
Everyone Deserves Great Design - cpeterso
http://www.everyonedeservesgreatdesign.com/#now
======
Mizza
Does anybody else find this rather disturbing?

Even from the outset, "We live in a new age where globalization & capitalism
must harmonize with social good" \- bold faced newspeak. Anybody who has ever
actually done social work who couldn't help but to see this as a bleak vision
of the future.

The page goes even further, listing examples of well-intentioned although
ineffective, dubbed "useless", designs in a negative light, and then showing
Coca-Cola of all things as as the first example of a positive product,
designed for everybody.

Though most of the design sense and advice here is good from a product
perspective, to propose that capitalism is the solution to the problems shown
here, or rather vaguely hinted at, is to me a disturbing vision. Capitalism is
in many cases the primary contributing factor to them, all this mentality
proposes is to give with one hand and take away with the other - and then feel
accomplished and morally cleansed by the process.

There is much more to building a better world than building consumer products.
If this is the best we can do, I am saddened.

~~~
rm445
You'll find it disturbing if you fundamentally distrust capitalism. It's true
many social workers tend that way.

We won't settle anything in this discussion: it's fundamental to the left-
right divide. One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly,
and this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough. The
other side thinks that market forces are the only way we know to allocate
resources efficiently, and that deviating too far from this in the name of
fairness will become self-defeating due to excessive waste. Extremists on both
sides make it hard to have a sensible conversation.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> One side thinks that it's vital to allocate resources fairly

It is actually capitalism that thinks that it is vital to allocate resources
fairly. Communists, on the other hand, think that resources should be
allocated _equally_ with no regard to fairness. "To each according to his
need."

> this can be done efficiently if only people would be good enough.

And until people get good enough, which in reality will never happen,
communists think that the use of force to take from those who have and give to
those who dont is perfectly justifiable.

> The other side thinks that market forces are the only way

Nope. The other side thinks that central planing and big goverment are a
source of abuse of power. A free market isnt a perfect solution, but it is the
lesser of two evils. If nobody has massive power, nobody can abuse power
massively. There inevitably will be some abuse in a free market, but not in
the orders of magnitude of, say, North Korea, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and
other central planning epic fails.

> deviating too far from this in the name of fairness

It is not done in the name of fairness, but in the name of equality. If
fiarness was the goal, communism would be the side trying to not interfere and
to leave everybody alone. But it is not. Communism is the side advocating
maximum interventionism, of requiring (and enforcing) sacrifices for a
centrally planed "greater good" etc.

> Extremists on both sides make it hard to have a sensible conversation.

In my view, the only way to solve it would be to create communist and
capitalist zones, and make it legally impossible to change that economic basis
of a zone. The "conversation" would then amount to fans of capitalism and
communism moving to their preferred zone. Neither side would be trying to
forcibly make the other side live under their economic religion.

The problem is that the left doesnt actually want to draw that border between
takers and makers, because they _are_ takers trying to get total control of
the makers in order to exploit their productivity.

As long as communists are able to get control of a whole state and then
forcibly redistribute _other_ people's wealth, there will be a state of
perpetual low-intensity warfare between the left and the right. Knowing that
once you give communists a single finger, they will feel entitled to the whole
hand and try to forcibly amputate it, is not in any way extremism, but
knowlege of history paired with a sense of self-preservation.

What point does it make to have a conversation with people who are basically
trying to legally mug you?

~~~
rm445
Meaning no slight to your character in general, in this conversation you are
one of the extremists.

There are plenty of countries (large parts of Western Europe post-WWII) which
have had predominantly left-leaning governments for 60+ years and not devolved
into centrally-planned communist states. There's a genuine debate to be had
about the role of governments, markets, taxation and distribution, but trying
to frame it as the world threatened by the sword of communism hanging over all
our heads just stakes out your position way out on one side and signals a
refusal to enter any kind of debate.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> in this conversation you are one of the extremists.

It is extremism if and only if refusing to negotiate with muggers also is
extremism.

> trying to frame it as the world threatened by the sword of communism

Whether the world at whole is threatened or not I dont know (people seem to
survive in North Korea), but leftists like you certainly threaten my income
and my freedom. If you scheme to force me to give a part of the products of my
labor to you, it is the same thing as forcing me to work a part of my workday
for you. In my eyes, wanting to force people to work for you against their
will makes _you_ an extremist.

> signals a refusal to enter any kind of debate.

If you carefully observe, we're already debating right now. But you seem to be
more preoccupied with labeling your opponents as extremist, refusing to
debate, etc, than with debating itself. Refusing to play the "let's meet at
the middle ground" game doesnt imply refusing to debate at all. It just means
your argument (communism is good, so gimme your stuff) is too nonsensical to
make me accept even parts of it as reasonable.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> your argument (communism is good, so gimme your stuff) is too nonsensical

Can you quote that argument actually made by anyone in the thread you are
responding to?

> you seem to be more preoccupied with labeling your opponents

Your own post jumped immediately "distrusting capitalism", "social workers"
and "allocating resources fairly" to "communism" and "muggers", so I think
it's fair to say you're projecting. And it reminded me of this:

 _We 've changed. And we've become contemptuous of the idea that we're all in
this together. This is about sharing. And about, you know... when you say
sharing, there is a percentage of the population, and it's the moneyed percent
of our population, that hears "socialism" or "communism" or any of the other
-isms they wanna put on it, but ultimately, we are all a part of the same
society, and it's either gonna be a mediocre society that, you know, abuses
people, or it's not._

