This is entry four of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

At the core of Dieter Rams’ process was always the question: “Is this necessary?” His diligence in eliminating the secondary, the distracting, the ornament, brought Braun to the pinnacle of product design at its time and raised the bar for generations of designers to come.

In all creative fields, there are great designs that have remained untouched for decades; to me those are the good designs. If a product can surpass the boundaries of time, language, education, religion and cultural background, we can say that it is an “understandable product.”

But what can we do to make more understandable products?