Design is also why products exist in the first place

Excerpt from the New York Times article “The Guts of a New Machine”:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

Agreed. Design is about how it looks like. Design is also about how it works.

But even before getting to the specifics of the design itself, there is a fundamental question that has to be answered: does this product even needs to be created and exist? Why even bother designing something no one needs? Designers have a major role to play here. They are the ones who have intuition and the intellect to sense whether something is necessary or not, and whether something will solve a problem or not. Society has had already enough junk products that both consume resources and produce waste for no reason. It is designers' responsibility to raise this question and contribute to reduce the product waste around us.

Photo: Emil Otto Hoppé, Skeleton of Graf Zeppelin, Friedrichshafen, 1928