“The excellence of a successful product is in direct proportion to its clarity and usability!”
Hello 👋🏼, and welcome to my website. I’m glad you have found your way here. My name is Martin, and currently, I’m working as a Senior Product Designer @ Singtel Optus in Australia.
In my spare time I like reading and writing, playing sports, hiking, and occasionally enjoying moments of solitude. This website is mostly a collection of my scribbles on various topics, mostly design-related, but not only.
To learn more about what I do or who I am, click here.
So here is something to contemplate on. Everybody wants to become rich. But if everybody becomes rich, nobody is going to be actually rich.
The word “rich” is a comparative adjective. It implies that others are poor. When we say Jeff Asshole Bezos or Elon Retard Musk are rich, it means they have more than others. Significantly more!
So if we go by this definition, being rich simply means having more than the others. As a consequence, if everybody has the same amount of stuff, then the very definition of the word “rich” will lose its meaning.
Semantically speaking we can’t be all rich or can we?
Have you noticed how good design solves a problem and is usually quite noticeable? Great design, on the other hand, seamlessly integrates into the user experience, becoming almost invisible. 👏🏼🎉
This leads to the paradox of good design, which I contemplated a while ago.
In other words, great design fades into the background, letting the user focus on the purpose or task at hand rather than the design itself.
This could be one of the reasons why there are so many unrecognised good designers.
As I’m going through my old writings, I rediscovered this short piece that I wrote back in 2017. It was my reaction to some of Elon Musk’s claims back then about going to Mars to save humanity. I’m somehow surprised by how little this piece has aged and how relevant it still is today.
Unfortunately, not much has changed since 2017—except maybe that Elon’s vision of going to Mars, and many other claims, seems somehow more like business-driven market manipulation rather than an actual serious endeavour to go to Mars to save mankind.
As I am rereading Factfulness by Hans Rosling, I can’t help but think how relevant this book is to us designers.
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
If I were going to take a few key points away from this book, it would be the same advice that I often give my mentees about our profession as designers.
1. Be mindful of data
This is the big one! Pay attention to context rather than numbers alone—correct interpretation and understanding of statistics is critical for finding solutions. Question what is being measured, how it is being measured, and how it is interpreted. Hans Rosling does a great job explaining how biases and our perception often distort reality, even when it’s presented to us in the form of numerical data. For example, in the chapter on the generalisation instinct, he dissects our tendency to stereotype—assuming entire groups behave or think the same way.
• Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories.
• Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant.
• Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies to one group applies to another.
• Beware of “the majority.” The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51 percent, 99 percent, or something in between.
• Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall, but they might be the exception rather than the rule. Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?
For example: recently, instead of automatically thinking “Gen Z users love short videos,” I reminded myself to test this assumption first. I started talking to our grads at Optus. (Big thank you to Ethan, Em, Josh, Lachy, Lucy, and everyone else for your patience answering my questions 👏🏼). What was true for 60% of them wasn’t for the residual 40%. Yes, I could easily say that the majority of Generation Z loves short videos. While the statement would be technically correct, it would also lead to a vague perception of reality and a solution that may be usable for only 60% of our customer base—not the kind of majority my stakeholders would imagine.
In a nutshell, after re-reading Factfulness, I’m even more motivated to spend extra time understanding individual motivations, needs, and behaviors—not just grouping people by age or region.
Btw: if you’re too lazy to read the whole book, at least check chapter one on “The Gap Instinct” and chapter six on “The Generalisation Instinct.”
2. Design holistically
Approach design holistically—look for connections and always ask yourself how your solution affects everyone—not just users of your product, but also those who will not be using your product but will be directly or indirectly affected by your solution.
We live the way we do at the expense of those who don’t
Simply put, many of the products in developed countries should not exist. Not because they are not delightful, nor because there isn’t demand for them—obviously there is, otherwise they wouldn’t exist—but simply because they are building blocks of a lifestyle that is not scalable, neither sustainable, especially if everyone on this planet lived the same way.
In the chapter on the blame instinct Hans Rosling explains how we often blame poor countries for the global pollution even though data clearly indicates that their contribution to pollution is minor compared to ours in rich countries. Even worse, environmental damage in poor countries is often related to our exploitative behaviour. We extract resources to sustain our lifestyle from poor countries. Everything is connected. If we zoom out and see the whole picture, we quickly realise that our iPhones or Roomba vacuum cleaners are relatively cheap only because someone in Africa has probably died from the consequences of digging rare earth minerals which are necessary to manufacrure these gadgets.
CO2 emissions by income. Photo taken from Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Carbon footprint is one way to visualise and understand this proportionality of impact of our lifestyle has on polluting the planet when compared to people living in poorest countries.
Most of the human-emitted CO, accumulated in the atmosphere was emitted over the last 50 years by countries that are now on Level 4. Canada’s per capita CO, emissions are still twice as high as China’s and eight times as high as India’s. In fact, do you know how much of all the fossil fuel burned each year is burned by the richest billion? More than half of it. Then the second-richest billion burns half of what’s left, and so on and so on, down to the poorest billion, who are responsible for only 1 percent.
