BLOG

I was recently browsing my classmates’ blogs about our design intelligence class.

First I read Brandon’s blog. He wrote about the design of common everyday objects in his dorm room. This relates to the book we read earlier, The Design of Everyday Things. It is interesting that after studying design in class, we so readily analyze our possessions.

I then read Naufal’s blog. He discussed the design of new products and technological advances. He mentions the iPhone, which I don’t really know much about and it was interesting to read his analysis. Naufal also wrote about the design of a camera, which was the subject of my design analysis paper.

Finally I read Laura’s blog because it was another obscure connection to the design world similar to my post about marketing. Laura wrote about merchandising. I have learned a little about merchandising while studying marketing. In DECA, I competed in the Apparel and Accessories Event which has a merchandizing aspect. Design is necessary in merchandising to persuade the customer.

Marketing!!

Making a good design is only half the battle. For a design to impact society, it needs to be marketed. Without solid knowledge of the product, customers cannot utilize the product to its full potential. There are four principles of marketing: product, price, place, promotion. The product deals with the design. This is what I have learned about in class. Price is the value that the product is exchanged for. Without a proper price, the design will never reach its target market. Place refers to the distribution of the product. The chain of distribution follows this order: manufacturer, (agent), wholesaler, retailer, consumer. The promotional mix is advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling. All these together display the design of the product and inform the consumer about the product. This is just a sneak peek into the world of marketing, there is much more out there!

peer blogs

I recently read some blogs of my classmates in design intelligence. i first read laura's blog.

She read the article, "All About Yves," which is about the design industry and how companies value design. i was attracted to the article because laura mentions apple, a company that we have talked a lot about in class. Also, the article was from the magazine Fast Company, a magazine that i am familiar with from my marketing class. This article was very relevant to our design intelligence class because it deals with concepts that are new to our discussions.

I then read Robert's blog.

he also chose an article from Fast Company. His article, "how to design the perfect product," fits in perfectly with our discussions. this article fits in well with the book we read, the design of everyday things by donald norman. they have the same principle, analyzes design and finding perfection.

Pushing the Boundaries of Design - BusinessWeek

I recently read this article from the June 12, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek titled, "Pushing the Boundaries of Design." This article is very fitting of our class because it looks at the basics of design and how design has changed over the years. I found the first paragraph very interesting because it was able to grab my attention.

"The Frisbee. The escalator. Reinforced concrete. These very different inventions share one thing in common: They weren't invented exactly—each was borrowed from an unrelated field. The flying toy was inspired by the metal pie tins of the Frisbie Baking Company that college students of yore tossed for fun. The escalator was originally conceived as a Coney Island amusement ride. And reinforced concrete was first patented in 1848 by a French gardener trying to develop a better flowerpot."

not only did this article do its job by grabbing my attention - one example of good design - it also mentions aspects of design that we have not discussed in class. this is the idea that design can come from an origin that is not obvious and not suspected. Not all design needs to be planned precisely.

"A good manual for a complex product should usually include at least FIVE distinct sections: Reference Guide, Tutorial, Learning/Understanding, Cookbook/Recipe, and Start Here. The single biggest problem with most bad less than stellar manuals is that they're usually only reference. But even with the best index on the planet, a reference guide suffers from one huge mother-of-an-assumption: that the user knows exactly what to look up!

A reference guide, no matte@��
�����<���y correct and concise and clear and all those other referencey goodness attributes, does virtually NOTHING to get me out of "P" mode if I don't even know what (or even that) I should be looking up."

This passage is from the essay by Kathy Sierra titled: How to get users to RTFM.

this passage was particularly interesting to me since i often find myself in this scenario:

i have some information i wish to find, a term i need to look up, a process i need to do, or a burning question. naturally, i go to the index, a place locate the information i seek. all of a sudden its like i am in a snow storm - my keywords that i thought were perfect are failing me. the information cannot be found because the index is lacking detail, specifics or there is just a lack of index. i am out of keywords, and out of patience for this guide. so i scan the material, maybe its a manual, of course that takes an hour because it is 5,284 pages long. i learn a lot of other interesting things but i never find what i am looking for and the manual has failed me. but i feel that i have failed me because i am so frustrated.

design requires mapping and usability. the design of many references fail by the standards of Kathy Sierra, Donald Norman and the user. indexes and manuals are designed just like products, they complement the product and are part of the package. manuals are an extension of customer service, it is the company's first contact with the consumer. when the manual's design fails, the product also fails because the consumer can not use it properly.

good product!

i have found a product that i feel is successfully designed. The design of nail polish is simple and has stood the test of time. over many decades of use, this design proves to be uncomplicated and user-friendly.

Firstly, everything necessary for using nail polish is contained in one product. the polish, the container, and the brush are nicely arranged and very usable.

constraints are used in this product's design. there is no way of losing the brush because it is attached to the lid of the bottle. it is impossible for someone to store the container without the lid and the brush.

this product somewhat provides mapping and feedback. the brush is the right size for the nail, mapping and constraints.

nail polish is knowledge that is in the head and not in the world, so the user must know the basics.

ALARM CLOCKS

alarm clocks are probably the most difficult product to deal with and yet crucial to my life. if alarm clocks are so necessary, then why is their design so complicated and not user-friendly?

it seems that when i buy a new alarm clock it takes a while for me to get used to it, like a month or so. in that month i am making critical mistakes, like not knowing how long the snooze is, or that i accidentally turned it off, or that i sent the alarm for p.m. instead of a.m.

one design flaw is the buttons on a alarm clock: they all seem to be the same size and shape and most of them do several functions. with mapping, the clock would be so much more useful. also, the buttons that seem to be the vital are located on the side of the clock, hidden from the user. these buttons are the volume for the alarm, and the type of alarm.

originally, alarm clocks had one function: to wake up the user and a specified time. now, they have too many functions for one to even utilize. clocks change colors, play the radio and mp3's, display the date, and have multiple alarms. what happens when the wrong alarm is turned on? speaking of alarms, new clocks now have the power to have separate alarms for different days of the week. i would find this very useful if i knew how to do it.

feedback is the most important part of the alarm clock. say you've set the correct time, and the correct alarm time, but you don't know if the alarm is turned on? how would you test it? you could wake until the alarm time and see if it works, but then it could be too late.

constraints could be used to prevent common mistakes, such as setting the wrong a.m. or p.m. for the clock or the alarm, or turning off the alarm when the snooze was intended. i don't know how these constraints would work, but it would definitely improve the design.

sadly, i bought an alarm clock for school and now i don't even use it. i find it so much easier just to use my cell phone as my alarm clock.

EGG

Over the weekend, my friend laura and i decided that we would build and container that would protect our egg, robert, from from the (almost) deadly fall from Dewing hall.

First, we brainstormed possible ideas for the egg protection. we decided to make a structure that had many protective layers. We originally wanted to make a gel encasing around the egg but then decided that cotton balls would be better. following the cotton balls was a plastic cup, this provided the sturdiness needed for support of the egg. then there was a soft layer of plastic bags, surrounded by a cardboard kleenex box. the kleenex box was placed in a bigger box filled with newspaper to reduce the force of the impact. finally, our design was complete.

now, we tested our design. in our first attempt the egg was dropped from the second story of dewing hall and onto grass and dirt. it survived! then we took a risk and tested our design by dropping onto cement instead of grass. our design was successful yet again! then we tested the protection with just the kleenex box, plastic bags, cup and cotton balls as protection. our design was effective in protecting the egg!

sadly, then our egg took one for the team.... the cup and cotton balls were just not enough to save our friend. spencer threw our egg with the minimal protection and then we learned the limits of our experiment.