Curious by Design

It’s not alphabetical. It’s not intuitive. And it wasn’t even designed to help humans type better. In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore the strange history of the QWERTY keyboard—a layout created in the 1870s to prevent early typewriters from breaking. What began as a mechanical workaround became a global standard, not because it was the best option, but because everything else grew a...

Why would a space meant for privacy be designed to feel so exposed? In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore the uncomfortable history behind American bathroom stalls, and why the gaps, open bottoms, and half-closed doors were never an accident. The modern stall emerged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when rapidly growing cities were battling disease outbreaks like cholera...

Time feels natural. Constant. Inevitable. But the way we experience time today is almost entirely invented. In this episode of Curious by Design , we explore how time went from something humans observed, sunrise, seasons, cycles, to something we track, schedule, owe, and feel constantly behind on. For most of history, time was local and flexible. An “hour” changed with the seasons. Noon was simply...

Every product, city, system, and business around us didn’t just happen. It was designed, by people, under constraints, making tradeoffs. Curious by Design is a podcast about how things get built, and why they end up the way they do. In this short trailer, host Jason Hardwick introduces the idea behind the show: exploring the hidden decisions, historical moments, and design choices that quietly sha...