The conclusion, the poorest billion cannot live like us. The right thing to say is, “We cannot live like us.”
Our standard of living in developed countries such as Australia or most of Europe is taken for granted by its inhabitants, but for the rest of the world—which is about 6 billion people—it’s aspirational. They also want to live the way we do. The problem is that our “developed” way of life is not scalable, and unless we discover a new source of truly green energy or we sacrifice our standard of living, which nobody wants to do, our civilisation is doomed.
For example I went to the online environmental impact calculator by Climate Hero and tested myself. Result? I am a Climate Consumer producing 5.6 tonnes CO2e. You can try it by yourself. The result may shock you.
I’m a climate consumer 😏
Lesson for designers?
What we design is often outside of our control. We are nothing but the cog in the machine,” you might say. “If I don’t do it, someone else will.” I’m not suggesting you to quit your job just because you work on a product that people could easily live without. It would be nice, but we all need to make a living somehow.
Instead, Let’s start with awareness. Change of perspective. when you design something, consider the broader context— and broader doesn’t need to mean global. locally broader is a good start. Even the longest journey starts with a single step.
Design accordingly.
3. Focus on the root cause, not symptoms!
To be continued soon …
Actually, do you want me to continue? Leave a comment below 😅🙏🏼
After delving into Hans Rosling’s book Factfulness, I can’t help but feel a mix of reluctant optimism and a lingering sense of impending doom. Sure, the book does a great job of showing us that the world isn’t as terrible as we might think, and that there’s data to prove humanity’s progress. But at the same time, it also highlights a rather grim reality: billions of people are striving for a lifestyle that our planet’s limited resources might never be able to sustain.
And let’s not forget our tendency to squabble over ideologies and beliefs that only serve to divide us further. In the end, while Factfulness offers a glimmer of hope, it also serves as a stark reminder of the uphill battle we face.
Still, I’d recommend giving it a read—if only to arm yourself with a bit more knowledge to navigate this complicated world.
🍎📲💥 There’s been a wave of criticism around Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI — especially among designers.
But I can’t help but wonder: how much of it is genuine concern for accessibility and usability, and how much is performative outrage or virtue signaling?
Let’s not forget — this is a demo, not a finished product. Judging an under-construction UI as if it’s final is like complaining about a leaky roof before the roof is even built.
Yes, accessibility matters. Yes, legibility matters. But perhaps the louder concern should be elsewhere:
Autocorrect that still struggles.
Dictation that fumbles.
Voice recognition that underdelivers.
AI features that feel half-baked.
These are the core experiences that need urgent attention. Maybe it’s time we shift focus away from the gloss and toward the fundamentals.
The book is a collection of stories written in journalistic style; an enlightening read that opens a window into the lives of (extra)ordinary Europeans. No sensational headlines, just real lives marked by migration, climate hardship, identity, and hope. Ben Judah doesn’t romanticise them; he tells their often rough stories with respect, clarity, and heartfelt empathy.
This is Europe by Ben Judah
Through 23 intimate portraits, the author took me from a Rotterdam harbour pilot navigating global trade, to Romanian lorry drivers vulnerable to crime on UK routes, to Italian mountain rescuers helping West African migrants in the Alps. Each story felt genuine, profoundly honest, and eye-opening.
I highly recommend this book — it broadened my understanding of what Europe truly looks like today.
“This is Europe” is empathy-inducing read that made me reflect on the values and future of society from different perspectives.
A good hammer is valuable because it is useful, and not because it is well designed. Wait a minute. You might say, “Isn’t it useful because it was designed that way?” Yes, it was designed to be useful, but it’s valuable not because it was designed, but because it is useful. In other words, it would be valuable even if it wasn’t designed, and yet it was somehow, by accident, useful.
Assuming that the value or meaning of the object is derived from its usefulness and not from the fact that it was designed, there isn’t an immutable link between an object’s original design and its actual value.
But how about the Magic Mouse by Apple or Philippe Starck’s lemon squeezer? Aren’t those objects of design valuable because they were designed, rather than because of their actual usefulness?
If somebody came to you and claimed that their weight was a nice green colour, you would probably stop, double-check if you heard them correctly, and then wonder if that person was sane. What a piece of nonsense!
Just because something sounds like a sentence and has the structure of a sentence doesn’t mean it must automatically have meaning.
And yet, in the corporate world, we often hear busy white-collar professionals utter similar kinds of nonsense.
“Let’s dockerize the monolith to make it cloud-native.” Sure, and while we’re at it, let’s staple a horse to a spaceship to make it more agile.
Or when Mike from Innovation Labs calls for “leveraging blockchain to democratize synergy.” That’s just a pile of nouns desperately trying to form a startup pitch.
But in the entrepreneurial world of wannabe innovators, sentences like these get nodded at, printed on slides, and repeated in meetings without a hint of irony.
“We need to action this ask.” You mean… do the thing someone asked for? Why not just say that?
In linguistics, sentences like these are usually described as category mistakes (or category errors).
CO2 emissions by income. Photo taken from Factfulness by Hans Rosling
I’m a climate consumer 😏
