The first in a series of entries on the role and nature of function in Design.
“Evolution”(text by Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, photography by Patrick Gries)is a coffee table book–a big hardcover with beautiful photography. Beyond that though, its striking black & white photographs of animal skeletons are accompanied by descriptions of how these animals lived, how through evolution they were specialized to their environments, how they are optimized to fend off or avoid predators, or conversely to capture prey. And most importantly, how you can tell all of this by looking closely at their skeletons.
Evolution has granted everything about them a purpose. Or at least, so much about these animals can be mapped to their bones - their structure. The range of motion of joints indicates dexterity, the shape and placement of teeth makes aspects of their diet clear.
In the world of product development, it strikes me that the link between function and form is often broken. In some cases, this fact is driven by the limits of what we know how to make easily, time to market and budget. In others it’s driven by a lack of imagination or drive as Designers, manufacturers, services providers, etc. to create something extraordinary. Evolution has no choice but to select the morphology that is most successful in surviving. There is little room for excess.
We are getting better at understanding what needs to happen to develop great products. The product/service development tool kit has expanded greatly in the 20 years that I’ve been paying attention. There is design research to ascertain the needs of the user. There is design narrative to give meaning to products and product interactions. There is design strategy to consider the things we make in broader context. Designers are striving to answer larger questions and calling on a broader set of specialties. These developments are weighted heavily toward the front end. We're doing more and more to understand design problems and mine for opportunities. We must be careful to balance this new understanding with a vocabulary that allows for us to express it.
Perhaps the practice of Design is evolving, but the skeletons in“Evolution”suggest a more basic truth. Function is a beautiful thing.
Too often, function is seen as the thing that gets in the way of design. - a set of constraints that bind the creativity of so many designers. This view only holds if you do not see design as integral to the development process. Likewise, it suggests that design stands on its own unaffected by the other aspects of development.
In the context of Design’s own evolution such a view may set you up for extinction.
What do you think? How do you see Design evolving? And how do you define function in the context of Design?
David-Henry Oliver is an engineer, product design consultant and founder of Cusp. He is focused on creating extraordinary products by introducing dynamic mechanical elements and logic into product components. The result is products with unique motion signatures that create brand awareness and better user interfaces.
Talk of Green Design is dominated by examples of products made of recycled materials, but sustainability is about more than materials. It’s about material sourcing. It’s about manufacturing processes. It’s about shipping and receiving.
Last week, I attended the Real Green conference organized by the Boston chapter of IDSA (www.idsaboston.org) and there was one example that struck me because it demonstrates that a company can pursue sustainability at every point in the development cycle.
Recycline (www.recycline.com), makers of Preserve Personal Care, Tableware and Kitchen tools, makes their products from recycled materials and they strive to make their products compelling enough that they don’t rely on recycled content as their sole selling point.
The thing that I find most interesting about Recycline, however, is not the recycled plastic they use. Don’t get me wrong, if you can manufacture your products using recycled materials, by all means do it. And if you do, you deserve credit for putting in the extra effort to reduce your company and customers impact on the environment.
Recycline has a fairly well known partnership with Stonyfield Farm Yogurt, which gives them access to a supply of used yogurt cups and scrap. This supply allows them a little more control over the consistency of their raw materials and that extra consistency pays dividends in quality control.
Recycline’s Preserve products demonstrate that using recycled materials does not mean sacrificing quality. For this reason, they deserve to be held up as an example, but I still haven’t gotten to the most impressive aspect of their efforts.
They have staff that is dedicated to tracking their environmental impact by examining each stage of production, shipping, and return. This constant review allows them to make the most of their efforts and identify new areas of efficiency. This is the most important aspect of their effort to reduce their environmental impact, because it recognizes that there is more work to be done. While many companies would be happy to label their products ‘made from X% recycled material’ at Recycline they are challenging themselves to do more.
This is a design blog, not a political blog, but it seems that politics is effecting the environment in which design is done. Companies invest in products that they think people will buy. If people don’t seem to care about environmental concerns, at least not enough to factor it into their buying decisions, then what? The only companies left producing products with an eye toward environmental impact are the ones that have decided, on their own, regardless of whatever extra costs or effort they will expend, that it is important.
