Is it possible to please everybody with a design? Should that be the only goal?

It seems like a silly question, but this article argues that the goal of a design is to please its audience. If the article didn’t delve into the different ways a design can please an audience (surprising, astonishing etc.), I would consider that statement to be wrong. Design is much more then putting a pleasing pattern and image together to present. It’s much more complex.

Design is meant to evoke some sort of emotion or reaction from the audience. Trying to please everybody would render designs meaningless—they would be “pleasing” to look at, but nothing would be daring or risky about them. In order to have a successful design, it’s good to anger some people. That means it gets attention and you portrayed something that received a strong response. It might not be a reliable or stable way to build a brand or design, but it would be eye-catching and interesting. Astonishing the audience is an effective way to grab their attention. Not everything in design has to be aesthetically pleasing. An artist should never be afraid to make something ugly.

As a product designer, is the goal of the design to appeal to the audience?

It sounds like a stupid question, but I think there are different ways to answer it. Of course, as a designer one of the first things you do when planning a design brief is to look at your audience. Once you define your audience and shape your design with that information, the goal is to appeal in some sort of way.

This article raises and interesting point saying that taste is objective and depends on person to person. With that being said I feel like it’s quite impossible to please everyone with a design and that you can establish a goal outside of ‘pleasing the audience’. I often think the best designs are the ones that do the exact opposite to the audience because instead of catering to the audience they break some rules, and make the audience feel differently with their designs. It might be a smart move for a product designer to steer away from the traditional path. They’ll create interest and stand out from everything else. It’s risky, but may be worth it in the end.

Because computers have a built in obsolescence, does that stop society from going completely digital with books?

It’s obvious that the most popular resource for information is the Internet and technology. The transition from book to web is rapid and all encompassing, but there is a slight hesitation to give up completely on books.

Computers are reliable and quick, but when they fail and or break down, the fragility of information and reliance on technology is often frightening to those who depend on it. When the Internet fails and I can’t get to a file or web page I needed or when my computer dies out from old age, it’s unsettling how helpless I become with the resource cut off. With that being said, books have become the archaic necessity in our times. Also, some prefer holding a book with a binding and reading from paper then reading an Ebook or Kindle. Some personal preferences won’t change, even though a majority of books are vanishing into the web.

Is it true that the library and the Internet both are meant to spread information to the public?

The purpose of a library is to provide books, information and resources to the general public by borrowing. The Internet is a more complex platform, but essentially it serves the same purpose. There’s a lot of argument about what the Internet is doing to public libraries, or even written word in general. This article reminds everyone that even though there is a distinction between the two, one platform being digital and one platform being more old-fashioned, it also addresses the similarities.

This distinction of the ‘real’ world and the ‘digital’ world is forgetting that the information being provided is all the same- just different ways of accessing it. People will argue that a Kindle Fire isn’t a book, but in fact it holds the same knowledge and information as the book you would be holding in your hands. The only difference is that with a button you click the page instead of turning it yourself.