Blog 02 Tread different paths that lead to the same destination
This blog is about a summary of the main points of Donald Norman’s article – The Future of Design: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
When human made the first tool to help them hunt and cut food from the Old Stone age, the power of design began to appear. Design has existed to help people solve problems from the beginning. As human history continues to advance, productivity continues to increase, the objects of design are getting bigger and bigger, and the scope of services is getting wider and wider from the initial design of objects to help people adapt to the needs of production better, to human-oriented design to enable people to live a better life, to the design of services and society to help all mankind have access to more good life. The objects of design are gradually looking at the future, the society and life of mankind in the future.
The article about the future of design which is written by Norman expounds the possible direction of development in future design from two dimensions. One is based on technology and craftsmanship, with the goal of creating and enhancing people’s beautiful experience. Another direction is based on thinking, exploring the essence of the problem with totally new perspectives and ways of thinking, in order to seek higher breakthrough. When there is such a fork in the road of design development, which direction should people choose? Should we continue to develop technology and continuously improve the ultimate product experience, or break away from the existing framework, change ways of thinking and perspective, think about some deeper issues and take a longer view.
This is not a multiple choice question. Design developed to the present height is no longer a matter of single discipline. With the development of productivity, there are constantly new problems appearing in the world. These problems may be appeared in all aspects, such as war, environmental pollution, education and so on. It seems to be far behind the speed of the emergence of problems, though the technology possessed by mankind has reached an unprecedented height. Then, it requires people to think constantly, explore the essence of the problem, break away from the existing framework and seek new ways to solve the problem. This pursuit of the way of thinking determines the upper limit of design, which means how far people can reach on the road of design. Because people have no way to imagine something outside the scope of their own cognition. And the pursuit of technology may determine the lower limit of the design, that is, the degree that the design can currently achieve. Someone prefers to delve into craftsmanship and pursue a kind of ultimate experience of beauty, while others try to stand higher and view the world from a new perspective. Whether it is technology or way of thinking, they are the basis of design.The ultimate goal of their existence is to solve problems and improve people’s lives, so that the world can be a little different because of the power of design.
