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{% oer_resource id="#whatisdesign", type="SupportingMaterial" %} {% oer_property name="license", value="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" %} {% oer_property name="citation", value="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300171310/design-and-truth" %} {% oer_property name="name" %}

What is Design?

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Introduction

“The primary function of design is to shape and channel energy.”

– Robert Grudin

From the moment a person wakes up, they are interacting with design. Everything in the home, place of work, and journey to and from has been influenced by a designer of some kind. The degree of care for each designed artifact or experience can vary dramatically, giving people a range of experiences - from delight to dismay. Design as a field of practice has become more inclusive since the days of the Bauhaus, and in turn, has become harder to define.

At the broadest sense of design as a verb, it can be thought of the act of making a choice. In the broadest sense of design as a noun, it is the result of a choice. For the purposes of this course, design is the process that helps a person or group create, select, modify, and organize elements to satisfy an intended outcome. However, this definition does not define good design. A quick Internet search will reveal many ways of defining good design.

Good design

Dieter Rams, a famous industrial designer, has written a rather famous list of what makes for good product design. It follows:

  1. Good design is innovative
  2. Good design makes a product useful
  3. Good design is aesthetic
  4. Good design makes a product understandable
  5. Good design is unobtrusive
  6. Good design is honest
  7. Good design is long lasting
  8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail
  9. Good design is environmentally friendly
  10. Good design is as little design as possible

On page 29 in Design and Truth, Robert Grudin assembles a slightly longer list:

  1. Good design is in accord with nature and human nature
  2. Good design is in harmony with its immediate surroundings
  3. Good design converses with contingent technologies
  4. Good design helps to develop skill and/or imparts knowledge
  5. Good design extends a user's sensibilities and freedom
  6. Good design projects simplicity
  7. Good design minimizes difficulties and dangers
  8. Good design conveys a sense of beauty
  9. Good design gives pleasure to use
  10. Good design is not unreasonably expensive
  11. Good design is sustainable
  12. Good design allows a user to perform optimally in engaging reality
  13. Good design can be delivered, installed, and repaired conveniently

These lists were not meant to be hard rules that apply to everything, but can be helpful guidelines when making or evaluating work. {% endoer_property %} {% endoer_resource %}