There is a less structured, curiosity-driven, paradigm which focuses not on what is absolutely right or wrong, but instead on what is surprising. A problem with rights and wrongs is that, for some people, the pressure of being correct gets in the way of experiencing what actually is.
- Mind Hacks Blog

Those of you in the design community know that designers are trained to look at the world from a different point of view. In most education systems, people are essentially trained away from thinking creatively since, as children, we do this very naturally. In a successful design process, there are no truly wrong answers — the direction you take may be a detour, but somehow it helps you get where you need to go. This concept is certainly not nurtured in most classrooms.

The blog entry that I quoted above caught my eye because it illustrates how the design process as it is generally practiced today closely mimics the natural human learning process that has evolved over thousands of years. As an added bonus, when you are in this more natural state of learning, your body reacts by releasing dopamine, which makes you feel good (like a runner’s high).

The successes associated with the design process and recent trends across disciplines towards it can therefore be described as a reversal to our natural human state rather than as a new breakthrough. Ironic as it may seem, using design thinking is a way for us to learn how to be ourselves.

If you read my last post, you might have said, “what’s the big deal — can’t people just deal with it?” The answer is yes, of course they can… but there is a cost to the individual, to other people, and to the wider systems in which they participate. The mismatch between wallet design and the needs of the people who use wallets causes problems and slow things down.

I have compiled the list below of the implications of bad wallet design as they relate to swiping a transit card. I’ve observed this first hand both as a study and in my daily life. If you are anything like the millions of people who ride mass transit every day, I’m sure you have been frustrated by at least one of these items and probably several.

PROBLEMS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL RIDER

• “Show me the money”
  • To catch trains, people often run out of the turnstile with their wallets wide open. I observed several people do this and could clearly see all of their cash and credit cards. Not a good thing in a big city, or anywhere really.
• “I swear I had it earlier today”
  • By performing this process while walking, the rider can easily drop something without realizing it.
• “Oops”
  • Since the process requires two hands, swiping through a turnstile while carrying anything can cause the rider to drop and damage items.
• “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors”
  • Because there are many steps and each requires some level of precision, the rider could lose time and potentially miss trains if there is an error.
• “The Bottomless Pocket”
  • I noticed some people keep their card in their pocket, outside of a wallet. This can make it difficult to find the card at the right time. It also makes it easier to lose as the rider takes other things out of his pocket.

PROBLEMS FOR ALL RIDERS

• “C’mon, Buddy! Move it!”
  • At busy commuter times, I noticed that several riders are unable to get cards ready by the time they reach the turnstile, delaying other customers and creating a line.
• “Watch Out!”
  • People often look down at their wallets before and after going through the turnstile and therefore are not always watching where they are going. I observed several near-collisions for this reason.

Next time I’ll offer a few suggestions on how to improve wallet design.

They have done it again.  RIM has managed to design an even worse phone than the Blackberry Pearl.  The new Blackberry Storm proves that bad design and execution ruins a phone more than an extensive feature list helps it.  Much has been written about this, but I think that David Pogue puts it best in his review (I won’t repeat what he says here):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html

Another major problem is that RIM is trying to be something that it is not — cool.  Blackberry used to be solid and the design of its phones and the reliability of its infrastructure proved that.  They were not the slickest phones out there, but they worked and worked well.  The iPhone is not perfect — it has its bugs, too.  But, Apple didn’t set out to create the most reliable phone in the world, and Blackberry absolutely should since its core client base is businesses and people who have depended on its reliability for years.

Blackberry’s design was flawed the second they tried to be something they are not.  Having released several poorly designed phones, a halo of inferiority is poised to kill Blackberry’s future.