Ralph Caplan (1925–2020)

I’ll read just about any nonfiction, so on someone’s recommendation I picked up this 1984 volume on the importance of design, which Caplan uses to refer to the design of situations as well as of things. There are scattered interesting observations in the book, but it’s not held together by any theory more sophisticated than “design is important,” and it’s incredibly poorly organized. Paragraphs just tumble one after the other like gumballs out of a machine, as if someone put Caplan in front of a tape recorder and asked him to spill out his thoughts on design, prodding him with “anything else?” when he slowed down, but there aren’t even any structuring interview questions.… (mehr)