designers will have to be integrators

Q: How are you changing your approach to design? A: In the past we regarded designers as people merely carrying out the role of designing products. In the future, we believe designers will have to be integrators, combining everything from initial research to the use of products. We must invest more in researching user behavior and discovering what's happening in the market.

The first concrete step is expanding design labs overseas. Their focus will be shifted to uncovering consumer trends, what's hidden beneath the surface, instead of more visible things such as color or materials. Design comes from experience. One of the most important activities of a designer is to figure out how to take that experience and turn it into products that fit a specific market.

Q: How are these foreign labs different from your "usability lab" here in Seoul?
A: The usability lab focuses more on the behavior of users before products are made, while labs in various regions focus on the lifestyle of local people and on making sure products are adapted to local tastes. The Tokyo lab is more geared to finding out trends in materials and finishing technologies in Japan.

Q: Could you tell us recent measures Samsung has taken to improve its design capabilities?
A: Nearly 90% of our sales come from overseas markets. To support our products, we must become a more global organization. Our objective is to develop premium products, what we call mass-prestige products. To make premium products, designers will be allowed to focus on their own strengths. Designers with outstanding creativity will explore and formulate product concepts, those with a lot of experience will work closely with engineers to design them, and finally a group of designers will be engaged in assessing markets and user response to the products. And our research activities will be expanded so that we will have a better sense of trends in various markets.

"Online Extra: Q&A With Samsung Design Boss Chung Kook Hyun," BusinessWeek, 29 Nov 2004. via Tomalak's

Simple Joys

One of the joys of reviewing a Canon compact is that there is almost absolute consistency in controls and menus across its ranges, with each generation an evolution, not a re-invention of the wheel. And this is not without good reason; the combination of plentiful external controls and the superb 'FUNC' menu....

Simon Joinson, "Canon PowerShot SD300 Digital ELPH/Digital IXUS 40 Review," DPReview.com, Nov 2004.

I've had two Canon Digital ELPHs and I'm planning on buying a 3rd. I helped buy a couple at work and I recommend them highly to my friends. Why? They take great pictures and are a joy to use.

a great design always comes from conversations between the client and the designer

Well, none of the designs are perfect in the first shot for our needs. This can't be surprising to anyone; a great design always comes from conversations between the client and the designer.

Christina Wodtke, "Redesigning Boxes and Arrows," Boxes and Arrows, 22 Nov 2004.

400 steps to make a simple meal

The students cooked meals together in standard American kitchens which were designed on the basis of post-WWII ergonomic research which used the measurements of young men to determine counter heights and shelving as well as the positioning of appliances. They also used time-motion studies to document how long it took to complete a task, and human factors observations of how far they needed to reach for an essential ingredient or a key utensil. In their search for the number of movements needed to complete everyday tasks, the students found that it takes more than 400 steps to make a simple meal.

Susan S. Szenasy, "Making a Case for Design Research," MetropolisMag.com, 22 Nov 2004

See alsoJohn Hockenberry, "Design is Universal," MetropolisMag.com, 22 Nov 2004

Design is the process of resolving conflicting constraints

Design is the process of resolving conflicting constraints. The absolute best explanation for why evolutionary is better than heroic design is the book Notes On The Synthesis Of Form by Christopher Alexander.

"NotesOnTheSynthesisOfForm," Portland Pattern Repository's Wiki

rushing through the design process

We try to solve the problem by rushing through the design process so that enough time is left at the end of the project to uncover the errors that were made because we rushed through the design process.

Glenford J. Meyers (sometimes spelled Myers) as quoted in Dan Klein, "Flying Linux," 2004

Google's non-error Messages

For years I have been trying to convince people not to use error messages but rather to interact and explain the problems. Misspell something in Google and it searches anyway, but also offers a link with the correct spelling. Have your cake and eat it, too.

Type "emotionl design" into the Google search field and it both returns whatever it can find and also asks:

Did you mean: emotional design

(Hyperlinked so that clicking on the blue searches for the suggested terms)

Turns an error into a good feeling about Google. What a powerful idea! --- the same philosophy can be applied lots of places, by almost everyone. Eliminate error messages from your system. Always turn an error into an opportunity to help.

Don Norman, "Google's non-error Messages," In Praise of Good Design, jnd.org, found 22 Nov 2004.

no longer even need a Microsoft operating system

Analysts say Google's aggressive ambitions could pose a formidable threat to Microsoft because it gets to the heart of what drives Microsoft's dominance: its control of the user experience through the Windows operating system.

If successful, Google could help refashion computing, making people less reliant on storing information on the Microsoft-powered PC on their desk and more dependent on free Web-based e-mail and search functions that can be accessed anywhere from any device regardless of the operating system.

Under such circumstances, the risk for Microsoft is that the computer desktop as we know it could cease to exist, said David Garrity, an analyst with Caris & Co. The question, Garrity said, is whether computer buyers may one day decide that they no longer even need a Microsoft operating system.

Allison Linn, "Clash of the titans: Google vs. Microsoft," Mercury News, 21 Nov 2004

Wanted by the Police: A Good Interface

The San Jose police chief, Rob Davis, said that those who were in charge of planning for the new system 'have reviewed it and in retrospect would probably agree that if they had involved more of the end users during the planning phase it would have made the rollout easier.'

The fact that the officers and police dispatchers were not consulted about their preferences and requirements has come back to haunt the city. In July, the union asked for meetings to discuss the new system, saying it was having an adverse impact on officer safety. "Legally, they can't just implement something like this unilaterally," said John Tennant, general counsel for the union.

Even after some extensive tweaking, there still seem to be some fundamental bugs, Mr. Marcus said. "Much of the design was incorporating a Windows desktop graphical user interface with complex menu hierarchies, which just doesn't make sense in a vehicle."

KATIE HAFNER, "Wanted by the Police: A Good Interface," The New York Times, 11 Nov 2004. via Gunnar Swanson on the AIGA Experience Design mailing list

Simplicity

In a somewhat crowded world, simplicity is a magnet.

"about," www.vilmain.com, 1 Nov 2004

I came across some vilmain designs in Dolly's Bookstore in Park City Utah. I liked the messages on the paper weights and I like the messages on the web site.