The Evolution of Useful Things

Dr. Henry Petroski’s take on the old adage: “form follows function.”

“The Evolution of Useful Things” is the perfect book for someone with a fascination of the art of design and invention as well as a hunger for history. This book presents a few of Henry Petroski’s thoughts on design and he spends much of the book expanding on stories, case studies, and theoretical and historical examples of his design principles in action. Dr. Petroski, an engineering professor at Duke University who holds several accolades for his writings, shares some of what he has learned on how design evolves over time, and that design does not follow an object’s functionality, but rather follows the failures and shortcomings of the version that came before it.

The evolution of the knife from approx. 1530 to 1633 (left to right). Even in just 100 years the blade changed several times to fit the desires of those using it, and there’s still roughly 400 more years of iterating left in this thing!

The opening of the book goes over, in great detail, the evolution of tableware over time. Dating all the way back to 1530 (as seen in the image above) when food was consumed using two pointed knives through the fork slowly adding on one tine at a time to finally the standardized set of silverware we know today. Dr. Petroski spends an entire chapter on this first example before introducing his thesis to show that the reason silverware kept changing was not for the sake of a designer building his portfolio, but to adapt to the changing needs of mankind.

From the popular “Rejected Cartoons” video. His famous line “my spoon is too big” was just begging to be reappropriated into a Medium post about design iteration

Certainly it took innovative minds that were certainly the leaders in design of their time, but this process of repeated innovation was rooted in people analyzing the current technology (yes — even the technology of a dull blade)

The key to this, Dr. Petroski explains, is to be relentless in improving products based on their current shortcomings. He argues that good design is not a product or representation of its function but a result of fitting all the current wants of mankind, and can always be improved upon. To settle on one iteration, he argues, is to stop the halt the progress towards a perfectly designed object — an unattainable goal but one that we must strive for in order to come up with innovation.

The overarching concept of this book is the idea that “form follows failure” — which is an extreme way of just pushing for constant iteration. With each new edition of a product or technology, users will always find something that they are unsatisfied with.

The designer’s role is to hone in on these shortcomings as they occur and improve the product based on neutralizing the incongruities, as Christopher Alexander puts it. Dr. Petroski cites him explaining his idea of “negative design.” This idea is based on the fact that users will notice what is wrong with a product more often than what is right. So the designer’s challenge is to create something with clever design but one that also fits in with the context of its environment.

A quote from the TV show “Futurama” by…well, the result of supercomputer that “probably” collided with God. Probably.

This was a new concept to me and really made me think about how designers always need to be aware of their audience. If we are inventing things just for the sake of doing something cool, but no one wants to use it, have we really done our job? While reflecting on this, I wondered if truly good design is actually something that appeals to the unconscious more than the conscious.

“The Evolution Of Useful Things,” while at times a bit much on the examples and historical background, has several gold nuggets of wisdom on how to approach innovation scattered throughout it. I am thankful that I pushed through all of Dr. Petroski’s examples of “failure inspired” design (there’s everything from forks to paper clips to McDonald’s Big Mac packaging — not kidding), I would have preferred a more concise and edited explanation of these concepts.

While this book did not focus much at all on designing for the web and mobile applications like many of my classmates’ books do, I believe this fundamental approach to inventing and designing is key and applies to conceptualizing and user-testing applications.

With the insights I’ve gained from this book, I happily look forward to brutally criticizing my final project relentlessly until the day I am forced to turn it in for grading.

“The Evolution Of Useful Things” is available for purchase on Amazon as an ebook or in paperback. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439505195/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_bz2pub12N5RZ6