Show HN: I wrote a book about Design Ethics called Tragic Design
After two long years of writing along side my co-author, we have finally released the book: Tragic Design.
It's about the true impact of bad design and how to fix it. We felt there was a need to shed light on the discussion of Design Ethics by exploring the ways bad design can harm people and offering up solutions. When most of us think about bad design, we think the worst case is lost customers. This book explores the very real impact it has: physical harm, emotional harm, and more.
We are excited to have John Maeda writing the Foreword to the book, who has been a long supporter of inclusive design.
The book is out right now and I made this website for it: http://www.tragicdesign.com/
Were excited to finally have this out in the hands of designers, engineers, and others making products, and start making an impact on this important issue.
Thanks HN - Jonathan
32 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 74.4 ms ] threadIt was a beta, and rough. The instructors were trying to be all things to all people. It hit too low level at times for the program office types who don't do any actual programming but need to know about design and safety considerations and processes. That was also (somewhat) redundant for the programmers in the group. It was, however, informative as we discussed topics related to this book (why I brought it up in class), and software engineering principles (from safety and reliability perspectives) that the new programmers and non-programmers weren't aware of.
The intention is to teach this material rather than rely on people absorbing it (poorly) on the job, which is how it's typically done now for software. Processes exist, but people don't understand them. Techniques get used, but people forget why. This is intended to raise the bar across the board (or provide an opportunity to) so that safety and is more thoroughly integrated into the design and development process.
I'm not sure what else to add. If you want to discuss more, I may respond here, but you can also email me (username at gmail).
This is slightly off topic but something I've always wondered. Who picks the organism featured on the cover?
Aside from being a beautiful creature, as a nerd I find it REALLY interesting.
Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war
Specifically this tidbit: >the Portuguese man o' war is not a jellyfish but a siphonophore, which, unlike jellyfish, is not actually a single multicellular organism, but a colonial organism made up of specialized individual animals called zooids or polyps.
My post explaining why I chose it (plus link to awesome photos from NG) - http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?e=[UNIQID]&u=b2a9f2c796e2...
My only comment is with your primary quote featured right on the landing page of your site. As far as marketing goes, it feels sketchy because your book title isn't part of the direct quote.
"This revolution is just beginning, and it's exciting to have [Tragic Design] to ground the growing movement of achieving truly inclusive design in the digital era."
My guess is that John said something like "this book," or maybe you changed the book title and he called it something else. But having your primary marketing item be a quote that isn't a direct quote just feels wrong to me. It seems like he could have said something not even related to your book, and you changed it to make it work. Obviously I know you didn't, I just wanted to give you my opinion. I would suggest contacting him and seeing if he can give you a direct quote that doesn't require you to use brackets.
Either way, congratulations on the book!
Thank you for the feedback. I'm going to talk to a few more folks to see if anyone else feels that way. I definitely don't want people feeling that way. Thanks again!
UK: Amazon showing £30 ish as price, other sellers showing £16 as price. What are your distribution deals like outside US?
I don't know the specifics. I'll read out to my editor and let you know.
The goal of the book was to give readers a broader understanding about how our decisions in how we choose to make our products, have very real impacts in people's lives. Then allow the reader to decide for themselves what their ethical redlines are.
From reading the website's bullet points I am reminded of the excellent talk by Mike Monteiro titled "How Designers Destroyed the World", which I would highly recommend for a discussion on the same subject.
I went to the website and the header is a purple, and the purchase link is blue (so it is blue on purple). This doesn't have enough contrast ratio for accessibility reasons and is really hard to read. Since this is your purchase button, thought you would like to know.
Good luck with the book!
Maybe in a future podcast of yours, you and Cynthia can talk about how you approached researching for this book and the challenges you had over the 2 years writing it.
He gets to the bottom of things, he gets people and their motivations and he's a humble and likeable guy.
Going to look out for your future podcast about your book.
PS just noticed I got your name wrong, but couldn't edit my post anymore... soz