Design is great because there’s always someone ready to give feedback, whether it’s super helpful or not. I’ve learned that even when critique sounds expert-level, you still have to take it with a grain of salt and weigh it against the reasoning behind your original decisions. At the end of the day, good design comes from balancing outside input with your own understanding of why you made certain choices in the first place.

This way of creating really resonates with me, as someone who struggles to come up with original ideas having resources to refer to other works as inspiration has been extremely helpful. To me it's similar to the concept of learning history, you learn it so that you don't repeat mistakes and become better. With this take we can only get more creative and explore possibilities that we could have never thought of without a bit of "stealing".

This bit about interpreting and synthesizing data really resonates with me. It’s just like sorting through my scattered class notes at the end of a hectic week—it's all about pulling out key themes and insights. It feels like detective work, especially when organizing group study sessions. There’s something really satisfying about turning a mess of information into something clear and useful, almost like putting together a puzzle where each piece helps reveal the bigger picture.

This emphasis on the importance of communication in understanding problems really resonated with me. During my internship last summer, I got to see first-hand how chatting directly with users can reveal so much more than you'd think. It’s kind of like when I’m trying to figure out what movie to watch with friends—just asking directly cuts through the noise. Ko nails the idea that diving into real conversations is key, whether it’s about big project goals or just everyday choices. It’s a simple reminder but super relevant, no matter the context.

I completely agree with the statement; as a designer aiming to create products for a broad user base, I often find myself stuck in a loop, trying to satisfy everyone. It's important for designers to understand that designs can always be iterated and improved. For example, the soap dispenser initially struggled to recognize darker skin tones, but through continuous testing and iterations, a model could eventually be developed that recognizes all skin tones - but even then it may still have other flaws.

I think that a lot of people tend to forget that design is the building block of innovation. When it comes down to appreciating a design of something such as a table per se, the focus is more on the engineers work & how well they built it. However, I do have to wonder how AI will impact the impact of human driven design rather than generated design. I've been told that either you start learning how to implement AI into your design flow or you'll fall behind and have no chance at getting a well paid design job.