Designers Live in a Hellscape Created by Other Designers
Veteran product designer explains why this is a good thing
“You ruined my life! All I see everywhere is bad design!”
— A non-designer friend
The outburst surprised me. I guess years of listening to me point out bad design finally took its toll. Instead of just traveling blithely through life, my friend now found himself scrutinizing everything around him, often finding things lacking, ill-conceived, and frustrating.
“Congratulations,” I told him. “You’re now officially a designer.”
“I guess one of the curses of what you do (as a designer) is that you’re constantly looking at something and thinking, ‘Why is it like that and not this?’ And so, in that sense, you’re constantly designing.”
One night, after listening to me gripe about yet another example of poor design — it might have been a TV remote, light switch, or photo app — my wife said, “It must be miserable being you.” I knew what she meant: I’m always judging things around me. When something doesn’t work as expected, I conduct an on-the-spot audit and redesign. I’m not miserable, though. Well, at least not about my ad hoc redesigns.
