Do things work because they are right, or are they right because they work?  That pushes a bit beyond where these interests reside.  However, things that work rank highly in the minds of anyone that uses anything.  Putting absolute elegance and optimization aside, a utilitarian approach to technology allows for the everyday and the extraordinary to be accomplished.

Examples of the elegance-lacking, utilitarian products include the following:

• The Arduino products are not the cheapest way to leverage microcontrollers
• Laser-cut plastics provide little economics at scale
• Automatic programming rarely provides refined code
• 3D printing is usually slower than subtractive manufacturing cycles

Why seek the utilitarian processes or products available to us?  Simply, they give us back our lives in increments.  Development boards keep us out the the design cycle weeks, and 3D printing prevents us from getting caught up in the “how” of making things.  Technology operates as naturally utilitarian by relieving us of or abstracting the world around us to our benefit.

Technology is not an end in itself, but the recovery of time better spent in our lives is an end worth pursuing.