A mainstay of my childhood was my fascination with poorly designed systems. I would watch people take wrong turns, screw up a task, and then project their frustration at an inanimate object as if it were complicit in their downfall.

Yelling at a sign at Westfield. Or a computer at a library. One time, a sandwich.

I always wondered: what really happened? Why wasn't it clear? Could it be better?

That curiosity led me to the University of Sydney, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Design Computing (HCI). Now, with 4+ years of experience in product design, I can say with confidence that there are many reasons why people get frustrated with systems.

Yet the fix is always the same - design for people, not the other way around. Because the person yelling at that sandwich? They weren't the problem. The sandwich was.