Movie Response

Two big points really stuck out to me from the in-class movie: (1) Good design will make the object make sense and (2) good design is as little design as possible. When these points were presented, they went on to talk about Apple and how innovative yet intuitive their products are. Apple products are made to be so user friendly that there is no question on why something is designed the way that it is. The functions and designs of Apple products are received in a way that makes sense. “Makes sense” meaning that it is as if there is no other way the technology could have been designed; it is made that way because of course it was made that way! Why would it be any other way? This way just makes sense.

The movie went on to interview a designer from Apple. He explained how they tried to design functions on the MacBook Pro to be subtle signals to the user (blinking light on the front that lets the user know that the device is on) but that when the device is being used and there is no use for that function, it fades away as if it was never there. Another function that the MacBook Pro has is the battery life bar on the left side. There is a button to press that will show the user the battery life of the laptop without having to actually open the laptop. I think that features like this are important, especially for aesthetics purposes; small features that offer support but don’t overwhelm the design. After having that pointed out to me in the movie, it really started to make sense of all other Apple products and the way we interact with them.

I think that these two points are the biggest takeaways for me and my major/minor. It will be important for me to keep users and consumers in mind when working in advertising and/or web design. Making things almost painfully obvious for the user can only be a beneficial thing. You never want to make your users/consumers feel stupid, so making things make sense is the best way to avoid that issue.