Principal, Whipsaw Inc.
San Jose, California
If there's anything anyone in this field is chasing, it's Apple's quality and simplicity. Pick up an iPod, and you get it, you feel it, you sense it. When it first came out in 2001, the iPod had a pretty serious impact on Rio Audio. Rio came to us and basically said, "We need serious help. Our market position has slipped, and we may even go bankrupt." We helped them beat Apple to market by a year on a mini hard-drive player.
We were working on its successor, the Carbon, when Apple shot back with the iPod mini. Suddenly, the philosophical underpinning became, How could Rio possibly compete with this powerhouse? We decided that we had to be radically different from Apple. Where Apple was the ivory tower, we were going to be the dark rebel. Where Apple was geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy. Apple was so enamored with absolute pure, minimalist design that some designers may argue that ergonomics were compromised. We also saw an opportunity to beat Apple in materials and battery life.
Some companies have reacted to the iPod by loading up with features, but that can backfire. It's control and discipline in the details that conveys Rio's commitment to quality in the design. We went to Asia and worked closely with the contract manufacturers, holding them accountable to the standards we set. It cost an extra 25%, but we could design out mistakes this way. That's crucial since Rio doesn't advertise. The Carbon had to be its own salesman.
Dan Harden, 45, started his own firm after 10 years at frog design. The Carbon is the second-best-selling midsized player, behind only the iPod mini.
General manager of brand design and strategy
Sony Electronics USA
Park Ridge, New Jersey
At Sony, we believe What customers really want is choice. How we deliver that is a collaborative process between designers, engineers, and marketers. What we've found is that consumers have very different needs that can't be fulfilled by a one-size-fits-all approach. So we believe in offering a breadth of designs, price points, and features: In March, we introduced nine flash-based players to the Network Walkman lineup, which includes last year's 20-gigabyte HD3.
Competing in this space? Honestly, it's all about customers first. We accomplish that by having our designers watch for emerging trends and technologies and then marry them to the needs of the customer. Our designers must have an extra sense of what will come. We send them all over the world to different kinds of exhibits, such as the Milan furniture fair. We have designer exchange programs, where someone from, say, Tokyo will work in the States for a while. Senior management realized very early on how important it is for designers to understand different cultures. It's a way for them to keep their minds open to possibilities.
We believe we're in a unique position as an entertainment company. As digital technologies converge, we're evolving to combine portable audio and entertainment. If someone wants to play games, listen to music, or watch a movie, we offer that in one device. If they want to make a call, take a photo, and listen to music, we do that too. So we're going to continue to pursue what we've always pursued: identifying consumer lifestyles and making products that work for them. In the end, we're really competing with ourselves to make the products better.
Ellen Glassman, 40, was formerly director of the Sony Design Center. Early reviews of Sony's newest set of flash-based players say it's a strong contender to take on the iPod shuffle.
Codirector, Industrial Design and Usability
Product Group, Dell
Round Rock, Texas
Sometimes, something that looks cool or neat is of no value to the customer. By the time we entered the market for MP3 players in 2003 with the Dell DJ, there had been a lot of products out there, and we studied the vast majority, including the iPod. There were positives and negatives for every player, and we tracked them. But we didn't want to focus on what everyone else did.
At Dell, we don't make design decisions based on style alone. Customer input is a huge driver, which is why we talk to our customers directly through our in-house usability lab. This is where we test our concepts alongside our competitors'. Then we watch and learn. That's how we realized the importance of volume control, which has a dedicated button on the Pocket DJ. It's something people want to adjust constantly but was often buried or difficult to find on other players.
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