To find out more about the struggles of this profession and how bad design can lead to unfortunate results, we managed to get in touch with Jonathan Shariat, a designer with more than 10 years of experience in the field and co-author of Tragic Design: The Impact of Bad Product Design and How to Fix It.
He told us that when a design "harms people physically, angers them, excludes people, or causes injustice", it is regarded as terrible. "Design is the decisions made about how someone will use and experience the things we make, sometimes we fail to think through the implications of those decisions and it ends up causing harm to others," he added.
We also reached out to Nick Babich, a product designer and a blogger, who also had a few thoughts to add. He mentioned that lack of communication and creativity are also the root causes of why some designs end up looking bad. "Lack of communication leads to bad product design decisions, while lack of creativity leads to poor aesthetics." While dozens of new products are released daily, he assured that "not all of them are created by experienced product teams."
This explains why sometimes it can start to feel like poorly designed products are all around us. Shariat said that one reason behind it is that good design isn’t easy. If people want to create something that has a purpose and is delightful to interact with, it takes a lot of learning and experience in the field. "Good design requires us to think about and understand others," Shariat explained. "That doesn't come naturally for most of us but always makes things better."
So when professionals fail to do that, certain choices they make can seriously affect other people. When a product has flaws, "the negative impact can be pretty severe," Babich told us. "Just imagine a medical device (i.e., heart rate monitor) that shows incorrect data about the user’s health (i.e., shows a status "Everything is okay" while the user experiences problems with his health)." The outcome can be rather dramatic.
Shariat also provided a few examples of how bad design can impact our lives. "A confusing control in your car could distract you and cause an accident. Hospital staff could accidentally enter into a pump 10x the medication for a patient. A confusing voting system can cause people's votes to be thrown out or worse, vote for the wrong person."
"We rely on design every day for critical things, and sometimes they fail us and people get hurt, or it causes major financial damage," he said. But when it comes to design ethics, being concerned about them "isn't just about avoiding harming others," Shariat added. "Ethical design has also been shown to be much more effective and builds long-term, sustainable business growth!"
When it comes to the struggles of being a UI/UX designer, one of the biggest challenges is "seeing things from other people's perspectives. Different people can experience the same thing much differently," he added. "It's the job of a designer to understand their users and find what works best for all of them."
Meanwhile, Nick Babich believes constant learning is both a blessing and a curse of product design. "You have to process a lot of information on a daily basis to create a good design," he told Bored Panda.
When we're dealing with such struggles, memes are a great way to find shelter from the burdens of our everyday lives. They help us unwind, connect with other people, and, of course, let out a laugh or two. Jonathan Shariat admitted that jokes absolutely help to get into a better mood. "For example, when I was stressed about how frustrating it can be to see your design fail as you watch people test it out and your assumptions become evident, it can feel [difficult]. When you see something that perfectly expresses how you are feeling, it's very therapeutic," he said.
