# Introduction Good design seems like something that we can aesthetically appreciate. For example we appreciate ‘design classics’ like the [[Swiss Railway Clock]], the Bialetti, and the iPod. There are also commonly agreed upon examples of bad design –TV remotes cluttered with meaningless buttons, phone chargers with plugs so heavy they slip from the outlet. An aesthetic account of design, however, should also consider whether it is possible to aesthetically appreciate what [[the designer]] Donald Norman calls [[invisible design]], “design which fits our needs so well that [[the design]] is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself” (Norman XXXX). In the [[first part]] of the paper, we examine what we take to be the two main approaches to the [[aesthetic appreciation]] of design in [[contemporary philosophy]]: Parsons and Carlson's [[Functional Beauty]] account, and Forsey’s Kantian account. We argue that, as it is a purely perception based account, [[Functional Beauty]], is unsuitable for [[invisible design]], and that this remains true even if we extend the account to non-visual perceptual modalities. Forsey's Kantian account fares better: appreciation on her account involves making a judgement of taste about an object's '[[dependent beauty]]', and such a judgement incorporates not only perception but also use of [[the object]]. This suggests a way in which we can appreciate [[invisible design]]: a well-[[designed object]] will elicit aesthetically [[pleasing actions]] from users. However, it is here where another question emerges, one which Forsey does not focus on: what makes an action or interaction aesthetically pleasing? Forsey, indeed, tends to take actions to be relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of design mainly in the sense that  such actions enable one to assess the functioning of the object. In the second part of the paper, we will argue, instead, that the actions that a work of design affords can directly contribute to the aesthetic appreciation of that object in virtue of their own aesthetic qualities. .In sum, our aim is to highlight a dimension of design aesthetics that current philosophical theories have either not focussed on at all (in the case of Carlson and Parsons) or not focussed on to the extent to which it merits (in the case of Forsey). However, we are not arguing that use is the only way to appreciate design, suggesting that existing theories should be rejected because they do not in themselves, account for it. Rather, we consider the ideas we introduce in what follows as a supplement to existing theories, but an important and hitherto overlooked one. As we are developing an aesthetic account of design based on use, our focus is on objects that can be used, in the sense that they need to be acted upon by their user to perform their function. What we mean here is roughly the same as E.J. Lowe's distinction between utensils and machines. Utensils are objects that require our active engagement to fulfil their function, and include things like knives, bicycles, and keys: if the user takes their hands off a knife it will cease cutting, if they stop pedalling they will slow to a halt. Machines, on the other hand, can perform their function without need for constant contact with the user. A radiator keeps heating whether we look at it or not, an electric fan will keep spinning until it is switched off. While Lowe's distinction tracks our everyday understanding of utensils and machines for the most part, it does not always do so. We would not normally think of a mercury thermometer or a bookshelf to be machines, but the former will track temperature, and the latter will keep your books suspended above the ground without user involvement, and so would come out on Lowe's account as machines. There are also hybrid cases. The iPod, for example, is utensil-like in that users have to move their finger or thumb around the click wheel to select a track, but machine-like in that once the track is selected music will play without further input. Finally, it seems right to extend the notion of utensil to include objects which we make perceptual use of like signs, maps, books and websites. Although we do not manipulate these objects with our physical bodies, we nevertheless use them to gain information about the world. Our arguments concerning the aesthetics of use will apply to these things as well as knives, bicycles, and iPods. # 1. The Aesthetics of Invisible Design ## 1. 1 Functional Beauty In cases such as the Coke bottle and the Olympic logo aesthetic appreciation depends on visual experience. It is the look of the coke bottle or Olympic logo which is the focus of aesthetic appreciation. Perceptual experience, visual experience in particular, plays a very prominent role in philosophical accounts of design. We will argue that accounts solely based on vision, or even perception more generally, are not the end of the story when it comes to appreciation of design: we should also consider what it is like to use an object. Using an object is of course closely related to the function of the object, and function does play a role in existing accounts of design appreciation. For example, on Carson and Parson's notion of functional beauty our understanding of an object's function can influence our aesthetic appreciation of it. An object's beauty is not solely based on its sensory or formal