From his site: <i>Design is at it's best when its simple - when people understand it intuitively. Design that tells great stories cuts through the clutter and finds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who listen.</i><p>I found the site to be unintuitive, cluttered and lacked the full narrative. He should redesign because he seems talented and I'm still curious about the 50 problems.
My name is Peter Smart. I am the creator of this project.<p>Thanks for all your constructive thoughts and comments so far. I am 23 and this was a university project that has generated a lot of interest. Apologies it's so slow right now - apparently that the HN effect.<p>Thanks for your thoughts on the site design. The site has won Site of the Day at Design Taxi and Awwwards. This was really unexpected as I agree there is still more to be done in terms of making the site as intuitive as possible.<p>However, the most important thing isn't the site design. It's the premise. What can design do - if anything?<p>I took a risk and set out into the unknown to answer that question. Some days I failed, some days I succeeded. The most important thing is that I dared to try (and when I failed - got up and tried again). It was an incredible experience so I hope you continue to enjoy it.<p>Pete
Is this a joke or something?<p>Day 20: <i>This padlock was too small for my locker. I'll wrap a metal cable around it and lock the cable.</i><p>Day 24: <i>Wet socks. I stuck a towel under the door. It failed.</i><p>Is this really representative of what "designers" do? Just looks like jury-rigging to me. Slap some duct-tape on it and get on with your life.
Folks are apparently down on this. Why in the world? It's awesome!<p>How cool to spend 50 days digging into people's problems, travelling, and putting it all out there. I'd bet anything that his 50 days of travel have led to more advancement, opportunity and insight than almost any other use of 50 days.<p>Be happy and supportive for someone who is breaking convention and being prolific!
"I'm on an adventure - to explore the limits of design's ability to solve social problems, big and small."<p>Cool. On the other hand I am on an adventure to explore the limits of my brain's ability to solve problems, mostly small. Even solving <i>one</i> medium-sized problem very well would set me financially for my whole life. I am working on this not for 50 days but my whole life... :)
I know that this is a bit snarky, but I can't help feeling, "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with design" is not a million miles away from "Solve 50 problems in 50 days with great hair"
This is an interesting take. Applying the simple ideals of Kaizen[1] to our daily lives.<p>[1]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen</a>
Problem and Solution number 42 is a genius way to help the less fortunate. I do hope that the more metropolitan cities adopt that in their transit systems.
This is awesome, sure most of the solutions have extra hurdles to overcome but that's not the point, it reminds me to keep my eyes open and remember things that I accept as unchanging might not be as rigid as I assume.<p>Very inspiring.
Wow - people on HN are unforgiving. The site design is great. Yes, it is dog slow at the moment, but otherwise it is fun and beautifully made with some nice mapping etc.<p>People seem to be criticising it on UI terms (it's confusing/hard to use) but I think it works because the site isn't trying to market a product (like most HN sites) but tell a story, so it is not unreasonable to expect/encourage the user to explore.<p>Basically, I think it is more interesting even if it is harder to use.
I liked some of the problems, but really I'm much more interested in the guy's experience. There doesn't seem to be a story, a real narrative I can follow here :-(