Whether it’s an online product, a physical product, a service, or an event — your implementation should give the viewer an epiphany of communication and understanding. When it all comes together, pretty astounding things can happen. That’s what happened for Burkey Belser, the designer of every drug information label on every bottle of pills. You’ll also see Belser’s work on the side of every food item sold in this country because Belser also designed the nutrition label. For that matter, Belser also designed the Vietnam war memorial. When I learned all of this yesterday while flipping through one of my old application interface books, I was flatly astounded. What an incredible legacy.
Ultimately, any well-designed product or experience acknowledges the user. It’s that respect for the user that makes a design great. Every now and then, a design comes along that radically changes the way we think about a particular object. Case in point: the iMac. Suddenly, a computer is no longer an anonymous box. It is a sculpture, an object of desire, something that you look at. What a great way to enter or compete in a crowded market.
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