Developing Usable Experiences

Embellishing our resources

March 14th, 2011 6:34 am —  9 views

As a species, we have long taken interest in the embellishment of our world. Be it to impress or appease; manipulating things through color or decoration has long been a way to personalize our environment. Perhaps this is because having a personal environment makes us happy.

If that is true, it could also be said that having impersonal things in our environment can make us unhappy. Lack of control over one’s environment is pretty much the same thing. Within the constraints of effective choices, having some choice allows exercising of the free will and oftentimes the intellect. Preferring one type of tool to another that accomplishes the same task is such a case.

When it comes down to it, who cares if I coat the outside of a tissue box with rocks I picked up at the beach? As long as the rocks aren’t stolen blood diamonds or lumps of radioactive waste, what does it matter? If in doing so, I feel more satisfied and later happier for having it in my environment, then it can’t be viewed as anything other than beneficial.

Understanding the constraints governing choice is part of making good choices. A good choice is one in which nobody is hurt, there is little risk, and someone benefits through positive feelings or basic utility. Both of which are available in a tissue box covered in stones from a summer vacation.

Image: This is a work-in-progress on my shop work bench. It’s taken me half a year to get it to this point, but it doesn’t bother me just sitting there in its unfinished state. Seeing it like it is makes me happy. And yes W., I will finish it someday.

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