properties, but also on knowledge of how well it fulfils its intended function. However, function plays a supporting role to perception rather than occupying centre stage: #### “knowledge of [...] function can play a role in our perception of and hence our aesthetic appreciation of that object”(REF) Parsons and Carlson propose three ways function translates into aesthetic qualities. First, an object can look fit for function, appearing well-suited for its purpose by having expected features plus variable elements that enhance functionality. Second, an object can display elegance through a streamlined appearance, consisting primarily of elements that contribute to its function. Third, an object can create visual tension by seeming to perform its function despite features that appear to contradict it. Functional Beauty places the aesthetics of design firmly in the perceptual realm. Parsons and Carlson write mainly about visual perception, but we can apply similar principles to other senses. Roberts extends this approach to tactile perception, which we'll examine below. Yet a solely perceptual view of design aesthetics may be incomplete. Some aspects of design appreciation are not captured by perception alone. ## 1. 2 Invisible Design We can begin to see this by noting that not all talk of good and bad design is based around the visual appearance of objects. Norman (1988), for example, describes good design as invisible: #### Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable. It is easy to think of examples of noticeably bad design: capsule coffee machines which make it difficult to remove used capsules, mobile phones made from slippery materials are easy to fumble or drop. It is also easy to think of cases in which how visually pleasing something looks comes apart from how pleasing it is to use. Apple's butterfly keyboard is a good example of this. In March 2015 Apple released an iteration of its very successful MacBook laptop line. In the press release apple, as they are want to do, made a fuss about how these new products looked, and in particular how thin the keyboard, and the computer itself were: #### Apple® today unveiled the all-new MacBook®, a new line of notebooks reinvented in every way to deliver the thinnest and lightest Macs ever. Every component of the new MacBook has been meticulously redesigned to create a Mac® that weighs just two pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. The new MacBook features a stunning 12-inch Retina® display that is the thinnest ever on a Mac, an Apple-designed full-size keyboard which is dramatically thinner and highly responsive, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hp45k9fvfh474y7aee0qv61c)) #### Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Every component of the MacBook reveals a new innovation. From its fanless design, ultra-thin Retina display and full-size keyboard that’s 34 percent thinner, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hp45kw96pw26g6d4b11fz81n)) While the butterfly keyboard did make the laptop thinner, its shallowness meant it faced criticism regarding usability and the typing experience. Complaints included "like typing on a desk that was kind of clicky" and "one of the worst I've had the misfortune to type on". These last two complaints suggest what is missing from a perception focussed theory like Functional Beauty: an account of the role that use plays in the aesthetic appreciation of design. This keyboard looked great, fit for function, and elegantly minimal, but it was not pleasant to use and was phased out of Apple’s line up completely by May 2020.  ## 1.3 Tactile Beauty How can we appreciate good design if it is invisible? One way is to extend functional beauty, or any perception based account, to perceptual modalities other than vision. If good invisible design cannot be seen, perhaps it can be felt, or heard, or smelled? To illustrate why such a move is insufficient [something] we look at Roberts' recent account of how the functional beauty account can be extended to haptic touch. He argues that just as we can see an object as functionally beautiful, we can feel it that way too. He proposes that "an object feels fit for its function when it is perceived through touch as having no contra-standard properties for an object of its type, and as having variable properties, all of which are indicative of a high degree of functionality" (p. 56). Roberts illustrates this with the example of a perfect snowball:  #### a faultless sphere that fits neatly in the palm, with just enough heft and texture for throwing without risk of injury to its victim. Not being unusually large or small, and lacking any embellishment of form (ibid.) These tactile qualities indicate how well the snowball will perform its function of being thrown accurately and effectively leading it to possess, Roberts suggests,  "pleasing haptic quality that we can call 'feeling fit for function'" (ibid.). He extends this idea to other objects, like bicycles, where "qualities like these are disclosed through haptic exploration, even though they are contributors to functional beauty that remain inaccessible to vision" (p. 57). For instance, you might appreciate the lightness of the frame or the smooth operation of the gears through touch, qualities that indicate the bike's fitness for efficient riding. Presumably, not being fit for function is something that