{"id":22117,"date":"2020-12-20T09:17:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T13:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=22117"},"modified":"2021-01-04T00:18:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T04:18:37","slug":"good-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Designs: Do You Know What They Look Like?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What do good designs look like? How can you tell if something has a good or a bad design? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You may think that good designs vs bad designs are obvious. But there are several elements that make good designs stand out, and can offer insight on how design works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to find out more about good designs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Do \u201cGood Designs\u201d Look Like?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At its core, design is any human influence on the physical world. We tend to think of this in terms of buildings, fashion, or products, but design is much broader than just a few fields. <strong>Every object or environment that has been created or modified by humans is designed. <\/strong>This applies to everything from ancient architectural marvels to the layout of clothes in your closet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As technology evolves, new fields of design pop up to focus on specific problems. User interaction is important in every subfield, but it\u2019s most often talked about in industrial, interaction, and experience good design.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Industrial design focuses on the creation and development of physical objects, with a particular focus on function, aesthetics, and value.<\/li><li>Interaction design focuses on the interface between user and object, usually in a digital context (think website design).&nbsp;<\/li><li>Experience design focuses on the emotional experience of using a product, service, or environment.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Each of these fields focuses on redefining good design in terms of user experience. Two important principles guiding this definition are <em>discoverability<\/em> and <em>understanding<\/em>. <strong>Discoverability refers to whether a user can figure out what an object is and how to use it without considerable effort.<\/strong> Discoverability answers the question, \u201cHow do I use this thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For example, the style of a door handle and the location of the hinges make it easy to discern what that object is and how it works\u2014it is easily discoverable. But a modern or industrial door with no visible hardware can be almost impossible to figure out.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Understanding, in this context, refers to the user\u2019s ability to make meaning out of the discoverable features of the object.<\/strong> Understanding answers the questions, \u201cWhat is this, and why do I want to use it in the first place?\u201d On a normal door, handles and hardware indicate where to push or pull\u2014but they also help us understand what this object is (a door) and what it\u2019s used for (opening and closing). In other words, <strong>goods designs have to consider not only the form and function of a product, but also the experience of interacting with that product<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do good designs look like? How can you tell if something has a good or a bad design? You may think that good designs vs bad designs are obvious. But there are several elements that make good designs stand out, and can offer insight on how design works. Keep reading to find out more about good designs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,160],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-22117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-science","tag-the-design-of-everyday-things","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Good Designs: Do You Know What They Look Like? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are the elements of good designs? By using psychology and design thinking, you can create good designs that work. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Good Designs: Do You Know What They Look Like?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What are the elements of good designs? By using psychology and design thinking, you can create good designs that work. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-20T13:17:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-04T04:18:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/spin-selling-questions-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"Good Designs: Do You Know What They Look Like?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-20T13:17:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:18:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\"},\"wordCount\":434,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/spin-selling-questions-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Design of Everyday Things\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Psychology\",\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/\",\"name\":\"Good Designs: Do You Know What They Look Like? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-designs\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/spin-selling-questions-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-20T13:17:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:18:37+00:00\",\"description\":\"What are the elements of good designs? 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