Blind(s) to Design
My wife doesn’t often say: “That’s a good design.”
So, after she said that last month, my ears perked up. Well, metaphorically speaking…
In my profession, I’m dialed into the design and technology communities a little more than she is. Furthermore, Google’s and YouTube’s algorithms often feed me the latest innovation and invention video links and websites. Likewise, my friends and associates at work share and send new ideas about the latest design or revolutionary technology to hit the market almost every week.
But my wife doesn’t go out of her way to tell me about products, devices, or even apps that really impress her. So when she says something like the above quote, it must really mean something and possibly to everyone else she “represents”: parents too busy to track technology and design trends but still know a good design when they see and use one.
The context was a business trip in France where I took the whole family, including our children who were out of school for the summer. The precise location, in terms of latitude, was 8 degrees further north than what we are used to. Since our trip spanned the summer solstice, on June 21, the sun was setting quite late and it was light way past the time for the children to go to bed.
The need for black-out shades or blinds was clearly established. But there was one more complication. We also needed the windows to remain open, at least partially, for air to be free flowing. This was, after all, Europe, where air conditioning is uncommon. My children reminded me about this during our trip almost every day when the temperatures often reached 90 degrees (we have air conditioning at home in the USA which is much more common).
The great news was that the window blinds installed by the owner seem to meet our needs perfectly. I will briefly describe some of the main features we enjoyed and why I consider this a good design.
These blinds could really make it dark
It’s been shown that we sleep better with less stimuli in our room, which of course includes all sources of light. These blinds did a fantastic job of keeping the light out at 9pm when it was still very much bright outside and in the early morning after sunrise when we were still fast asleep. At my own home in the US, at various hotels, and in other places, our family has tried drapes, blinds, curtains, and even the occasional blanket to try and keep the light out to increase the quality of sleep. In contrast, these well-designed blinds boasted overlapping and integrated slats that would result in no light sneaking through. The results: darkness on demand. The following three pictures show the blinds lowering down and then the complete lack of light making it through the blinds. I had to ask one of my children to turn on a light inside so that the second and third picture wasn’t completely black.
These blinds were completely out of sight during the day
I haven’t mentioned it yet but these blinds were external. They were positioned above the window or door on the outside so as to not block even one millimeter of the window pane when they were retracted. I consider this good design because so many other options will cut-off a couple of centimeters or more on the top or sides of the window frame. Windows are indeed so nice to have, it’s a shame some of the options for blinds require covering a large portion of the window. Even the designers of computer operating systems have implemented various features to avoid having a screen cut-off by annoying taskbars and other oversized menu options. In essence, we like to have our view unfettered, and this extends to our screens and windows too.
These blinds were solid, waterproof, and windproof.
Although these blinds were quite similar to hurricane blinds that are sometimes installed in homes in Florida for obvious reasons, they were still rugged albeit a little lighter. Still, when the slats dropped down and merged into each other into an overlapping orientation the system became quite rigid. My kids have broken other types of venetian blinds before which can hardly take the slight push or pull before becoming permanently deformed or bent. For the design we experienced in France, it would have taken a lot of distinct effort to do the same damage. Although we didn’t try it, if a child tripped and fell into these blinds I’m sure it would have held firm. The “waterproofness” and “windproofness” derived themselves from the same reason: the slats were fully interlocking. Even though it didn’t rain while we were there, I’m fully confident it would have kept the rain out. It did keep the wind out when closed all the way which I’ll discuss later.
These blinds were aesthetically neutral (and they didn’t need to be eye candy).
Although the slats and overall system were made of metal (i.e. aluminum) which enabled the preceding attributes just mentioned, they were neither ugly nor works of art (although I’m sure they could have been spiced up if one wanted). Ultimately, we decided they were almost purely utilitarian and meant to serve the apartment’s dwellers during sleeping hours and perhaps the occasional storm. After all, they were out of sight almost every hour of the waking day. Why would they need to be glamorous when our eyes are supposed to be closed (and sleeping) when these blinds are down and visible? The same argument could be made of wall insulation. You probably don’t care if your insulation is yellow or pink (since you don’t see it behind the drywall) but you do want it to work.
These blinds still could let some light (and air) through if desired
I mentioned the overlapping slats do a great job of keeping the light out when fully locked. But if one holds off on the final locking motion, enough holes between the slats can let a little light through. This was perfect for one of our children who still likes a night light for the first few hours of the night. We could adjust the blinds to the precise amount of light desired. Although leaving a crack open at the bottom was still possible, it wasn’t as desirable. As the locking mechanism and action would propagate up the layers of slats thereby connecting them, we could stop the process to calibrate the desired amount of light that could still penetrate uniformly throughout the system. (See the video above or the images below). Now what about the air flow? As mentioned above, when fully engaged no wind was going to pass through. Since the lack of air conditioning was a big challenge for many of my family, we did experiment with the calibration of the blinds - not to let some light through, but to let some air through to cool off the apartment. It worked pretty well if the outside temperature wasn’t too hot. It was clearly a trade between how dark you want the room(s) and how quickly you wanted it to cool off. Importantly, the feature I loved was that you could change your mind and respond to different outside temperatures, light conditions outside (i.e. time of the year), and ambient wind speeds. Since other blinds don’t offer that flexibility, this was a huge advantage in my mind.
Lessons Learned
I left that apartment pondering the question, is good design visible or invisible?
At least in this instance, these blinds were closer to the invisible side of the spectrum. They were mostly out of sight but surprisingly useful and robust in meeting the simultaneous needs of a variety of people’s preferences, such as heat and light tolerances, without obnoxious colors, branding, and complexity. In fact, I couldn’t even find the manufacturer or model name of the blinds. They were hidden from my view. I might have only glimpsed these blinds 15 seconds a day or less, but they were helping me 8 plus hours every night. That’s close to invisible.
In my next design efforts, I hope I can be more like the design team of these blinds. Their design wasn’t flashy, intrusive, or overly complicated, but it was quietly doing a good thing for me and my family every night. I might have not even noticed or thought about it had my wife not said something out of character. Good design should feel natural and obvious - and sometimes invisible.
