When poop hits the fan!

A totally different but still relevant subject for todays` blog: beating the biggest problem in the Netherlands! No it isn`t the economical crisis, traffic, terrorism, globalization or the melting of the North pole, no it is dog shit lying on the pavement waiting for people to step on. By the way, did you ever see a dog stepping in one?

In the past few weeks, my blog was about: social media, information systems, business intelligence and computer clouding. A typical question in a intelligence test could be: what is the next topic? A. mobile phones, B. IT in airplanes, or C. dog shit. I guess that only analphabetic and blind people would answer the question correct.  

For our course User Interface Design (UID) we had to choose a project in which we design a product according to several designing rules and methods. After a bad choice and several brainstorming session we came to the conclusion to design a dog poop bin which solves the poop problem. Brainstorming should be extreme, but I never thought that it would be this extreme…

During this project we learned allot and have developed a quite good poop bin. I`m not ashamed to tell my friends about it, because the idea behind this bin is 100% scientific, and it looks nice! (for a poopbin). 

This project is all about designing a system for users. It makes no difference in designing a door, database, website or a space shuttle in the designing perspective (yeah, maybe that was to extreme, but you know what I mean if you keep reading). The goal of a good designer is to design a product which is easy and fun to use, if possible. Norman (2002) gives a clear example: why do designers make a pull bar on the side of the door where u need to push, not pull? Almost everyone that doesn`t live in the jungle has pulled a door while he had to push it, or the other way around. Blame the designer! If the door opens by pushing, then don’t make a pull bar on that side, the only way to open that door would be pushing, so no problem.. and you save a pull and push sticker.

With the development of the bin we have learned, and still learn to design good products by thinking like a designer, not a technician or a decorator.  In the next blog I will get into more detail on our project and the connection between this en previous blogs should become more clear..