Have you noticed that our public discourse about environmental issues, driven largely by energy, have changed over the past year? 'The Inconvenient Truth' is a distant memory. Talk of alternative energy is glossed over with the political catch phrases “all of the above.” But there’s none “above” oil.
For a while there, there was a coming to terms with the connection between fossil fuels, global warming and string of 100 year storms that batter the gulf coast during hurricane season.
So how is it that the Republican National Convention was put on hold for a day due to one of those storms, and the most memorable mantra that came out of it was “Drill Baby Drill”? They had chosen as their nominee one of the few senior members of their party who acknowledged man’s role in global warming.
It seems that people were so upset by the price of gas, that the most important thing became how to make it cheaper. We were so obsessed with the price of gas that the global warming deniers made a comeback. It seems the truth has become even more inconvenient.
“It doesn’t matter at this point as we debate what caused it. The point is it’s real, we need to do something about it,” said Sarah Palin in her interview with Katie Couric. You got that? It doesn’t matter what caused it, but we need to do something about it.
So, If you don’t know what caused it and aren’t concerned with finding out, what exactly can you do about it? That's right, nothing.
The product design question is, while there’s been a lot of talk about green initiatives over the past few years, who is really committed to those initiatives in practice? There are Green Design competitions like the Green Dot Awards. There are a handful of companies that have committed to reducing waste and paying attention to their environmental impact (Flor, Herman Miller).
So here are a few questions for you:
If you’re a design consultant, tell me, when was the last time a client insisted that you spend time and energy thinking about the environmental impact of the product you’re developing for them? When was the last time you pushed the issue?
If you’re a corporate design manager, have you spent any time, outside of a one-hour seminar at a conference applying what you learned?
Is your company committed to considering the environmental impact of your products? If so, how?
The answer for most will be “no”, or “I wish I could, but…” and that’s okay, because the point of this entry is not to provide a forum for a few people to pat themselves on the back. The point is also not about making everyone else feel bad for not doing more.
The point is to figure out what the problem is and think about how to solve it.
Recently, I was filling up my Beetle and the guy at the next pump commented that I must get great gas mileage. "It gets high 20s on the highway if I'm lucky." I said, rather unenthused.
But he was impressed. "A whole lot better than this thing." he said motioning to his mid-sized SUV.
Lately, car commercials have highlighted their gas mileage estimates with elaborate graphics, but the numbers they brag about are, for the most part, not new and improved.
Back in the early ‘90s I attended a car company-recruiting event on campus at MIT. I asked one of the recruiters why his company hadn’t developed vehicles with better fuel economy, after all, fuel economy was pretty much unchanged since the oil crisis of the 70’s. He gave me the company line about how difficult a problem it was. I knew this was bunk. The MIT solar car team had recently driven a car built by students with little money in a pretty bare shop across Australia.
I remember hearing that zero emissions vehicles would be mandated in several states in the early ‘90s. Then those mandates went away. If you haven’t seen it you should check out “Who killed the electric car?” (http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/)
Here we are in the midst of another “oil crisis” almost 20 years later. Gas mileage is about the same with a few exceptions. The Toyota Prius has become part of a puzzling political narrative that associates them with “liberal elitists.”
That said, I visited the Whitney Museum this past week and was confronted with another indictment of the auto industry and its foot dragging with respect to fuel efficiency.
The Buckminster Fuller exhibit includes the last remaining Dymaxion vehicle prototype. Back in 1933, this three-wheeled, auto got 30 mpg, had a top speed of 120 mph and was about as easy to park as a Smart car. They say it carried 11 passengers (but from the looks of the pictures they must have been abiding by 1930’s safety standards).
Seventy-five years later, you can get a GMC Yukon XL that seats 9 people and get 14 mpg city/ 20 mpg highway. Chevy boasts that they "offer more models than anyone with an EPA EST 30 mpg hwy or better." It seems the bar hasn't moved much.
Before I’m accused of promoting masochism, or suggesting that we all give up our worldly possessions in pursuit of design truth, let me clarify.
I just got back from a road trip around eastern Canada (Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) and it reminded me of something that I’ve found when I’ve moved from place to place; whether I take a trip abroad or to a different region. On this trip, the differences between Montreal, Quebec City and the little towns along the Bay of Fundy were striking; metropolitan francophone cities on the one hand – anglophone fishing villages on the other.
