In the opening statement, at the end, it is written:

"In working with people of low to know income, does good design matter to you? What is the relationship between "good" design and "intelligence" ie is good design an expression of merely the fulfillment of functional requirement(s) or are aesthetics important?"

First, I presume you meant "...people of low to no income..." although I do find something quite compelling in the idea of "know income."

I have been reading a book which summarizes the thoughts of Peter Drucker--one of the recognized "experts" on management and organizations who recently crossed over from this world.

He identified a concept of the "knowledge worker" and went further to say that the turn of the century brought to us an opportunity to create "knowledge organizations."

Anyway, one of the points he made in this thinking was that with the older and what can be called, traditional systems of organization and management, it was the job of the manager to meld the individual into the organization for the benefit and enhanced performance of the organization.

With the coming of the "knowledge" worker and organization, he argues that what must be done now is to support the knowledge worker with the organization so that the knowledge worker can grow and enhance the society.

In this work I am reading he goes on to offer "examples" and "case studies" to provide support for this idea he advances...finding that when I organization adopts these ideas and ideals the performance of the individual improves, the performance of the organization improves, and the "contributions" increase---he further teaches that we should encourage and reward "contributions" rather than "achievements" as it is with "contributions" that greater benefit is provided to all who are touched by the events and the organization.