Is “design” more like invention, or more like decoration?

According to Wikipedia, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component. That sounds more like invention to me.

But then you have Michael Beirut bringing up the other side:

Perhaps design is the field of mindless prettiness. But hasn’t it always been so? After all, most of us entered the profession not because we’ve determined after long thought that it represented a more effective way of influencing the course of world events than, say, law or medicine. Instead, somewhere along the way, we discovered we liked making things look good, and that we were better at it than other people.

(I won’t lie, this quote threw me for a bit of a loop. And it’s funny, if I did “become a designer”, his not-reason would be exactly why.)

Or is it just that they’re using the word design to mean two very different things?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

I seem to be developing a habit of doing some kind of year-in-review post around the time of the Fall Equinox.

It’s interesting to read what I wrote last year, from the perspective of a year later. I mean wow, what a time of huge changes that was. I wonder if there will ever come a time when I’ll look back on the year past and think, “yeah I’m pretty much the same person I was then”. I don’t think it’s happened yet…

Anyways, onward to This Year in Sentence Fragments.

Work: 2 rotations down, 1 to go. Learning SO much. Figuring out what I want to do and how to best apply my talents, in the short-term. Thinking about the longer term too, but not doing anything about it yet. Am I a designer, a programmer, or both? Bought a car, which then got broken into. Relationship stuff. Performed with Spiral Song, took a break, then came back. Continuing to grow with largely the same friends. Moved from my city full of lovely old things and crime, to a small town full of lovely old things (and less crime). Not living with J anymore — an adjustment, but good. Sister’s wedding. Moved from focusing heavily on writing to visual art. Drawing class. Freelance work for AYSO. Trip to Missouri. Figuring things out.

Yeah, if I had to put it into one sentence, this might have been the year of Figuring Things Out. And also becoming more settled, although I still don’t really have roots.

We prefer to be called Buccaneer-Americans.

(For those who are confused right now: International Talk Like a Pirate Day.)

1) reCAPTCHA

About 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that’s not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. What if we could make positive use of this human effort? reCAPTCHA does exactly that by channeling the effort spent solving CAPTCHAs online into “reading” books.

[…]

reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.

This is such a neat idea. It really is a great example of that most clever type of design that draws on people’s self-interest to contribute to a greater good.

2. The Brick Testament

Someone has a) a good knowledge of the Bible, b) a weird sense of humor, and c) waaaay too much time on his hands.

3. My newest favorite XKCD comic

Is it weird that I’ve actually wanted to rappel down the outside of my office building for the longest time?

(Yes, I admit it: This post is a cop-out because I don’t have any original content right now.)

1) The order of grades of gas on a gas pump.

The vast majority of the time, the cheap grade of gas is on the left side of the row. However, there’s one particular gas station chain where the order is reversed, and the most expensive grade is on the left.

I’ll bet that chain makes a lot of money from consumers who accidentally purchase the premium grade instead of regular unleaded. I know I almost do that, all the time. So standardization in this case would probably have to be imposed from the outside.

2) The location and design of the wipers, headlights, and turn signals in cars.

It isn’t just annoying that this is always different; it could be a safety concern when driving a new or unfamiliar car. At worst, you could end up blinding an oncoming driver instead of turning on your windshield wipers in the rain. At best, it distracts attention from the road, which is never a good thing.

A friend once argued, when I mentioned this, that it was a branding method for car manufacturers. That doesn’t ring true to me; when was the last time you heard the location and operation of the windshield wipers trumpeted in an automobile ad? I think that standardizing these three things would still leave plenty of room for brand differentiation in the rest of a car’s interior.

3) The way you set the time on a digital watch.

I always dread the return to Standard Time, because I know that even though we get an hour back, I’ll spend about that long trying to figure out how to set my damn watch.

It has four buttons; you’d think that one of them would allow you to change the time. But no, they managed to design it such that setting the time involves three of the buttons (all of them but “glow”), which have to be pressed in a particular combination, including some which must be held down for three seconds to change the mode. I’ve had this watch for more than three years, and I still can’t remember how to do this every time.

I feel like analog watches have this down pretty well. Digital watches should follow suit.

From Part I: It’s the problem that you’re trying to address, and not the field of design into which it (primarily) falls, that makes a project important or not.

If this is true, that’s unfortunate in a way, because it means that I can’t be assured of doing meaningful work just by getting into the right field, or getting the right degree from the right school. It’s not so easy as all that. Every field has its frivolous aspects, which may still bring joy and definitely make money, but which aren’t as important to me; likewise, every field has its interesting problems.

If there’s no easy answer, then what is the answer? I can only share my own answer, which is necessarily personal to me.

First, what I can do is look at the types of problems I’m most interested in working on. Am I interested in figuring out how to convey important information in a clear and elegant way, or how to use words and images to spread a message and persuade? Am I interested in designing products that meet real needs and actually improve people’s lives? Am I interested in creating information environments that allow people to access and understand important data, or that bring people together and help them communicate? Am I interested in designing physical spaces that encourage community and that work with nature instead of against? All of these things are valuable, but I can’t do everything. I need to pick a direction of focus.

Second, once I pick a direction, I need more education. I need to be able to speak the lingo, to know the history and background, to have a toolbox of abilities upon which I can draw. I need to know current state, past states, and thoughts toward the future. I need to know people, places, and times. And most of all, I need practice and feedback, the kind that I can probably best get in a group of other people who are doing the same thing.

Third, once I get some education, I need to practice and practice and practice some more. I need to work, and to create, and to develop authority. I need to create a reputation for myself, and build respect so that people will listen to me. I need to become known. And practice, and practice, and practice some more.

And while I’m practicing and building my skills, I’m also observing, and noting problems that exist, and coming up with ideas. And while I’m doing that, I’m also trying to network and align myself with institutions and people that can support me and my work.

And then at some point, magic happens and the stars align, and I take a flying leap out onto the limb of a badly mixed metaphor and do something with it all. Something that really matters. Something that I know is the Point Of It All. (This is the point where my logic runs out, and I can only assume that I’ll know it when I see it. Hey, I never said I had it all figured out!)

This doesn’t sound rational, or easy, or glamorous. And worst of all to an impatient person like me, it sounds like it might take a damn long time.

Nonetheless. Nonetheless, the part of me that grew up believing in Big Stories, and believing that God had a purpose for every life, still believes. (Although I wouldn’t perhaps put it in quite the same words.) It’s not quite hip and cynical, I know, but somewhere buried in me is an incurable optimist, foolish enough to believe that I can do something that matters.

But not foolish enough to believe that it will fall into my lap without a damn lot of hard work. Which is okay, I’m good for that.