Everything Is A Design Challenge.
What sort of better?
Sneakers are better for running a marathon, but shoes are better for a wedding reception.
This is the better of utility. Finding something that does the job it sets out to do.
And then there is the better of taste.
Yellow mustard might be better than Dijon mustard. Not for me, perhaps, but for you.
When we sacrifice utility for taste, it pays to acknowledge that we've done so. Just because you like the shape of the bridge you just designed doesn't mean it's going to support trucks that drive over it.
The above is from Seth Godin; his daily blog is one of the things that keeps me motivated to keep showing here every week. He has written every single day for 13 years, and he reached his 10,000th post in April 2025.
Anyway, I was triggered by that post because I get more frustrated (maybe it's old age, lol) by how poorly designed services are in this part of the world. I’m using design interchangeably with utility because design = function = utility.
A few recent sources of frustration. I was at an event, the location was beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, as my daughter likes to say, but they didn't give much thought to how people would navigate in and out of the space. The parking was clumsy. Every single person was complaining.
Then there is a stunning hotel with all the works, including fancy, luxurious, big-name brand toiletries, which I took home with me, but the elements of the bathroom felt like they were not designed for function, just for aesthetics and vibes. It was not functional at all.
We often think of “design” as something that belongs to the creative world, fashion, graphic designers, user interfaces, or stylish furniture etc, when in fact anything that is meant to be interacted with in any shape or form by a living thing is an opportunity for design, meaning it has to be functional/ have utility values.
Design is not about making things pretty.
It’s about making things work. It’s the art and science of making intentional choices that improve how people interact with the world.
Once we grasp this, we begin to see everything as a design challenge. From the more obvious ones, like I mentioned above, to the way a team communicates. The way we parent our kids. The way we run our businesses. The way we spend our day. Even the way we approach grief, loneliness, or love.
At the heart of anything that is well designed is intention and understanding the purpose it's supposed to serve, how it would be used, who would be using it, and being. Without these, our best intentions fall flat, and we are left with “pretty things” on the exterior but “broken” on the inside.
Aesthetics is great because they are the signals that draw people in, and function/design makes them stay.
This is true for everything; beautiful packaging will make you pick up a product and even buy it, but performance makes you buy again. No amount of packaging and advertising can save a bad product.
Beautiful people will attract a lot of attention, but behaviour(internal design) will make them stay.
Designer clothes and expensive vacations can’t save an empty life.
Insert your own examples
That's it.
Keep going,
Ije
Just like the old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”