This was maybe one of the most interesting concepts I’ve encountered in this book so far. It’s the idea of how we should measure what “good design” is and relates back to the idea of a designer being a human first. In uni, we’ve been taught to equate good design to things that are effective/efficient, however, Monteiro suggests this is not enough. As I said before, our duty as humans first is to leave the world in a better place than we found it, which means that we should equate good design to whether it has a positive impact on the world. This changes how we consider design, for example by using effective/efficient metrics to gauge good design, the AK-47 is an excellent example of good design. It is effective at killing people, it is efficient at killing lots of people. If we were to consider this from the perspective of how it impacts the world positively, it is an example of bad design. Thus by this metric, a broken gun is a well-designed gun. Now I understand this quite a black-and-white example, however, what I think is important as designers is to reassess how we consider good design to consider how it positively affects the world first, then how it is effective/efficient second.

What I think is evident from this point, and the designers are human first point, is that the ideas Monteiro is presenting aren’t complete reworks of how we fundamentally think about design, but more ideas around prioritising what we value in design.