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Showing posts from August, 2018

Good Design (CS 355 Design Thinking Applied)

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The example of good design that I saw on campus is the workbench in the SSU Makerspace. I love the Makerspace. I went in almost every day last semester to design and iterate models to 3D print, solder some boards, or sew my backpack straps back on. The workbench is a thing of beauty, a tinkerer's shrine. Not only do they have a wonderful assortment of tools not normally accessible to college students, but everything has it's own rightful place upon the wall. There is no lurking anxiety that you may be doing something wrong. There is no countless hours searching for that one thingamabob or "like this but smaller".Very rarely are we able to feel that all is right with the world, but at least we can rejoice in the knowledge that while we are working at the bench, our immediate surroundings are perfectly in sync.

BAD Design (CS 355 Design Thinking Applied)

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Here is an example of bad design that gets worse the more you look at it. First off, I applaud the school for attempting to separate the recycling from the garbage destined for the landfill. That said, we are trained to visually associate a blue or green bin with recycling and a black bin with garbage. These bins are all gray with small blue font. People on campus with something to throw away usually glance at the bins several milliseconds before deciding which one to use, and looking into these bins you can see the evidence that most people chose incorrectly. If you look at the lids, you will also see that the long, flat lid on the bin for cans and bottles cannot possibly accommodate a bottle or can of any size and the bin for mixed paper contains the most cans and bottles of the three. For me, the very worst part of this setup is that I noticed the problem two years ago, I brought it to the attention of the school's environmental council last year, and somebody is out th