haptic touch allows access to also. Users could not see the bad design of the butterfly keyboard, but, once they got their hands on it, they could feel it. But even if we accept this haptic extension of functional beauty, it doesn't seem to fully capture our experience of invisible design. While Roberts' account helps us understand how we might appreciate the tactile qualities that indicate fitness for function, it still focuses on perceptual properties rather than the experience of use itself. Think about using a well-designed smartphone app. The pleasure we take in using it does not derive from how the screen feels under our fingertips. Or consider driving a finely-tuned sports car. The pleasure of driving it goes beyond the tactile sensations of gripping the steering wheel or pressing the pedals. In both the app case and in the car cases, there's an aesthetic quality to the interaction itself. Finally, there are designed objects which we use without touching them, such as the Swiss Railway Clock or Harry Beck’s diagrammatic London Underground Map. All of this suggests that to fully account for the aesthetics of invisible design, we might need to look beyond perception altogether and consider the aesthetics of use itself. ## 2. The Aesthetics of Use ### 2.1 A Kantian Approach While Parsons and Carlson put perception centre stage, Forsey argues that perception is just one factor that goes toward making an aesthetic judgement about a designed object. She draws on Kant's distinction between free and dependent beauty. As Kant (§16,65) puts it, “The first presupposes no concept of what the object ought to be; the second does presuppose such a concept and the perfection of the object in accordance therewith”. . While free beauty is judged solely on form, dependent beauty is judged by considering also “the purpose which determines what the thing is to be" (p. 163). Forsey applies this notion of dependent beauty to design, arguing that the aesthetic appreciation of designed objects necessarily involves assessing how well they fulfil their functions, considering both their purpose and how effectively they realise that purpose. Forsey's theory encompasses multiple factors in the aesthetic judgement of design. These include perception (visual and other sensory aspects), form (shape, colour, proportion), purpose (what the object is meant to do), functioning (how well the object works), and what she terms "teleological style" (the specific way an object realises its purpose). In Forsey's view, these factors are not isolated but integrally connected in our appreciation of design. She argues that in judging design, we "appreciate how the actually presented object realizes the given purpose in its specific way" (p. 194), considering both its functional success and the particular manner in which it achieves this success. Unlike the appreciation of fine art or the purely perceptual approach to design, Forsey argues that many qualities of a designed object can only be fully assessed through use. This emphasis on use as an essential aspect of aesthetic judgement highlights how design aesthetics are deeply integrated into our everyday lives and activities. Forsey illustrates this point in her discussion of judging design excellence: #### This judgement of perfection cannot be made by looking at the coffee-pots alone. Designed objects are meant to work, but to ascertain whether they do, and whether they are good things of their kind, requires us to use them or put them to the test: is the coffee any good? Can we lift the lid to serve it? Does the pot leak or the metal corrode? Some of these virtues and deficiencies will not be apparent to the eye alone, and this means that judgements of design excellence, first, require more than observation and, second, are more integrated into our everyday lives and activities than aesthetic judgements of fine art. ### 2.2 Ease of Use Unlike the Functional Beauty account, Forsey's Kantian approach, by taking use into account, can also accommodate invisible design. Whether or not the actions that an object allows for are aesthetically pleasing can contribute to our overall aesthetic judgement of it. However, Forsey does not dwell on what it is for an action, or interaction, to be aesthetically pleasing. She tends to consider the use of a designed object as a means to the end of testing the functioning of it rather than as bearer of aesthetically relevant properties that can contribute to the aesthetic value of it.  According to Forsey’s Kantian approach, the aesthetic merit of the designed object depends not only on its appearance but also on the realisation of its purpose, and use is relevant to aesthetic appreciation inasmuch as enables one to ascertain whether the purpose is properly realised. In this way, Forsey avoids the shortcomings of the Functional Beauty account which, as we saw above, centres aesthetic appreciation around perception, focusing on qualities such as 'looking fit for function'. In Forsey’s Kantian account, instead, the appreciator, as a user, can assess not only whether the designed object looks  fit for function but especially whether it is fit for function.  