As an usability consultant, I often emphasize that our job is making things more clear and easy to handle. This is the principle of usability, but unfortunately, not the principle of our daily life. Sometimes, beauty and trendy can make us blind.

Dior Homme and Karl Lagerfeld
In 2001, when Hedi Slimane became the chief designer of Dior Homme, many guys have started to lose their weight, just for fit in the slim suits of Dior Homme. One of them is Karl Lagerfeld, the chief designer from Chanel, Fendi. Karl Lagerfeld finally lost 90 pounds. Apparently, the suit from Hedi Slimane was not for the man with average body size, but for “thin man”.
In this extreme case, we knew that trendy is the main motivation of fashion. Ladies have suffered for a long time, just look at the 8 inches high heel of LadyGaGa and you should realize that if something is in vogue, people would do anything to follow.

iPad and Book
In early July, Nielsen Norman Group discovered that it takes longer to read books on a iPad versus a printed book. However, another finding was people felt more satisfied when using iPad to read than printed materials. This result reveals that satisfaction is not only come from what you have done, but what you are doing. In this iPad usability survey, if the ultimate target is reading, people will be satisfied when they could read easier and faster in printed format. However, apparently, the target of some people is “what they look like when reading”, that means they concern more about what is doing now rather than what they can get from reading. Therefore, even using iPad is harder to read, but still could achieve “they look trendy when reading”.

I learned a lot from design but still can’t apply in certain situations, cause people is strange, right? Have you suffered from any design?  Or have you bear any pain from anything in daily life? What made you bear such pain?