I found a lot of chapter 6 to be an interesting read. Around page 86, the author writes about how the designer’s personal design philosophy begins to compete against the traditions and norms of usability and even challenges the tendency towards common sense. Designers make conscious decisions to go against the norms. As a graphic designer, I can compare this to working on a grid with a flow line and deciding to break the grid for part of the layout. This does one of two things: it can either make your layout, or product in the case of interaction design, stand out or it goes horribly and viewers don’t like it. Designers can spend years learning about the importance of things like color, balance, and so on but these poetics of art can clash with the fundamental need for usability.
The author mentions that people often construct their place in the world through the products they buy, and if your product can’t even be used properly due to the importance placed on artistic qualities rather than usability, then what was the purpose?
The part in this chapter that I liked the most and admittedly made me excited was on page 87. The page starts with a quote that reads “Design serves as a cultural backdrop for our world. A designer makes subtle decisions that individually seem insignificant, yet each decision is amplified in scope as they are released into society en masse.” There are so many times that I sit around people studying nursing, biology, and engineering and feel like I’m selfish for choosing a career that doesn’t exactly help people the way nursing would. I feel like graphic design just doesn’t have the same impact on people’s lives. And this just isn’t true. Depending on what I do with my career, I do have the chance to make some change. My individual projects may seem insignificant, but over time I’m helping shape a culture. And people are so happy about their culture, it’s something that they hold dear and take everywhere with them. So I’m so happy that this book went over something that I’m sure bothers other designers as well. It shows just how important design is.