I had an opportunity to put together several pieces of office equipment from IKEA today, including a small bookshelf.

Having put together several fairly complex swing sets as well as desks in the past, I’m a big fan of simple designs. I love how the creators of this bookshelf didn’t make things needlessly complex with too many kinds of screws and dowels.

Some of the swing sets I’ve put together in the past have had a ridiculous number of different screw types and sizes. In those cases, I have to think designers could have simplified things if they’d wanted to and been skilled enough to be able to.
Using a device made by Apple reminds me of well designed furniture from IKEA. The design contributes in huge ways to both the function of the device as well as the pleasure derived from using it.
I love simple, great designs.

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Comments
One response to “The Value of Good Design”
Assuming you’ve already read Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things? 🙂 There’s a lot of bad design out there…