People In This Group Are Sharing Dangerous And Dumb Stairs, And Here's 50 Of The Worst Pics (New Pics)

Quality design gets two fundamental things right. On the one hand, you’ve got to get the form of whatever you’re designing right. Essentially, this focuses on what the thing looks like.

On the other hand, you also have to worry about the thing’s function. If either or both of these aspects are missing, you end up with a disaster, whether aesthetically or functionally.

So, you’ve got to aim for a balanced approach. First, you want the thing that you’re designing to properly do the function that it’s actually meant to do.

For instance, if you’re working on a flight of stairs, then its purpose is to allow people to move upwards. In a safe, comfortable, and natural way. Without straining themselves, no less.

Once you’ve got the function all sorted out, then it’s time to think about the aesthetics of the thing you're making or building.

To put it bluntly, people like looking at beautiful things. It's therapeutic. Good aesthetics form an important part of a city’s atmosphere. Being surrounded by beauty can affect how you feel, too. It can encourage and motivate you, and make you feel proud to be a part of the local community.

In short, you want your building, product, poster, or whatever else you’re designing to look good. If it looks good, it appeals to more people. And that’s good for business, whatever line of work you’re in.

However, aside from following building codes and safety regulations, there are two things that you want to make sure of when you start honing in on the aesthetics of your staircase.

For one, you want to ensure that the form of your stairs doesn’t actually impede their function.

Sure, adding a bunch of gorgeous details in many different colors and materials everywhere might sound cool to you, but there are limits.

If those extra details make people more likely to trip and fall, if they can’t hold the banister properly, if they get woozy just looking at the flight of stairs… well, clearly, you’ve gone overboard.

In a similar vein, if the stairs are too low, too narrow, or too high for the average person to comfortably climb, you’re needlessly increasing the risk of accidents.

Naturally, not everyone’s going to be happy with the staircases you design because they might be far shorter or way taller than other people...

...And accidents can and do happen even when you’ve accounted for everything you could. But you still have a responsibility to do the best work that you can.