Good Design, Bad Design (Emory)

Design is not something I have paid much attention to so far in my life, for the most part, I took things for as I perceived them to be (Was I looking at things the way I expected them to be, or Was I looking at them they way they were supposed to be looked at? (Sometimes it was a mixture of both the ways I described above, and in other times, I was not looking at it in one of the other ways) ). So, the following quote by Paul Klee struck me questioning myself when I was reading about Design, “See with one eye, feel with the other”.

In this Post, I try to talk about an example of a Good, and a Bad Design I’ve found on Emory’s Campus, and on Emory’s Websites.

Bad Design

This is about interfaces, and Emory’s Websites (An interface is more than just a visual thing that is presented to an audience, It combines visual detail, functionality of it, and the ways in which it interacts with audience in more or less same amounts). This leads to a following question, Is a website which is visually very pleasing, and lacking in some or the intended functionality make it a good designed website, and the vice-versa in which a website which is functional, and lacking in visual detail be considered a good designed website?

This reminds me of a quote from Steve Jobs where he says, Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, Design is how it works. So, I want you to keep in mind the functionality of a website when reading this Bad Design on one of Emory’s websites.

The website that I’m talking about is the Emory’s MyHousing Website, and the Bad Design aspect of it is related to adding Dooley Dollars, but first, what are Dooley Dollars? (Dooley Dollars are a component of EmoryUniversity’s meal plan. Dooley Dollars purchases are always tax free (a savings of 8.9%). Additionally you also enjoy a 5% discount at all dining locations except for food trucks and the farmer’s market. As part of a campus meal plan, Dooley Dollars may only be used at campus dining locations including food trucks and the farmer’s market). The following picture clearly paints the differences in different Emory University’s currencies used on campus.

The important aspect of the above picture that I’m writing this post on has to do with adding Dooley Dollars (You can see from the picture above that Dooley Dollars need a minimum of 25$ deposit). I chose to talk about this because Dooley Dollars is something that students come across a lot while at Emory, and something that is very useful indeed to students as well.

Dooley Dollars sounds great, and the Emory’s MyHousing website to add Dooley Dollars also looks great (visually and also in the functionality aspect as well (but with a flaw which could undermine the functionality)). The following is a picture of the Dining interface on Emory’s MyHousing portal.

When you click on Purchase Dooley Dollars, we get the following.

First thing you notice is that, there is no option to add Dooley Dollars? (we’re also presented with a unique term, “dining points” ). When we look at the, “select a meal” tab, we see the following picture.

We can deduce dining points here refers to Dooley Dollars? (But I was trying to add Dooley Dollars and the purchase Dooley Dollars tab said that I don’t have any dining points (I know I don’t have any dining points, that’s the reason I’m trying to add them in the first place, but I have no idea how to do that from the following picture of Purchase Dooley Dollars))

All the links on Emory’s website that let’s you add Dooley Dollars redirect you to Emory MyHousing portal where you can add them, but in my case I just don’t see an option to add Dooley Dollars.

After asking the Dining staff as to why I was not able to add Dooley Dollars, I found out that one needs to have a dining plan in active to add Dooley Dollars (no where was this information mentioned on the Emory’s MyHousing portal, or in the pictures that talk about Dooley Dollars, or the links (Opus (Emory’s student portal) just redirects to MyHousing portal) that redirects you to adding Dooley Dollars).

Students actively want to use Dooley Dollars all the time because of the discounts it offers, but the Emory’s MyHousing portal doesn’t clearly state that one needs a dining plan in active to add Dooley Dollars.

The website is easy to use, and is very pleasing indeed, but with just one line of information that a student needs an active dining plan to add Dooley Dollars would help save a lot of time, and confusion when students are trying to add Dooley Dollars for the first time. Except for that one minor point of information, the website is really good, and is comfortable to use.

If we were to plot this design on the below graph, it would score a little low on the working axis, but high on the visual pretty axis (But we first need to maximize the working axis, and then focus on the visual (What good a website if it doesn’t let you comfortably do what it’s intended for?)).

Good Design

One of the things that you often come across while walking around Emory’s campus is the red tiled area like the following.

This indicates that no vehicles or vehicles have to slow down because students are going to frequent these red tiled areas a lot.

This story of Good Design starts at Woodruff Circle, and ends at Woodruff Circle taking us all on a walk through Emory’s Campus.

The Good Design that I’m talking about are these small poles which always seem to accompany red tiled areas in a specific way. The reason I chose this is because these poles are present everywhere on Emory’s campus, and play an important role without any student even having to realize why they’re present in the first place.

The reason why I consider this a Good Design is that, in case of a speeding, or an out of control vehicle, these small poles tries to make sure that the vehicle doesn’t enter the student frequented areas by taking the hit with the vehicle. Now, these are located all around the campus in specific locations alongside red tiled areas.

Take a few steps from Woodruff Circle, and you see this

You have the same poles again, walk along this path to the student center, and you get to this.

Again, you see these poles guarding the red tiled areas for any speeding, or out of control vehicle. walk along the Dobbs Commons Table Dining Hall and you get to this.

You see the poles again, continue walking along the Cox Hall Dining area, you get to this.

The poles are again guarding the red tiled area, continue walking along Woodruff library and you get to this.

Once again, the poles guard the Woodruff library, continue walking this path to the Michael C. Carlos museum and we get to this.

The poles are again guarding the way, continue walking along this path towards Emory’s entrance and we get to this.

Now, there’s no poles here, but the road is shaped in such a way that the poles aren’t really necessary in this case, the shuttle that goes this way has to slow down ( a) Because students frequent this place a lot b) the curve of the road makes the vehicle to slow down ), walk along the career center to get to this.

You see the poles again guarding the building entrance, now walk along the path of Emory’s Soccer field along the McDonough field and we get this.

We once again see the poles guarding the red tiled areas, now walk along the student center path and we get this.

We see the same poles once again, and now we’re back to Woodruff Circle in a few steps.

This is a very good design because these red tiled areas are frequented by students at all times of the day to get to different parts of Emory, and the poles helps keep them safe from any out of control speeding vehicle.

The best thing about this is that, students don’t even have to pay attention to as to why these poles exist, the poles do their job, and it’s good, comfortable, and makes the campus environment much safer in case of any speeding out of control vehicles.

If we were to plot the design on the below graph, we would get a very high score on working axis, and people usually have differing opinions on the visual prettiness of these poles (I would say the beauty doesn’t matter in this case because no one really pays attention to these poles anyway most of the time, they just exist, and do their intended job)

This I consider one of a very Good Design on Emory’s campus.

The graph, and the quotes are from the following link (https://ia.net/topics/learning-to-see)

Thank you for your precious time in reading this.