Henry Dreyfuss was a pioneer
People who don't study product design may know of a handful of designers. Jonathan Ive, James Dyson, Ray Eames and maybe Dieter Rams would sound familiar to some outside of the product design circle. But no designer has had a more profound impact on the products we use every day than Henry Dreyfuss.
Blood pressure devices
Before the invention of the sphygmomanometer (blood pressure monitor), there was no way to measure blood pressure without making an incision.
Movie inspiration with design (diegetic prototypes)
Still waiting on that hoverboard…
Self-lacing shoes from Back to the Future II (1989) are a great example of a diegetic prototype (fictional technology). They didn't exist yet, the self-lacing feature was accomplished by a person beneath the floor pulling the laces tight. But the movie did something important: it made people want self-lacing shoes.
Preferred to be invisible
Good design is as visible as it needs to be, often argued to be invisible. Although, as intuitive as a stop sign is, hopefully it's visible at an intersection.
Gradual change
Gradation is slow, steady and subtle.
It's easy to get discouraged when you don't see results immediately, especially in a world where we're used to instant gratification. TikTok, Netflix and 24-hour news is constantly giving us information in bite-sized bursts.
Framing the problem correctly (elevator mirrors)
Early 20th century skyscraper elevators were slow and cramped. In 1903, a mirror was installed in the Equitable Life Building's elevator as suggested by the wife of Otis Elevator Company's president. She believed the mirror would make people feel less claustrophobic.
Trying on different hats
Not you, your idea concepts.
Thinking outside the box for new and innovative ideas is an important cornerstone for being a designer. But, it can be tough to know where to start and how to deviate from a starting point.
The bitter taste of video game cartridges
They're coated in denatonium benzoate (DB), the most bitter chemical known to people.
After incidents of kids swallowing gaming cartridges, in 1995, many states passed legislation to make it mandatory for certain products to use DB. All major video game manufacturers have done this as standard practice. It's not toxic despite the strong bitterness. But it is used in toxic products like antifreeze, which would taste sweet without DB.
Designing in your head
It's easy to get caught up in your thoughts, but you can't work everything out in your head.
Write it down, draw it out, make a mockup. That's the only way to analyze an idea. A scratchy sketch is more to work with than a thought.
EvoBOT: a mobile cargo bot that adapts to the use case
Similar to people, EvoBOT balances itself like an upside-down pendulum. This allows the robot to adapt to an object's size, weight or form in order to pick it up.
It has two arms and two legs, but avoids uncanny valley territory by not being humanoid. The design is "bio-inspired" with hopes that consumers will accept its behavior. It's sort of like people, but unmistakably a robot.
Air purifiers
Are white noise machines that happen to filter air.
The air filter does collect dust. Whether it makes a huge difference on my health or not, I can't really tell.
Not a vending machine
Even if that's what you design.
Your product is more than a feature dispenser. Good designs are a solution to a problem which people need and want.
Design for the minimum viable delightful experience
Which begins by addressing the single most important problem your customer faces. The fewest prioritized pain points, perhaps one.
Once you design a solution for the biggest, most immediate, detrimental element, build upon that. Address other pain points to improve your solution.
Ai article summaries: the free, easy, efficient way
Google Bard is ideal for summarizing articles because Google puts more effort into developing Bard to perform better at this than others.
Ai race: filling the usability gap
The world has never felt a rate of change quite like it feels today.
Stories of the Industrial Revolution and the dawn of the internet come up a lot lately. State-of-the-art technology and usability are at a detrimental disconnect, similar to when computers were on the rise in the late 20th Century.
Robotics in construction
Robots have been replacing skilled labor for a while in Amazon warehouses, Walmart warehouses, automotive plants and even White Castle restaurants. The upfront cost of implementing these systems is high, but the long-term benefits are significant for business. Robots are faster, produce higher quality products at greater consistency, and reduce the amount of injuries and deaths in the workplace. This is especially true in the construction industry, where accidents are common.