Why we need so much more than the Bauhaus

Today, designers relish the opportunity to invent entirely new ways of working, playing, and living. In- stead, at the Bauhaus, the emphasis was on simplicity, which is ne as long as one is designing simple things, such as kitchen tools, table- ware, and jewelry. But the world is complex, so too must be the things that enable us to work within this world (Norman, 2010). Complexity is a fact of life. Simplicity, on the other hand, is in the mind—it is the designer’s task to make the complex understandable and usable. And when a complex thing is easy to understand, we call it “simple.” 

The Bauhaus was not interested in these issues. Instead, they focused on things that t the craft style of design. They did work with simple electronic devices—simple radios, for example—but they never addressed the question of how design could transform truly complicated devices into understandable ones. That is today’s challenge. Making beautiful objects is relatively easy compared to the design challenge of making complicated objects understandable. Consider the “Curriculum Wheel” (Illustration), developed by Walter Gropius in 1922. It contains three years of study, starting with form and materials, moving to advanced topics in materials, composition, and construction. Never a mention of people. Never a mention of usage. It was all about form. During the period of the Bauhaus, all sorts of new devices for home and office were being introduced: phonographs, typewriters, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, refrigerators and new types of stoves. Did Bauhaus think of these things or new designs for them? Nope. What do we need today? We need a design that moves us away from appearance and focuses upon people’s activities and their under- lying needs. Do we still need at- tractive things? Of course, but that is only one of many dimensions we need to consider.

Today, we focus on the people who use our products. We watch them, interview them, test out our ideas on them. Sometimes we co-design with them. This was unthinkable to those in the Bauhaus. As we put the person into the design, especially as we are concerned about people’s abilities to understand and make use of our evermore complex, electronically mediated objects, we need very different design principles. Form alone will no longer suffice. We must understand people, how they work and behave and, especially, how they can come to understand complex technology. It is the role of the de- signer to make the complex appear to be simple. 

The eld of design has made numerous advances since the time of the Bauhaus. Design now has many different specialties, including areas quite distinct from the considerations of those earlier times: interaction design, user interface design, user experience - all of these are novel. I consider myself a cognitive designer, a concept I suspect I would have found difficult to explain then. Design has become a critically important part of the creation and development of products. Concepts such as affordances, signers, constraints, and mental models were not in the Bauhaus vocabulary. The notion that it might be necessary to go out in the world and observe intended users of the designs for weeks would not only never have occurred to them, I suspect it would have been repugnant. These concepts are not difficult to understand, so the lack of appreciation was not for the lack of the vocabulary: it was because all of these concepts focus on people’s activities and the way they use and understand products. I see little evidence that the Bauhauslers were concerned with these things. We live today in a very different world, even if it is only a bit less than 100 years later. The things that concern us are not the things that concerned the members of the Bauhaus. What is the Bauhaus noted for today? Form. Style. The emphasis on simplicity of appearance. The Wikipedia article on the Bauhaus tells the Bauhaus’ layman: “One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is in the eld of modern furniture design”. The world of design today is far larger than the design of furniture.

The Bauhaus movement did elevate the practice of design from an obscure profession to the high and mighty realm of art. That probably had great impact on the modern ascent of design to its place today as a powerful force in industry. Today, designers aspire to more than the creation of objects. Design is a way of thinking, so it can be applied to any aspect of a company, any aspect of society. The designers’ approach to discovering and solving the core, root issues with creativity and relevance can be applied to most issues in the world, whether it be healthcare or education, transportation or entertainment. 

To the Bauhaus, design was an applied form of art, an approach that I believe to be fundamentally wrong. It is what creates a misleading impression that designers make beautiful objects.

Design is a way of thinking, about addressing the fundamental needs of people and society. It can be applied to all aspects of human and societal life. Some things that we design do not have a physical structure: art, materials, form have little or no relevance. When the things that we design are tangible or visible, then, yes, form matters. However, even here, I would place form second to utility: designers make things for people to use. They must be understandable, usable, emotionally delightful. For me, appearance is extremely important, but secondary to utility. The great designers know how to make delightful, beautiful objects that are also functional, understandable, usable. That is what 21st century design should be. That is what it must be in this age of evermore complex technology that, without the aid of designers, would be unintelligible, frustrating and a danger to society.