One of our middle schools in the district sits on the edge of a steep hillside. There is a large set of stairs, and to the side of that, a long wheelchair ramp. Between the stairs and the ramp is a steep grassy wedge. There is a huge forested area with trails nearby, but three boys, two with GoPro cameras on their helmets, are riding up the ramp, and riding down the grassy embankment as well as the stairs. You can see a trail down the embankment from continued use… use that was never intended.

I remember reading about a new college or university that didn’t install walking paths until after students had created foot trails through the grassy openings between buildings, allowing form to fit function.

There are so many ways that poor design misses the point that the use of an item is more important than the look. Here in Vancouver, the overhangs in front of malls, stores, and buildings will have massive gaps between them. But these are decorative, not functional. They might ‘work’ in California, but it rains a lot more here in Vancouver, and people would rather be dry, instead of having decorative overhangs that let the rain come through.

Design vs Use in Schools

Schools lack inviting spaces to hang out that result in the use of hallway or stairwell alcoves where kids like to congregate, making the hallways and stairways more of a hangout and much less functional to walk through. Rectangular desks only let chairs fit in 2 of the 4 sides. Library stacks don’t move, making the design of the library fixed in form and function.

Multiple choice tests are easy to mark, but force the focus of tests towards content. “All of the above” answers allow student to be partially correct but not get credit for knowing what they know. The questions are ‘closed’ as opposed to open ended.

The bell schedule with blocks of time push schools into teaching subjects in silos. Blocks limit collaboration between teachers. Grouping students by age in those blocks limits the ability to combine students by passion and capability.

We should always be thinking about designing for use. We should have empathy for the user. And we should celebrate when users make the design work for them.