That good design is integral to physical product and service construction is obvious. That good design is also integral to software and digital production is also (we hope) a given. Yet what do you get when you cross a computer with a camera? When you cross a computer with an alarm clock, with a bank, with a car, with a warship, with an airplane?
In pondering these riddles for the information age Alan Cooper (the software designer responsible for Visual Basic) made the case that much of our software design is `design by accident' [Cooper, 2004] . Many of the designs we encounter in the world amaze us simply because they work. Cooper calls these products dancing bears. The dancing bear was a fairground entertainment from the middle ages in which a tame bear would stand and perform a lumbering dance to music. The dancing bear is amazing not because it is a good dancer, the wonder is that it can at all. In the same way, much of the designed world holds us in its thrall simply because things work rather than works well.
References
Cooper, A. (2004). The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Sams, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