When I’m away from home, I notice differences in the way people do things, some obvious and some more subtle:
differences in the perception of personal space;
the pace at which people walk or interact;
the way that people acknowledge one another (or don’t).
These things along with differences in language, architecture, natural surroundings all combine to push me out of my comfort zone in a manner of speaking. Everyone is behaving a little differently than I’m used to and as a result so do I.
I pay closer attention. I listen more intently. I work harder to be understood and not to offend. I fill the pages of sketchbooks more quickly. I take more pictures (and better ones). When I people watch the familiar is the exception. Little details stand out.
Human nature doesn’t change, but seeing the way that it is expressed from place to place and culture to culture, may just help you differentiate between human nature and the way things are done in your neighborhood.
My point is that the comfort of home, the familiar, has a tendency to deaden the senses.
Or perhaps more accurately, changing your surroundings tends to awaken them. So if you can’t go far, go somewhere close by but worlds different.
I’m back in Boston after only a few weeks away, and it’s not quite the same as when I left it.
Occassionally, a “design celebrity” says something that starts the Design Industry echo chamber buzzing. In April, mention of an interview that Philippe Starck gave popped up in several design blogs. Nussbaum On Design, Frog's Matter/Anti-Matter, and others. Each has a different take on Starck, and more importantly on design, so they are worth a look.
The statement that got them going is Starck’s declaration that “design is dead.” It’s not the first time that Starck has said this, but each time it is met with gasps.
Nussbaum argues, in essence that design isn’t dead, it’s just changing. The change he speaks of is design’s so-called democratization. The tools of design are now available to lots of people…everyone can take part. That’s great, but as I see it design is about judgment, not tools. That free license of Photoshop LE that came with your scanner does not make you a designer, at least not any more than having a skillet makes you a chef. It’s not about having tools, It’s about what you do with those tools.
The same goes for the more exclusive and expensive tools that designers use. Whether it’s Maya, Pro/Engineer, the Adobe Creative Suite, Processing, or a pen and paper. All of them, regardless of your technical acumen with them, can be used to express poor judgment.
Frog’s Tim Leberecht characterizes Starck’s statements as poignant and humbling. Starck certainly seems to be taking himself to task. Perhaps what he means is that he wants to do something different than he has been doing... to raise his game so to speak.
That said, I have a bit of trouble with the blanket nature of Starck’s declaration. Now, maybe I, along with everyone else reacting to the interview, am simply assigning too much weight to what Starck had to say.
Either way, here’s my take.
One quote in particular struck me, because I think it is indicative of a problem with the way design is defined, practiced, employed and valued.
“…I have designed so many things without ever really being interested in them.”
Taken alone, maybe this is Mr. Starck’s way of driving home his point that design is unimportant, but it makes me wonder what exactly he was doing that he called design. How exactly does he define this thing that he declares dead?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think of design as something best left to a chosen few. If it were, I’m sure there would be those who would argue against my membership in that club. After all, I’m an engineer, and by some people’s thinking that disqualifies me. In any case, good design, the kind that is worth doing, the kind that addresses a problem meaningfully and adds value requires effort, thought and dedication. It is not about learning to use a piece of software, but about identifying and solving problems, recognizing and addressing opportunities. And it is not necessarily communicated in the beauty shots that adorn design firm web sites.
In the realm of Product Design it is about:
how a task might be accomplished,
how a user might relate to an object or tool,
how that object or tool might better serve its purpose, or
it may go further and examine the purpose itself.
The bottom line is, if you don’t have reasons for the solutions you propose, you are dangerously close, as I see it, to designing things “without having much interest in them.” Going through the motions so to speak.
All of these descriptors might be applied to invention, to engineering, to art or to architecture. Substitute observer, audience or client for user if you like. Decide whether you want to emphasize physical form, function or experience, either way you will address them all, either purposefully or passively, so it’s best not to ignore any of them.
Finally, Starck ends with this: “I have been a producer of materiality. I do feel ashamed for this. What I want to be instead now is a producer of concepts. This will be much more useful.” Perhaps, what Starck means to do, is to question the problems designers are called on to solve and their own complicity in creating things destined for a short trip to a landfill near you.
