“What is the purpose of good design if there is no one who can use it? Like the mythical tree that falls in a forest if no one heard it crash, is a product’s design any good if it remains on a museum’s pedestal? [...]

When a product is lauded by the industry and the critics as an example of good design but struggles to reach the hands of the people it is meant for, is that an example of art or sculpture, a creative expression of the artist’s personal vision manifested tangibly rather than any validation of what is good in design? [...]

What is the purpose of a design award for a product that failed to meet its own creative brief?”

Niti is of course right and her post reminds me of my own comments half a year ago:

“The project clearly suffers from a top-down approach, where “designing for” is the paradigm rather than “designing with” or “designing from”. There was as far as I know no structured needs analysis here, no contextual studies, no ethnography, no qualitative insights. Such an approach cannot lead to anything but unintended consequences and may be potentially undermining the project itself. There are many lessons to be learned here, by the OLPC (“one laptop per child”) team, but also by any company or organisation trying to deliver designed solutions for “end-users” who then turn out to have different needs and contexts that had somehow been anticipated.”

I am therefore not surprised by the limited success of the initiative, and can only hope that some of the design ideas can inspire some more contextually sensitive and sensible project.