Product Behavior

“Approachable” is a term designers often use to describe a product, as in… “It should be approachable.” “Which one is more approachable?” “Not approachable enough.” No one really takes the time to define it, except for the obvious “not repulsive.” Of course, there are products that say, “Pick me up and fondle me,” and there [...]

Joe Nocera writes a column for the New York Times business section in which he comments on various aspects of the world. He recently railed against the iPhone, focusing on its non-replaceable battery. His take on the situation was a great example of how business doesn’t really understand what design is for. In the piece [...]

Carol, my mother-in-law, is the poster child for work-arounds. Every visit, I find some interesting behavior she’s developed or product she’s modified that reveals a clear “duh” flaw of product design. Spotting work-arounds is easy research for designers–when I’m observing consumers (or store personnel, or customer service folks), I want to see how consumers have [...]

Designers need to face facts: if marketing folks aren’t thinking about the big picture, design-wise, and we know they’re not thinking it, and we fail to deliver something that makes sense to the way they are thinking, the design is a failure. It’s our fault. True, many of the marketing folks I meet are not [...]

I collect remote controls. I take pictures of them when I visit clients, and I have a large assortment of old/dead remotes from colleagues. My favorite is this one: It’s from a Pioneer laserdisc player from (I’m guessing) 1985 or so. It’s nothing to write home about design-wise, but it has on feature that I [...]