I read the Design of Everyday Things and most of it was painfully obvious examples and was overly philosophical.

Design is solving problems so they're intuitive for the user. Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it. And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

> Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it.

It’s common to illustrate principles with examples that appear obvious, i.e. that everyone agrees on, so that after having it conceptualized as a principle, you’ll apply it in less obvious circumstances. Many things are obvious only in hindsight.

> And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

That’s not true, because a lot of flawed design is being promoted and defended in public as the thing to do.

> Obviously a door with a handle shouldn't be a push door, I don't really think you need to write a book about it.

And yet we've all encountered push doors with handles many times.

> And the types of people creating bad design are generally constrained by cost, time, or practicality, not necessarily by education.

Good design is far cheaper and easier than bad design in the long run. Being able to articulate the benefit of good design such that stakeholders provide the resources for good design is perhaps one of the most important reasons to have such an education.

uh, the fact that this is written down and carefully put in frameworks is a good thing. Otherwise you can say any academic book is intuitive. the fact that it sounds obvious means they're getting the message across. because lord knows it was needed and there's plenty of failed products and ideas because of shitty design.