Design viewed as decoration, focused solely on the sale of shiny new objects, or stated another way, focused on short-term ROI at the expense of longer term usefulness, is a real problem. While creating and maintaining corporate profitability may be the goal, we must be careful of reducing the product, to mere background noise in the pursuit of profits. If the corporation and the designer produce things “without ever having any interest in them” we have a problem, but the problem is not with design, it’s with the designer and the corporation. It is a matter of priorities.
Perhaps what he’s trying to say is that he’s tired of not being taken seriously. For all his accolades, he along with many other designers are called on, not to take part in defining and solving problems, but to lend their names and ‘style’ for the sake of selling poorly conceived chotchkies.
What’s your definition of design? How does it fit into your business, and how should it?
For context, you can find a full translation of Starck's interview with German magazine, Die Zeit at mlle a.
Branding is often viewed as window dressing for the sake of making an initial impression and closing a sale. The problem is that if your company changes a slogan, but not its practices or service, the slogan will eventually fall flat. If you don't live up to the hype your customers will lose faith, as I did recently.
I purchased mobile phone services from a company I switched to after a bad experience with one of its competitors. Has anyone had a good experience with their cell phone provider?
Here’s my dilemma: My PDA phone is dead…Intermittent signal (a bad antenna). Difficulty charging and holding a charge, but not just a bad battery. The bottom line is that it’s not working and it’s time for a replacement.
Luckily, I thought, I insured my equipment, so it should be simple enough to get a replacement. Buying insurance for my phone was a bit of a leap of faith, because I am generally not one to buy the extended warrantee from big box stores. I think of them as a bit of a racket, just another profit center for the store offering pretty minimal value to the customer.
I dropped by my local mobile service provider, thinking I’d get a new phone, a different phone, since I wasn’t happy with the fact that my old one died shortly after it’s one year warrantee elapsed, as in on cue.
Here’s what I found:
My insurance policy does not allow me to get a different phone.
The PDA phone I have has not been discontinued.
I’ve paid about $120 in insurance fees and the deductible is $110. The phone retails for $300 new(it goes for $100 with a new plan).
Imagine if your auto insurance required you to replace your broken down car with one of the same make, model and year, and your deductible was more than a third the original cost of the car. No you can't take the money and put towards a different make.
I’m thinking my mobile service provider wants to keep me around. After all, I have a family plan, data plans, a couple of PDA phones, a Wifi plan. They are unmoved. It turns out that the replacement won’t come from them, but from the insurer. I can either call them from the phone store, or from home. It doesn’t matter, because the new phone will be shipped to me at home. Not very convenient when your phone dies in the middle of a business trip, as mine did.
I left the store with an 800 number and a web address for a company I had not heard of before(not particularly happy). I am reminded of why I don’t buy those extended warrantees.
When I got home I took a look at the insurance company web site. My replacement phone will be “either a new or refurbished phone” and I must send my broken phone in within 30 days or may be charged up to $300. Colors, features and accessory compatibility are not guaranteed.
Are you serious? Send us your money and your phone and we’ll decide what to send you in return. If it doesn’t work with your Bluetooth headset, you’re on your own. I imagine getting a phone in the mail. I open the box to find a pink phone, studded with fake rhinestones. Nevermind the fact that my phone doesn't come in pink and rhinestones aren't a factory option...this is my nightmare.
Imagine that replacement car again. The same model and year as your broken down car. It’s had a tune up, but color and features are not guaranteed. No A/C perhaps, or heated seats.
Part of me thinks I should have read the fine print. Part of me knows that if everyone in line to buy a new phone read the fine print of their contracts, the mobile service providers would go out of business.
Now I find myself shopping for a new phone and quite possibly a new service provider.
I came across a service that I think is pretty ingenious.
The Point(www.thepoint.com), as they describe it, “is a platform for group action, helping you make things happen that you wouldn’t accomplish alone.”
Their web site allows people to set up campaigns to get stuff done, stuff that requires a group of people to help, lend support, or donate resources. On their web site there are examples of campaigns that run the gamut from organizing a boycott to cleaning up a park, to raising money for studio time to produce an album. All you have to do is convince other people to help out or participate.
The trick is that people commit to lend their support, funds, etc. only if a certain number of people or a certain amount of funds are pledged. The moment the tipping point, or criteria for making the campaign viable is reached, the group springs into action.
If you’d donate money to a cause, but want to know there’s enough money to accomplish the goal and your money won’t go to waste, the campaign will stipulate that a certain amount of money must be pledged before anyone’s credit cards are charged.
