Good design vs Bad design-Interaction design.
Design is everywhere. If we look around, we will understand why the word ‘design’ has soo much importance. From a human brain to a crawling ant everything has a design. And every design has a meaning.
Me personally I would have never differentiated design as a good or a bad design. I really appreciate each and every design surrounding me.
As Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc. said “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Based on what Steve Jobs said design is how it works. This means, if a design fails to work then it's a bad design. Here is where differentiation comes.
So, to understand the concept of good design and bad design, Dieter Rams a German industrial designer developed the 10 principles of good design.
A Good Design:
- Is innovative
- Makes a product useful
- Is aesthetic
- Makes a product understandable
- Is unobtrusive
- Is honest
- Is long-lasting
- Is thorough down to the last detail
- Is environmentally friendly
- Involves as little design as possible
Let's identify good design and bad design from our daily life:
<-G-O-O-D-D-E-S-I-G-N->
1.Colour Pen
It is a well-designed product because it's very much understandable. Looking at the pen anyone can figure out that it is a green-colored pen. First of all the look of the pen, it has very little design and end green part speakers itself. The rounded corner of the pen cap makes it very user-friendly and it is very easy to open the cap also.
2.Torch
This is a rechargeable torch with a lantern and I am very happy using this product. And it's a very good design for sure.
Looking at the picture and considering the good design principles
let's understand, what makes this product a well-designed product..?
- It is very simple in design means very little design.
- It has both the function of torch and lantern makes it a very useful product.
- Mobile
- It's rechargeable and the time is taken by it to recharge is also very less.
- It has the power to protect it from over-discharge and overcharge.
- Saves Energy
- and has a 360-degree rotation foldable hung hook to hang anywhere you want.
3.Hand Fan
This is a hand-crafted fan used by many people in India. When there is no electricity or too much hot climate peoples use this type of hand fans.If I have to describe why it is a good design? then i will say,
- It's a very innovative product.
- easily understandable.
- It's truly long-lasting.
- very environmentally friendly.
- aesthetic in look.
- overall very useful product and does its job very well.
4.Lighter
It is a very simple lighter used to light gas stove. In my opinion, it is very innovative design makes lighting gas stove very easy. It does not cause any harm to our environment. It is a very simple to understand and really long-lasting product. As a product, it is very user-friendly and works very well.
5.Scale
It is a garment measuring wooden scale used mostly by the tailor for measuring fabrics and for cutting the fabric properly. Other than this it can be used for measuring many other things also like paper etc and we can use this for drawing a proper line. If we think broadly it has multipurpose use.
It is really a good design because it is very simple in design, environmentally friendly, a very useful product, has been used for many years and very easy to understand.
<-B-A-D-D-E-S-I-G-N->
1.Vegetable peeler
Instead of peeling the skin of the vegetable it actually peels most part of the vegetable which causes wastage. Causing wastage of vegetables is not the purpose of this peeler which makes it a badly designed product.
2.Whatsapp messages
We delete messages on Whatsapp so that the other person can't see the message but here what happens ultimately. It showed this message was deleted to the other person. They really need to work on this issue. For this reason, I consider it a bad design.
3.Spray Bottle
Look at the spray bottle way I called it a bad design. The pipe of this spray bottle is not down to the bottom. when the liquid comes down the pipe level it gets wasted because we are unable to use it.
4.Egg Tray
This egg tray says that it can protect the eggs from getting broken and the tray is easy to carry. But is it really doing that….! as you can see in the image after filling the tray it is not possible to close the tray and to avoid this we have to make our brain work and tie it with a rope. This is what it was made for…?obviously no and this is the only reason why I put it in a bad design list.
5.Business card
Let's look at the points why I call this a badly designed business card:
- It is not at all eye shooting creating a lot of crowd.
- There is no point of focus.
- It has no visual hierarchy.
- The font selection is very bad here .
- The color is also not creating any kind of visual interest.
This business card is not going to appeal to customers.
