In the height of iPad noise, Gizmodo wrote up a great little post about Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles for Good Design, a major influence on Apple’s product line. Here’s the list in full:

1. Good design is innovative.

2. Good design makes a product useful.

3. Good design is aesthetic.

4. Good design helps us to understand a product.

5. Good design is unobtrusive.

6. Good design is honest.

7. Good design is durable.

8. Good design is consequent to the last detail.

9. Good design is concerned with the environment.

10. Good design is as little design as possible.

I’m a big advocate for design thinking in all contexts of work and life — and libraries too! Consider the list above, how often do we break these rules in our websites, building layouts, signage etc. Why shouldn’t these rules apply to us? We’re constantly designing (badly) in the library world without even knowing it. I would tape this list to the side of my monitor, but that would be breaking rules three and five.

For library design tips, please see The Usable Library by Team Influx, which is basically Dieter’s list applied to libraries. I heart Team Influx, very much, and you should too.

(Pssst, above Photo is Dieter Rams’ shelving system)