Good product design is not art as the folks arguing for the 'A' in STEAM conceive it. A satisfactory user interface (usability) is as much an engineering concern as is maintainability, longevity or repairability.

The sort of art they're on about is the free-wheeling, what ever I want to do sort of stuff. Think of paintings by Jackson Pollock on drugs. (Well, maybe drugs wouldn't be required in his case.) Leave it to them and cars would still have pedestrian piercing hood ornaments and bullet nose steering wheel hubs "because the esthetic demanded it". Bridges would come pre-graffiti-ed and Frank Gehry would be designing warehouses.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that art should have a real and important role in our lives, but I don't want the practitioners thereof to have anything to do with the part of the world that has to work. This is one place I'll gladly defend strict segregation. Let them organize their own educational movement. Instead of STEAM, perhaps they could form a SAPS (Sociology, Art, Psychology, Sports) movement.