Name: 【TED】John Hockenberry: We are all designers (John Hockenberry: We are all designers)
Uploaded: 2016-06-12T15:15:40.000Z
Duration: 19 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Translator: Morton Bast Reviewer: Thu-Huong Ha

which is kind of an interesting way to grow up.

I had to figure out what it is my dad did

Dad talked a lot about bad design when we were growing up,

you know, "Bad design is just people not thinking, John," he would say

whenever a kid would be injured by a rotary lawn mower

or, say, a typewriter ribbon would get tangled

or an eggbeater would get jammed in the kitchen.

You know, "Design -- bad design, there's just no excuse for it.

It's letting stuff happen without thinking about it.

Every object should be about something, John.

It should cast that user in a story starring the user and the object.

Good design," my dad said, "is about supplying intent."

Dad helped design the control panels for the IBM 360 computer.

That was a big deal; that was important. He worked for Kodak for a while; that was important.

He designed chairs and desks and other office equipment for Steelcase; that was important.

I knew design was important in my house because, for heaven's sake, it put food on our table, right?

He had a Dixieland jazz band when we were growing up,

and he would always cover Louis Armstrong tunes.

And I would ask him every once in a while,

"Dad, do you want it to sound like the record?"

We had lots of old jazz records lying around the house.

The song is just a given, that's how you have to think about it.

You gotta make it your own. You gotta design it.

Show everyone what you intend," is what he said.

"Doing that, acting by design, is what we all should be doing.

Well, let's hold on to that thought for just a minute.

It's kind of like this wheelchair I'm in, right?

I don't like to talk about this very much, but I'll tell you guys the story today.

All right, exactly 36 years ago this week, that's right,

on a poorly designed road in Pennsylvania,

But ever since then, the wheelchair has been a given in my life.

My life, at the mercy of good design and bad design.

It mostly projects tragedy and fear and misfortune,

and it projects that message, that story, so strongly

I roll swiftly through an airport, right?

And moms grab their kids out of the way and say, "Don't stare!"

The poor kid, you know, has this terrified look on his face, God knows what they think.

why does this happen? What can I do about it? How can I change this? I mean there must be something.

So I would roll, I'd make no eye contact -- just kinda frown, right?

Or I'd dress up really, really sharply or something.

that was really creepy; that didn't work at all.

You know anything, I'd try. I wouldn't shower for a week -- nothing worked.

Nothing whatsoever worked until a few years ago,

my six-year-old daughters were looking at this wheelchair catalog that I had, and they said,

"Oh, Dad! Dad! Look, you gotta get these, these flashy wheels -- you gotta get 'em!"

And I said, "Oh, girls, Dad is a very important journalist,

And of course, they immediately concluded,

"Oh, what a bummer, Dad. Journalists aren't allowed to have flashy wheels.

I mean, how important could you be then?" they said.

I went, "Wait a minute, all right, right -- I'll get the wheels." Purely out of protest,

I got the flashy wheels, and I installed them and --

check this out. Could I have my special light cue please?

Now ... look at, look at this! Look at this!

People going, "Awesome wheels, dude! Those are awesome!

I mean, I want some of those wheels!" Little kids say,

And of course there's the occasional person --

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【TED】John Hockenberry: We are all designers (John Hockenberry: We are all designers)

completely

life

random

important