However, Although Forsey aptly casts the design appreciator as a user, she does not seem to care so much about what makes something aesthetically pleasing to use, and on how the user’s actions can contribute to elicit such aesthetic pleasure in virtue of being themselves aesthetically pleasing. To fully grasp the aesthetics of design, particularly where use is a primary factor, we need to explore this aspect further. Forsey limits herself to suggesting that ease of use plays some role in our aesthetic appreciation of our interactions with objects. In the following passages she compares what she considers a well designed coffee-pot with a badly designed one. #### But his coffee-pot, I want to claim, has flaws that are hidden behind that newness and shine, that detract from its beauty. First, brass conducts heat, and each time you reach for the handle, or put your finger on the lid, you burn yourself. Bakelite remains cool. Second, the sleek rounded design makes it very hard to unscrew the two halves, especially if you already have soapy hands. My octagonal pot turns as easily as a nut in a wrench, whether wet or dry. Third, the conical shape of his means the opening of the top pot is too narrow to fi t even a small hand in to clean it, whereas mine, as wide at the top as at the bottom, welcomes a quick scrub. (p. 181 – p. 182) It is not simply that it hurts to use the inferior coffee pot. Some well-designed objects create unpleasant sensations – a state-of-the-art oven makes anyone using it uncomfortably hot but this is not a mark against how well designed it is. Rather, it is not easy to make coffee with a pot too hot to touch. We can view the cleaning example similarly. A coffeepot's function is not to make coffee once, but many times. If maintenance is required to maintain this function, then washing the pot is using it. If this is correct then one might think that aesthetically pleasing interactions are, by Forsey's lights, very much connected, if not identical with, easy ones. Forsey also cites, approvingly Saito’s description of the aesthetic value of a knife lying not only in its “visual qualities” but in how “smoothly and effortlessly” it can be used to cut an object.  When Saito states that the aesthetic value of a knife, “consists not only of its visual qualities but also of its feeling in my hand . . . [and] how smoothly and effortlessly I can cut an object”, she seems to get closer to what we have in mind, that  is, the contribution of the aesthetic value of the user’s actions to the aesthetic value of the designed object. Yet, when Forsey comments on Saito’s example of the knife by saying “we cannot fully determine its design excellence if we do not perform these actions”, she seems to cast the contribution of the user’s actions as a preliminary step toward the aesthetic appreciation of the knife’s design excellence rather than as a constitutive dimension of such excellence. This seems to be the reason why Forsey contents herself with stating that ease of use is all that matters as for the contribution of use to the aesthetic appreciation of design. If use is just a means to the end of ascertaining the functioning of the designed object, then the easier the better. Yet, if use can contribute on its own to the aesthetic value of that object, then the aesthetic assessment of the user’s actions cannot come down to acknowledging their ease. There should be more in the aesthetics of use than mere ease. In what follows, we will point out such further aesthetic contributions that use and action bring to design. [The following text does not follow on from the paragraph above,but from the one before that] There is reason to doubt, however, that ease of use can be the whole story when it comes to the aesthetics of use. This is because easy interactions are extremely commonplace, yet rarely appreciated. When we press a button to call a lift, or open a door by turning its handle, we do not marvel at how easily these interactions are accomplished. This is not to say that such actions cannot be aesthetically appreciated, but that ease of use cannot be the whole story when it comes to the aesthetics of interaction.  - In the following section... ## 3 The Invisibility of Aesthetic Effortlessness ### 3.1 Proprioception  An alternative approach to the aesthetics of design comes from considering the role of proprioception. Montero has recently argued that proprioception should be considered an aesthetic sense alongside vision and hearing. She notes that dancers, for instance, often proprioceptively feel the gracefulness or awkwardness of their own bodily movements, and that this is a genuine form of aesthetic appreciation (Montero 2006). In this section, we will show how Montero's ideas can be extended to provide an action-oriented aesthetics of design. If we can aesthetically appreciate our own movements, there is no reason to exclude the bodily movements we perform with designed objects. Though proprioception is occasionally sometimes defined narrowly as our sense of bodily positioning (REF), we will adopt Montero's more comprehensive definition: "the sense by which we acquire information about the positions and movements of our own bodies, via receptors in the joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and skin". Montero’s inclusion of movements in her definition is particularly useful here. To feel oneself move is not simply feeling one's body change position, but to feel oneself as the cause of this change in position. Horgan describes this agentive phenomenology of agency as having two components. "Self as source": #### “You experience your arm, hand, and