If a boycott seems ineffectual to you, unless you know 999 other people will be participating and have a real impact, nothing happens ‘till 1,000 people sign up.
It comes complete with widgets to track progress.
Take a look. What do you think and how would you use this service?
Innovation requires an environment that is open to new ideas. That's all well and good, but innovation is more than blue sky. In order to encourage new and novel solutions, you have to ask the right questions.
Many brainstorming sessions are centered around questions that boil down to “What should we do in response to our competitor’s product or service?” Now the reason you are having the meeting in the first place may be because your competitor has just taken a big chunk of your market share, so that seems like a legitimate question.
The problem is that you are in danger of limiting the discussion with the question itself. Even new ideas in response to this question are limited by point by point comparison to your competitor.
If you find yourself using a spec sheet of common features as your roadmap for developing your next product, it should be easy to imagine that your competitor is doing the same in a parallel brainstorming session. I've been in a few of these meetings, and believe me they are more sunshower than storm.
Whatever your goals with respect to your competition, the product or service as an object and the problem or opportunity it addresses don’t care. This is why, despite the advantages of established players, there is always room for an insurgent with a new approach, a new set of core competencies and the wherewithal to make them real. This is the nature of innovation.
Take a step back and ask what seems like an obvious question: “What is the problem?” Seems simple enough, but framing the problem is your most difficult task.
If your solution, challenges the way your audience thinks about a problem and wins them over you have created a problem for your competitor that is more profound than the loss of a few points of marketshare; you are controlling the agenda as opposed to making an isolated point in an ongoing tit for tat with them. Now they must change the way they think about the problem or challenge the agenda that you set. If they are inclined to respond by pinning your spec sheet on the wall, then they are now following you and limiting themselves.
For an example of this dynamic at work, you need not look beyond the perhaps overused example of Apple’s iPods. There has been a lot of talk about the demand Apple has created with their interface, the aesthetics of the products, the small size, iTunes, their branding. All of these are contributing factors, but the real reason for the success of the iPod is that they reframed the problem, executed a plan that was not in anyone else’s playbook and surprised the market with a new set of possibilities.
To date, their competitors have not managed to present a compelling enough case for the existence of their new products. They simply add features and follow the media player world view that Apple established.
Apple's competitors can’t do anything about Apple’s propensity to push the envelope. What they can do is push the envelope a bit themselves. Their own envelope, not Apple’s.
I'm sure the guys responsible for mp3 product development for Creative, the Zune, Samsung and the rest are sick of pronouncements that make their task sound easy. The truth is that Apple is a formidable and agressive adversary that managed to get everyone involved in development, branding, etc. on the same page.
Most industries do not have a dominant player with such a grip on the product development agenda. Usually the advantage is much more fragile. The opportunities to create standout products, compelling stories and take control of the market abound. The payoffs as demonstrated by Apple should be motivation enough to shake things up.
Thanks to the Matter/Anti-Matter blog for pointing me to a related essay. "The Long Wow" by Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer is definitely worth a read.
Put another way, do you give your clients what they ask for, or, do you offer your best judgment even when it’s not what they want to hear?
Now before you dismiss this as a question meant for someone else, let me say this: No number of design awards, glowing articles, or Fortune 100 clients grants you exemption from this question.
Design consultancies lead a precarious life. They rely on the good graces of their clients. Of course, a big part of doing business is nurturing relationships, but just because you have a relationship with a client doesn’t mean it’s a healthy one. An upset middle managers at one Client Company or another can ruin a quarter for a design firm - big or small.
When people ask questions, they often have an idea of what they want to hear in response. The desired answer is telegraphed along with the question - the business equivalent of fishing for a compliment.
It’s a whole lot easier to acquiesce than to go out on a limb. But remember, you told that client that you could do great things for their products, brand and bottom line. You said, "Sign here and 'Poof' you get a whole team, a whole studio full of change agents. What a bargain!"
The problem is that good ideas, even great ones, are not always welcome. They are inconvenient. They may step on toes. They may require new methods in manufacturing, marketing, or sales. They may force changes in a business model that you already know works. They may do none of the above, but demand that things taken for granted be reconsidered.
It may be better to hold your tongue, put your judgment (about the project anyway) on hold and give them what they asked for. Who would blame you?