\-- David Simon (
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s)
)

~~~
muuh-gnu
> Can you quote that argument actually made by anyone in the thread you are
> responding to?

I can quote you quoting David Simon: "This is about sharing."

If "sharing" implies forcibly mugging those people who do not _want_ to share
--and it of course does-- is is just an euphemism for outright communism.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> I can quote you quoting David Simon: "This is about sharing."

So you magically knew I would post that?

> If "sharing" implies forcibly mugging those people

Yeah, IF. A mighty huge if. I wonder how it can be so huge... is it filled
with straw perhaps?

------
bryans
I'm confused by how the plastic chair receives such high praise for its
design, affordability and ease of maintenance, but adding wheels to that same
chair somehow makes it an example of a "useless" product with poor design.

For $78, the organization is able to produce and ship a wheelchair around the
world. They are able to use or augment existing products, which drastically
reduces the cost of development, tooling, and production. As far as I can
tell, the next cheapest option would cost a minimum of $150, with an equally
cheap production quality.

Is it the best quality product ever made? Not at all. But it's not meant to
be. It's meant to effectively serve the most number of people with the
smallest amount of capital. In that sense, this product meets all of its
design and mission goals. To declare otherwise based on some arbitrary
"prettiness" factor is pretentious, at best.

------
DanBC
The article criticises the cheap prosthetic hand.

Sure, it'd be great if better prosthetics were available at an affordable
cost. They're not.

The competition is DIY prosthetics using old soda bottles and hot air.

[http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yvev6shNvSg](http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yvev6shNvSg)

------
chewxy
Discussion from the last time this was posted:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624189)

I wrote:

>I wonder what OP thinks about things like the NeoNurture?

>I find the site quite disingenuous - it really feels like a First World
Problem kinda thing. Yes, the prosthetic arm is lame and a poor design, but
compared to having no arm, it's much much better.

>OP argues that design should be for everyone, and lays out 4 foundations of
good design. He/She missed out the most important one: economics

------
Mikeb85
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are brilliant designers and
inventors in poor countries. And there is the saying "Necessity is the mother
of invention"... What we need to be doing is empowering people (education,
investment), and they'll blaze their own trail.

------
jacquesm
This is totally misguided. The simple facts are that 'great design' is not the
single factor in success or failure of any kind of product, and that not all
things created through charities are failures.

Of course if you want to peddle the opposite then you can support your weak
position by selecting examples from the real world underpinning it but these
are just instances and not generalizations. You could just as easy argue the
opposite using different examples (capitalism is the root of all evil and
nonprofits are the way forward).

Neither of these positions is supported by all the data available, so like in
many other cases the situation is more complex than what you can easily catch
in a soundbite and a blogpost.

The monkey video embedded makes a completely different point than the one that
the author wants to extract from it: that two monkeys doing the same work
side-by-side expect equal pay. It has nothing to do with 'products' or
'design'.

I get the dig at the prosthetic arm (the writer is co-founder of
[http://madebybump.org/#global](http://madebybump.org/#global)), but since
that's a non-profit I have no idea why the capitalism angle is emphasized so
much.

"""Have you ever wondered about how a homeless person on the side of the
street and the leader of the free world consume the same fizzy soda drink just
to have a fleeting moment of happiness?"""

If your happiness comes from drinking cola then you have other problems.

Maybe this is some kind of elaborate satire?

------
sammermpc
This is a primer in a kind of design language mumbo-mumbo. It's not clear what
the conclusions even are, beyond a few pithy throw-away phrases...mysterious.

------
a-nikolaev
The article is a reminder to all well-intentioned people: When working on
something, design it as if you are going to use it yourself. Abstracting your
customer is not acceptable. Especially if they are people with disabilities,
or if they live in less developed countries than yours. If you are making a
pump for them, make a good pump. If you are making a football, make a good
football. If people need simple but functional, sturdy and efficient devices,
make exactly what they need, not a funny looking multipurpose artifact you
would never use yourself.

------
forrecovery123
Great share, thank you!

“By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are
living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now
self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely
celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the
world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty
and disease isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.”

Quite an optimistic statement after the pessimism created because of all the
NSA, wars ... news.

~~~
3stripe
This is why I no longer follow 'the news'

~~~
jp555
Do you find it jarring when you do see "the news" now that you're desensitized
to it?

I find it weird that the do-anything-to-get-attention bias of "the news" so
much more obvious now for me that it all seems like satire.

------
klunger
For everyone that was confused by the Coke bottle thing... I am pretty sure it
was a hat-tip to Andy Warhol, who is probably someone the author studied in
design school. The quote / idea is pretty well known in those circles.
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/andywarhol597858....](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/andywarhol597858.html)

------
fidanov
Not buying this. Mainly statements with very little research and almost no
connection between them. Written so that it's sounds convincing for the people
who want believe in it.

Bad design is most of the time a simple lack of research, or not enough
research, of what are the actual needs and problems that people encounter.

------
fungi
Talk of "social good" seems fairly shallow when you are failing accessibility
pretty spectacularly. Obvious example being not having alt tags on images (and
the few that they you do have are the file name).

Feels like another agency website... with above average hyperbole.

------
ulisesrmzroche
That headline and the 1st paragraph don't have enough contrast, and the little
bold type with the red color has far too much. It makes it really hard to
read.

------
dang
A dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7624189).

------
BorisMelnik
make sure you watch the monkey video, I forgot how it even related to the
original content but it was priceless.

------
bshimmin
I was interested by the choice of the Casio watch as a "great product". While
they are certainly iconic watches that have survived the test of time, the
user-friendliness of the alarm functionality is extremely dubious to me -
three completely unmarked buttons that do stuff while somewhat cryptic symbols
appear on the display, all dependent on what order the buttons are pressed.

My wife used to have one of these watches and frequently would accidentally
set an alarm for some random time (usually 4am) and have absolutely no idea
how to stop this happening. (I don't know if it had a manual or whether she
ever read it, but she certainly hasn't read her iPhone's manual and doesn't
struggle to set alarms with that.)

