The design of everyday things play an important part of our lives, from doors to lights. As we go through our daily lives, we may or may not recognise or appreciate how some everyday things are designed to suit users needs. An example would be the water coolers around us, where red and blue tabs intuitively lets us know the temperatures of the water coming out. Yes, good design allows users to intuitively understand and know how to use a product. Other aspects such as affordance, feedback etc helps us with our intuition.
QN1: Would good design contradict with beauty and style? Eg. Salt and pepper are differentiated by the number of holes. It may or may not be intuitive for some people, but labeling explicitly SALT and PEPPER on the containers may not be the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
QN2: Would newer technologies require different user design requirements?