Designing for Walruses
My first fortnight in design school
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a walrus. You’re on an ice floe with friends. You’ve just cleaned your whiskers, and your breath smells like Arctic cod. You’re probably thinking, “How do I figure out what I don’t know that I don’t know?”
In his landmark book, Don Norman writes that if you’re trying to open a door and you fail, it’s the door’s fault. You’ve never had trouble with doors, mostly because there aren’t many doors north of the Brooks Range. But you can relate to what he’s saying. Walruses are surrounded by badly designed objects: sea ice that moves without warning and crushes ribs, breathing holes that close up at the first hint of fall, auroras that rudely interrupt your sleep, sunlight that burns the underside of your gargantuan chin. But can you really blame yourself for these mishaps? No! Norman says bad design is at fault.
What a liberating perspective! All sorts of memories come tumbling out. Back when you were a pup, you hit your head against the kitchen counter. Bad design! One time you waddled into a glass wall that was so clean it was invisible. Bad design! Another time you got stuck in an elevator when the power failed. Bad design! This summer, you slipped on a wet tile on your way to the swimming pool. Bad design! You’re really beginning to warm to this whole design school thing. You can appreciate its value proposition. Then a bloke dressed in black tells you Norman’s book is required reading, that you can finish it in one sitting. Your eyes pop in surprise. There’s no way that’s happening.
You’ve learned a string of new terms in your classes. Perceptual affordance is an inkling of how you might interact with an object. For example, if you see a clam, you want to crack it open at the seam; if you see a lady walrus, you want to wiggle your eyebrows seductively. Feedforward is a sense for what might happen if you interact with the object. For example, if you open the clam, perhaps you’ll see the delicious juicy meat inside. If you seduce the lady walrus, perhaps she will invite you to impregnate her. Feedback is what actually happens after you interact with said object. The clam opens and there’s a pearl inside. The lady walrus takes one look at your crazy eyes, hops off the ice, and disappears.
Back to the present. You’re chilling beneath an azurite sky. You spot a flock of gulls headed south. One of them stops to chat. She speaks through big, expressive eyes: “Try to gain a sense of detachment from your work.” What work, you wonder. Your portfolio is as deserted as Provincetown in winter. “It’ll fill up,” she reassures you, “Just remember that design thinking is not so important as design doing.” Adages! She’s full of them.
The gull pulls out a photograph from beneath her wing. “I took this down in the rainy south. The world is full of unintended consequences, wouldn’t you say?” You’re slow to the joke, but once you get it, you know this bird is the shit. You need to lamprey yourself to her wisdom. “Will you be my mentor?” you ask. She nods her head and flies off.
On Sunday morning, over coffee and anchovies, you calculate the amount you’re paying per class period. $157. You run a Google search and arrive at this article. You don’t care much for Thai silk from Bangkok or Levi’s jeans from Dubai. For what it’s worth, you’re paying for the right to “envision a preferred future” (not your words). It seems like a good idea, especially considering you’re not the only one who showed up for orientation this August. There’s an industrious beaver in the mix, a conscientious okapi, a gregarious tarantula, a prolific wallaby. Even a pompous emu. You’re in good company! You’re all in this together!
After a fortnight of design school, you’re beginning to think through the tip of your pencil. In the distance, a Russian icebreaker navigates the Northwest Passage in record time, but you are unfazed. Some problems are not within your power to solve. You do not want to think about what will happen when all the sea ice is gone. So you burrow. And you narrow. Until finally you find a challenge you can face. A cantankerous lightbulb is surmountable, as is a gnatty alarm clock or a hideous kettle. And suddenly you’re making sketches, rustling up incremental improvements, working with new materials, reading papers that challenge the findings of previous papers. You’re in the throes of it. You’re bubbly. For now, anyway.
