sides make it hard to have a sensible conversation.

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