Why do we like designer stuff... or do we?

I have been pushed to see something bizzare by the subject line of the fwdee...






interesting isnt it..!!
Don't tell me that its hard to quickly say what's the time. I know its not that usable. but thats not the point. Its a design with personality and may or may not get thumbs up for being usable. Now here lies the tricky part which involves how a designer steers through such moments of decision where he has to drop fancy attribues of her designs and make peoples lives easier but mundane and less interesting. Thats the reason Mac designs have a definite personality. I heard they don't bother too much when they go ahead with their usability studies. There is One maxim that a camel is a horse designed by committee; I would extend it further, using a a overly normalised product by bunch of designers is worse; resulting interaction must feel like romancing with a family and not a person.

Alas, there are moments when the inner designer get immensly satisfied...

the other day in a similar mindless browsing spree landed at IDSA awards... here is one winner from IDEO : Heimspiel (german for "home play" ) .. so many amazing subtle design changes ..Ideas such as bringing a light element to a door edge that allows the light to spill into the room as the door rotates around the hinge, a radiator control knob that begins to illuminate in response to the radiator's warmth, door knob allowed to 'sink-in' if it has "do not enter" sign ..like a disbaled button... feels like a smooth fusion of Product Design and interaction design...


going through it made me conscious ...like a suddenly-vision-corrected-person-coinmg-out-of a-spects-shop.

the whole thing reiterates what a real design effort can turn into rather than a I-wrok-for-bread-n-butter work one gets accustomed to and start getting habituated to.

Some works are really outstanding.. check out ... IDSA awards