Practice Purpose

Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant's book User Friendly explores the ways designers have approached design throughout history. It's interesting how it was only in World War 2 that we first get to see this idea that machines should serve people and be usable at a glance, to the point of universality. At the time, it was revolutionary to have the machine be shaped by the user, rather than putting the blame on 'human error'. However, we're realising now that there is no average person and that designing products with this mentality is actually detrimental to its usability. The Cooper Hewitt's show Measure(s) of Man, pokes fun at this through examples of fictional products suited to only one very specific kind of person. I think as designers one of the ways we can address inclusivity in our products is by making it adaptable and keeping an open mind during our ideation process.