"We Live Like Castaways" and the art of design

The majority of this topic is largely based upon the musings of David Pye, creator of the bowl at left and author of The nature and aesthetics of design. I'll pull some quotes from the book and just ramble on about what they mean to me; all while I wait anxiously to hear what they mean to you. Hopefully we won't go off the deep end!

I'm probably not the first nor the last to stand on Pye's shoulders and expand on his philosophy, but I'll do it anyways. I just hope you get as much of a good kick out of the book as I do.

Pye has a few points that he considers facts about designing something. The first:

...whenever humans design and make a useful thing they invariably expend a good deal of unnecessary and easily avoidable work on it which contributes nothing to its usefulness.

Wow, how true is that? Think about the products around you. This is the tough part of creation where form and function collide and muddy the black and white water into a turbulent gray. This chair I'm sitting in - It has curves everywhere, brass tacks to hold the cloth on, little bits of distressing in the wood - do they make it more useful as a chair, something intended to merely hold my butt up off the ground? The tacks are 'art' the curves are possibly 'workmanship', useless things but essential to live a life with some inherent meaning.

...all useful devices have got to do useless things which no one wants them to do.

So, in essence, and as stated by Pye, nothing we design ever really works. What?! The chair is doing its job, right? I am sitting in it, after all. Yeah, but my left butt cheek is falling asleep, it doesn't have a place for my cup, it needs a pillow for lumbar support and on and on... Think about the stuff you build, create, re-purpose or buy. Does it really work as you expected, ever? Can it? I don't believe this means that we should stop trying to design useful devices without useless things, but we should truly think about what you want and what choices you have in your design.

Never do we achieve a satisfactory performance. Things simply are not 'fit for their purpose'. At one time a flake of flint was fit for the purpose of surgery, and stainless steel is not fit for the purpose yet.

Unfit for duty.

Make the best of life's design improvisations. Work with wood's expansion, iron's brittleness, and cloth's textures. Don't discourage yourself by the limitations of perceived perfection.

You're limited in your designs by the choices that you make. What is its intended purpose? How will I limit the design? What features does it need? I would wager that without choices like these, a design could never even begin to be started. Suppose you did design something and you used it for a lifetime just as you intended, even putting up with its shortcomings. After some time you unfortunately left this earth behind you. That same object has been passed on to another - this person may not have the same purpose for the object just because he has a differing perspective. For example: you find an ancient flint arrowhead by a stream in the wood. You are excited because of your find and regale in the skill and craftsmanship of the arrowhead's maker and even the entire arrow that has since deteriorated. With this joy you mount the arrowhead in a pretty frame and hang it on the wall - has not the purpose changed because of the new perspective? It no longer works very well as intended. It won't slay a deer or rabbit in its new home behind glass. Consider this when designing something. The work you do with your hands will be around longer than you think - for it will be the essence of art and craft and design, filled with sentiment and memories. 

What will become its next purpose? To approach that, Pye says the following:

The fact that every device when used produces concrete, measurable, objective results, is the only sure basis for a theory of design.  Any concept such as 'function' which includes the idea of purpose is bound to be an unsafe foundation; for purpose leaves commplace factual affairs like results far behind.

I think Pye is saying that until we use something that we've designed and created, we won't know what the true purpose of the device is. This is crazy, but true. Think Teflon. Think Facebook. A project to check out friends at school is now how you keep in touch with cousin Bernie. Don't you wish you could know what it is you wanted something to do before you designed it? Skip the revisions, the version 2.0, the trial and error and have a product that does everything perfectly? This is a novel concept that reminds me of a certain chick and a certain egg. A design paradox that keeps us grounded and causes us to rely upon each other as humans. Expect the unexpected in your design.

Definitely not perfect purpose.

I think I'm going to stop here and keep this one short. It's so easy to get lost looking at trees and lose the forest, or something like that. The point is this: design things well, keep at it and don't get lost with the details. Next time we'll dive into what I like to call design precognition - using our past experiences to shape our future assumptions.

Don't cast away your devices in search of pure design functionality. Design things that are impossible, you'll be glad you did.