Every product is constrained. Choose to optimise your compromises, whether you’re designing or just buying.
Matt has written one of the most succinct and clear pieces on product constraints. It’s well worth the time to read and subsequently mull over.
why cant we all have the same the world would be a better place
what the fuck italy
BUT LOOK HOW HAPPY DENMARK IS.
I just realized now 101% done our outlets look in North America and I fucking lost it
our outlets are reacting to the other outlets
Of course, when you travel it’s often the case that housing builders have multi-national outlets (looking at you, in particular, Brasil). The problem is that you often don’t know about those commonalities until you arrive with all your kit. The worst is when you mistakenly assume that outlets will generally be multi-national outlets and that turns out to not be the case (I’m looking at you, UK).
AmoeBAND became a 2012 IDEA Award Finalist by innovating every possible aspect of the plaster (band aid).
The design revisions were:
– Strategic cut-outs shape to fit fingers in such a way that it is easy to bend them and not disrupt the bandage.
– An intelligent dressing material allows you to regularly check wounds from the outside, without upsetting the healing process.“According to research, the when an infection of a wound is detected, the pH value is between 6.5 and 8.5. AmoeBAND’s indicator cross turns purple, alerting the user needs to change it immediately.”
– Since the bandage material used exudes a leather-like feel, availability in different skin-tones helps it blend in, without overly highlighting the injury.
– The packaging has been redesigned to a matchbox style and includes Braille instructions.
Hat tip to designers Tay Pek-Khai, Hsu Hao-Ming, Tsai Cheng-Yu, Chen Kuei-Yuan, Chen Yi-Ting, Lai Jen-Hao, Ho Chia-Ying, Chen Ying-shan, Weng Yu-Ching, and Chung Kuo-Ting
it’s always funny when people improve on something and you look at the innovations and it’s like so fucking obvious what needed to be changed, but yet no one seemingly thought of it until then, yourself included
These are really, really cool, and show what happens when innovation includes not just technology but clear and focused attention to design usability as well.
Design is not a zero-sum economic game but an ambivalent cultural process that serves a multiplicity of values and social groups without necessarily sacrificing efficiency.
Andrew Feenburg. (2010). “Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom” in Between Reason and Experience.
It’s a big deal whenever Apple refreshes the design of their products. It isn’t just that the media goes nuts, but that other parties (read: the media) tend to swoon about Apple’s decision and the company’s competitors get ready to ape Apple’s new paradigms.
Unfortunately, the switch to the newly designed Airport Express seems like a terrific step in the wrong direction from a design perspective, while simultaneously being in the right direction from a product alignment perspective. Let me explain.
While some sites have stated that the older Express routers were ‘wall warts’, anyone who’s travelled with one of these routers can speak to their functionality. They were easy to pack, easier to set up, and incredibly reliable. The ‘warts’ were also useful when setting up wifi printing or Airplay functionality at home. In both of these latter cases, it was easy to move the router to where you wanted either the printer or speakers and didn’t necessitate cluttering up the space with unneeded cables.
The new form factor is better visually linked to Apple’s existing routers and Apple TV products. On these grounds, Apple is (arguably) bringing a superior branded identity to the Airport Express line, ensuring that anyone who sees the router will immediately think ‘Apple’. This has significant marketing and branding resonance but, unfortunately, it comes at the expense of device efficiency.
Good design is tightly linked with beauty, usability, and efficiency. In the case of the newest iteration of the Airport Express, Apple has prioritized the corporate image over product efficiency; the Express is a less efficient product on grounds that it assumes more physical space that has previously been needed. The incapacity to link these priorities is suggestive that the newest Apple router is a failed product from a design position, regardless of the popularity or sales of the new iteration.
… there is never a single, ideal type towards which any given technology will inevitably evolve. Specific technologies are developed to solve specific problems, for specific users, in specific times and places. How certain problems get defined as being more in need of a solution, which users are considered more important to design for, what other technological systems need to be provided or accounted for, who has the power to set certain technical and economic priorities–these are fundamentally social considerations that deeply influence the process of technological development.
Minimal Mac has an interesting piece on the UX of television. In short, a young girl who isn’t exposed to TV suddenly is, and is confused and upset by the service provided. She doesn’t understand commercials, doesn’t understand the changes in volume, and becomes resigned to cable TV’s deficiencies.
A cautionary note to advertisers and television moguls alike: if your next-generation audience is ‘resigned’ to your service, and has alternates to your content delivery options, you need to adapt or watch your audience base slowly erode.
Go read the piece. It’s well written and eye-opening.
This Porsche-version of the BlackBerry costs around $2000. It’s a rebranded/designed version of a BlackBerry 9900 and I really can’t understand the functional attraction of this ‘high end’ version of the $700 device. While it’s a striking visual presentation of the Blackberry, I just can’t get past the fact that the keys are layered in a manner that (by all accounts) offers a subpar typing experience compared to a ‘regular’ 9900. While the design is striking, industrial design also must aim for maximal functionality. In this respect that the Porsche-RIM combination seems to have failed in a visually striking manner.
This is smart TV software done beautifully. It (seemingly) has more functionality than Apple TV and (looks to be) better integrated with movie purchasing services than Dlink’s Boxee Box. The problem with all smart TV devices remains their stability: I’m a geek, so I don’t mind occasionally reseting my Boxee Box or media centre and I accept that periodic crashes in the middle of a show or movie are the cost of early adoption.
Most people aren’t geeks. Most people won’t settle for sometimes crashing TVs. If Ubuntu doesn’t get that element right then everything else they do won’t matter one bit to the mainstream. Though us geeks will likely love it.
Excited Pixels