I red an article in the Australian journal 'Open Manifesto', written by a design professor who used to live in Denmark. The article is about one of the things he enjoyed in Denmark – our well designed post boxes!? Well, apparently post-boxes in New Zealand is long, narrow and they leak when it rains. And in Denmark it rains, it hails, the wind is blowing and still the professor got he’s mail dry.

As he moved back, he started to get annoyed when he received wet or folded artwork by mail. On a trip to Denmark, he brought back a Danish post box. Problem solved. At least he thought so. For some reason, the postman in New Zealand never really managed to put the post all the way through the A4 wide opening, or they misused the post box in another strange way. 

As a Dane, I think it's rather normal to assume that we receive our mail in a proper condition (actually we're not too impressed with our national post service at all). But what this article frames is, that there is no such thing as unconditionally good design. Its completely relative to context and cultural behaviour. Even a (for some) obvious object as a post box, is relative to culture and who is using it.