The work of people like Hiroshi Ishii not only informs and instructs us, but also places a huge challenge on our design practice. It is so easy to follow the path set out by others, recreating what works.
The difficulty seems to be that moving away from the mind and into the body is a challenge. How do we think about something that should be felt? It is far too easy to rely on the accumulated experience that we have learnt and explore things for how they are.
Moving off the path allows us to get lost, but also enables us to make new discoveries. I believe that until we are prepared to embrace failure, we will never be able to go far enough to fully succeed.
Of course, this means taking inspiration not from other designers, but from other places.
Biomimicry is one way of sourcing inspiration.
Stopping to smell the flowers is another.
Watching the mistakes of children and outsiders is probably the best.
When a person makes a mistake it is likely due to a misunderstanding. The person is trying what makes sense to them; not following a set of made up rules that made sense to someone else. This is where designers should be learning; by looking at how things and people actually work, not as they do.
Put things where they should to be, not where they need to be is probably the start. Touchscreens are a great example of this. The arbitrary use of a mouse, trackpad or keyboard does not make sense. We see the information on the screen, so that is where we should interact with it. All you have to do is sit still for long enough in a shopping centre and you will probably see a small child try to interact with an advertising light box by touching its surface.
However, sometimes it takes technology a while to catch up, so we find work arounds and make amends. The problem is that humans learn quickly and the irrational quickly becomes the norm. The secret is in unlearning and leaving the path.
The difficulty seems to be that moving away from the mind and into the body is a challenge. How do we think about something that should be felt? It is far too easy to rely on the accumulated experience that we have learnt and explore things for how they are.
Moving off the path allows us to get lost, but also enables us to make new discoveries. I believe that until we are prepared to embrace failure, we will never be able to go far enough to fully succeed.
Of course, this means taking inspiration not from other designers, but from other places.
Biomimicry is one way of sourcing inspiration.
Stopping to smell the flowers is another.
Watching the mistakes of children and outsiders is probably the best.
When a person makes a mistake it is likely due to a misunderstanding. The person is trying what makes sense to them; not following a set of made up rules that made sense to someone else. This is where designers should be learning; by looking at how things and people actually work, not as they do.
Put things where they should to be, not where they need to be is probably the start. Touchscreens are a great example of this. The arbitrary use of a mouse, trackpad or keyboard does not make sense. We see the information on the screen, so that is where we should interact with it. All you have to do is sit still for long enough in a shopping centre and you will probably see a small child try to interact with an advertising light box by touching its surface.
However, sometimes it takes technology a while to catch up, so we find work arounds and make amends. The problem is that humans learn quickly and the irrational quickly becomes the norm. The secret is in unlearning and leaving the path.
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