fingers as being moved by you yourself—rather than experiencing their motion either as fortuitously moving just as you want them to move, or passively experiencing them as being caused by your own mental states. You experience the bodily motion as generated by yourself” and “core optionality”: #### “Normally when you do something, you experience yourself as freely performing the action, in the sense that it is up to you whether or not to perform it. You experience yourself not only as generating the action, and not only as generating it purposively, but also as generating it in such a manner that you could have done otherwise” (ibid., p. 80) If this is correct, dancers are not only enjoying the feeling of their bodies moving through space in a particular way, but also enjoy the feeling of themselves as the author of these movements.  We can now start to see how an aesthetics of invisible design might be possible. Good design elicits aesthetically pleasing actions from their users. A well designed keyboard or knife is aesthetically pleasing to interact with. Badly designed ones are not, or, worse, are aesthetically displeasing to use.  ### 3.2 What are Aesthetically Pleasing Actions? We saw above ## 3 The Invisibility of Aesthetic Effortlessness - Montero quotes Bergson associating gracefulness with "perception of ease in motion" that allows "holding the future in the present" (p. 184) - Notes that "a deliberate focus on how one is moving may hinder one's performance of the movement" (p. 240) - This phenomenology of unselfconscious immersion in skillful action resonates with the "invisibility" of good design - Which often withdraws from explicit awareness to enable unimpeded, automatic engagement - Revealing itself negatively through snags, breakdowns and awkward self-consciousness - The aesthetic effortlessness of optimal design may thus be linked to a kind of experiential transparency - Fading into the background of absorbed, masterful action - Proprioceptively sensed mainly as an overarching feeling of fluid, economical, unencumbered competence - Noticed more in absence than presence ## 5. Montero and Proprioception An alternative approach to the aesthetics of design comes from considering the role of proprioception - our sense of the position and movement of our own bodies. philosopher Barbara Montero has recently argued that proprioception should be considered an aesthetic sense alongside vision and hearing. She notes that dancers, for instance, often proprioceptively feel the gracefulness or awkwardness of their own bodily movements, and that this is a genuine form of aesthetic appreciation (Montero 2006). If proprioception allows us to aesthetically appreciate qualities of our own bodily movements, this suggests it may also play a role in appreciating the aesthetics of using well- or poorly-designed objects. Consider the earlier examples of using a keyboard, a knife, and a bicycle. Typing on a keyboard, cutting with a knife, and riding a bicycle are all bodily activities that involve sequences of movements - of fingers on keys, of hand and arm in slicing, of legs in pedalling and arms in steering. A well-designed keyboard, on this view, would be one that makes the typing motion feel smooth, even, and precise to the user. A well-designed knife would make the cutting motion feel fluid and controlled. And a well-designed bicycle would make the movements of pedalling and steering feel graceful and intuitive. In each case, the user could proprioceptively feel positive aesthetic qualities in their own movements as they use the object. Conversely, a poorly-designed object would lead to proprioceptive feelings of awkwardness, strain, or imprecision in the user's object-directed movements. This proprioceptive approach to design aesthetics goes beyond the ideas of functional beauty and haptic touch in a few ways. Functional beauty is a matter of appreciating the fit between an object's form and its function, but it tends to focus on qualities of the form that can be perceived through vision or touch. The proprioceptive account, in contrast, locates the aesthetics of design in how it feels to put that form into function through one's own bodily movements. Haptic touch, as discussed by Roberts, allows us to perceive certain functionally relevant qualities of an object, like the lightness and flexibility of a bicycle frame. But it does not encompass the full range of aesthetic feelings, like fluidity or precision of movement, that arise through actively using an object. The proprioceptive aesthetics of object use is not just about passively feeling qualities of the object, but about feeling the quality of one's own actions upon and with the object. It is an aesthetics of the interaction between body and object, not just of the object itself. ### 5. The Experience of Virtuosity - Here we present out positive theory. It is inspired by Dreyfus and Heidegger's accounts of skill acquisition and mastery. - Dreyfus, drawing on Heidegger, discusses skilful coping as seamless, intuitive activity in response to a situation's affordances. - Expertise in skilful coping is marked by intuitive responses without reliance on explicit rules. - For example, a novice learning to use a hammer, initially dependent on explicit rules for effective use. - These rules, such as how to grip and angle the hammer, are strictly followed by the novice, but as the novice improves, reliance on these explicit rules falls away, leading to a more seamless engagement with the task. - This transition from rule-based to intuitive engagement exemplifies the proposed concept of "beauty in use." - INTUITIONS: - There is an experiential difference between being a novice and being an virtuoso - The experience of being a virtuoso is aesthetically pleasing. - "Beauty in use" on this account objects which elicit the experience of virtuosity are experienced as beautiful. - There are two ways in which this understanding of beauty in use can be applied - The first we might call thefacilitation of rapid mastery. - Although it might have taken someone a couple of hours to get used to the click wheel on their new iPad it would not be long before they could expertly get the curser to land on the track that they wanted. What's more they would experience themselves as acting expertly. - Other examples - Examples of objects that embody "beauty in use" include the iPod click wheel, sharp kitchen knives, and the Fender Stratocaster. - These objects make users proficient quickly. - This sort of aesthetic appeal might be roughly compared to popular, yet sophisticated, art works. The Sopranos for instance was engaging enough to find a (relatively) large audience, yet the themes of the show were sophisticated etc. - The second way in which an object might beautiful in use, might be called the potential for high virtuosity. Certain objects are not easy to master but can elicit, and elicit experiences of, extremely high mastery. - Consider Stradivarius violins, crafted in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by Antonio Stradivari. They are famed for their unparalleled sound quality and craftsmanship. Musicians and experts often regard them as the pinnacle of violin craftsmanship. The potential for high mastery on a Stradivarius lies in its ability to produce a wide array of tones, from the softest whispers to the most robust fortissimos, allowing for an exceptional range of musical expression. - But only the very best violinist will be able to take advantages of the subtleties that the instrument offers. - (Another example of this might be highly regarded samurai swords that often feature in martial arts films). - This sort of aesthetic appeal is comparable to appreciation of opera: difficult to get into, but, apparently, a high reward ### 6. Is Beauty in Use Aesthetic? - It might be objected here that I have told you something about the pleasure we get from well-designed objects, but that I haven't shown you why this is aesthetic pleasure. - This can be seen as analogous to the sort of challenge that Parson's and Carlson think might be levelled at their account of Functional Beauty: - Looking 'fit for function' gives an object an attractive appearance, but this might simply be that "the ultimate source of all our pleasure in things that look fit is their utility in advancing human interests, rather than their appearance per se." - Analogously, we might say that the pleasure we take in our feeling of virtuosity derives from our knowledge that our virtuosity allows for the advancement of our/humanity's interests. - I think, however, that C and P's response to this objection can be adapted to defend BinU as well. - Their response draws on the following passage from Adam Smith: The difference in precision between a thirty-dollar quartz watch and a thousand-dollar Swiss watch is to be measured in seconds per year or less, and as such confers no practical advantage whatsoever. Yet far greater pleasure is taken in the more finely wrought watch.¹⁹ ‘What pleases these lovers of toys,’ Smith writes, ‘is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it.’⁰ From Functional Beauty, page 121ish - They use this passage to push the idea that practical utility and our appreciation of object can come apart: we still would value the fancy Swiss watch to the Quartz despite their being no difference in terms of practical utility - Can this response be adapted to defend Virtuosity? We think that it can. - That is, we think that there are objects which we still take pleasure in using, and would choose them over objects which are better at serving our ends: - Fountain pen over gel pen - Chopsticks over fork - compass and map over GPS - In all of these cases, people might well choose the former option over the other. ### 7. Back to Vision - The approach we have sketched here might also provide an alternative approach to the visual appreciation of design. - Rather than something looking 'fit for function' we might perceive objects as offering affordances that are informed by our sense of mastery... # SCRAP - core idea of "beauty in use" encompasses two main aspects: the facilitation of rapid mastery and the potential for high virtuosity in use. - Objects that are challenging yet enable high levels of skill exemplify another dimension of "beauty in use." - Such objects, including highly regarded swords in Kung Fu movies, demand and reward mastery, offering a deep aesthetic appreciation. - This concept parallels with art appreciation, where accessible and complex art forms offer different but rewarding aesthetic experiences. - The analogy extends to comparing easily accessible designs and complex art forms, like opera, highlighting diverse paths to aesthetic appreciation without taking a stance on the value of different art forms. **