Areas of Design I am Interested for Week 9

A topic I am very interested in is real-life stories about designing products. The story of designing the iPod was a great story to read. I am also interested in stories about failures in product designs and well designed products that failed in the market. For example, the story of Preston Tucker and his well-designed 1948 Tucker Sedan that failed to sell in the market.

Another topic I am interested in is how companies react to flaws in their products after being released to the market. I am interested in what was happening inside Microsoft when the Xbox 360 was having a high-failure rate.

Organization and Preparation Tips Q&A's

1.       I believe the author’s three most important points out of the ten points he pointed out are “ #4 Keep it simple,” “#5 Outlining your content,” and “#10 Confidence – How to get it.” These three points alone can make a great presentation for many reasons. Keeping it simple will help make your presentation interesting and easy to understand. Putting too much information in a presentation will only take away the audience’s patience and interest. Outlining your content allows the presentation to flow smoothly. You can’t have a good presentation without a plan or outline. Maintaining your confidence during presentation helps make a great impact on the audience. It is important to practice, because the more you practice, the better the outcome of the presentation.

2.       The two points that caught my attention were “#2 Know your audience as well as possible” and “#8 Can you pass the “elevator test”?” Every time I have made presentations, I have never thought about who I was presenting it to or whether I would have to explain it walking down the hallway or presenting it on a PowerPoint. The next time I make a presentation, I will think about my audience, whether they are students, parents, business officials, or the general public. For examples, I would have to choose whether I would need to give a background story or not. I will make a backup plan in case I have to face the elevator test.

3.       A presentation is similar to a product design in many ways. Both require an outline/plan in order to create it. A presentation and product’s goal is to attract customers/audiences in order to succeed. Both must create a design that will meet the public’s expectations by making it understandable and usable.

Wikipedia Topic Proposal

The article topic I propose to write about is “Chechen Terrorism.” My special interests in current events are conflicts and terrorism. I intend to learn about a terrorist organization that has no direct opposition to the United States and its allies. This topic is similar, not to my academic interests, but to my interests in extra-curricular activities.

Chechen terrorists and insurgents are made up of multiple jihadist terrorist groups seeking independence from Russia. They are located in Chechnya and other countries in the North Caucasus region. They have very similar methods to other jihadist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Al-Shabaab.

I believe this topic is very important because there are many reports that the Chechen groups are connected and funded by terrorist organizations in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Emotional Design Q&A's Part 2

1.      “Human responses to the everyday things of the world are complex, determined by a wide variety of factors.” (Norman 65). This passage in the beginning of the chapter got me interested because I originally thought it was only a few factors that determined whether a customer was going to buy a product or not.  Another passage I thought was very interesting was as stated from page 83, “As a result, the best products today, from a behavioral point of view, are often those that come from the athletic, sports, and craft industries, because these products do get designed, purchased and use by people who put behavior above everything else.” (Norman 82). This passage caught my attention because it wasn’t obvious that this statement is true at first, but then when I thought about it, it made sense.

2.      Visceral is characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect, which is very similar to how the author is describing visceral design. Reflective design is another term the author used correctly as “it is all about message, about culture, and about the meaning of a product or its use.” (Norman 83). On the other hand, I believe the author could have used a better term for the behavioral design. I believe the term “function design” would have been a better phrase to use for his term, because behavioral design is all about the use. Function, in other words, is how the product is being used.

3.      To determine whether visceral, behavioral, or reflective design is more important for a particular product depends on what the product is. Products such as a vase, posters, book covers, etc should lean towards visceral design because that is the best way they will sell. Vase is used for decorations and visual is a very important aspect of decoration. Posters are very similar to vase, because they are all about the look and what the element on the poster is. Book covers is a little different situation. Although the function is reading the book, people are attracted to books that have attractive covers. Products that commonly rely on behavioral designs are construction equipments, sports equipments, etc. Construction workers are not going to care how their equipment looks. They only care about how it works and whether it will help them do their job. Similar to athletes who care whether the product will help them succeed. Reflective designed products such as the iPod, the Halo video game franchise, and cell phones. All of these products are a part of many people’s daily lives. Many people have these products due to peer pressure and how it will influence their lives.

Emotional Design Q&A's

1.       Donald A. Norman’s main focus this chapter was about how people are attracted to everyday things. According to Norman, the three most important factors to attracting customers are the visceral design, behavioral design, and reflective design. Visceral design is all about the appearance. Businesses use customers’ initial reactions in order to attract the product. “Effective visceral design required the skills of the visual and graphic artist and the industrial engineer. Shape and form matter. The physical feel and texture of the materials matter. Heft matters. Visceral design is all about immediate emotional impact. It has to feel good, look good. Sensuality and sexuality play roles. This is a major role of “point of presence” displays in stores, in brochures, in advertisements, and in other enticements that emphasize appearance.” (Norman 69). A second factor that helps attract customers is the behavioral design. Behavioral design is all about the performance. “Appearance doesn’t really matter. Rationale doesn’t matter.” (Norman 69). “Good behavioral design should be human-centered, focusing upon understanding and satisfying the needs of the people who actually use the product.” (Norman 81). Norman also points out that companies need to test the products to see if they are easy to use. The last important factor is the reflective design. Reflective design is “about message, about culture, and about the meaning of a product or its use.” (Norman 83). Towards the end of the article, the author used examples of good designs such as the NFL Headset of coaches and how clothing stores sell their products.

2.       Chapter 1, “The Design of Everyday Things” focuses on how products are designed and expresses the strengths and weaknesses of specific designs. Chapter 3, “Emotional Design” focuses on how products are attracted to customers through designs and advertisements. Overall, both chapters focus on designing products from different perspectives.

3.       A product that has succeeded through visceral design is the 2005 Ford Mustang. The 1960s Mustang was a very popular vehicle, but lost its touch in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. When it was released, it had a resemblance of the 1960s style and attracted many customers. A product that succeeded through behavioral design is the Crocs foot-wears. Although people thought it looked ugly, many owners say it is very comfortable. A product that succeeded through reflective design is Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The original Xbox created a massive and loyal fan-base. Xbox 360 was very popular because of people buying it due to peer pressure and the popularity of its online component, Xbox Live.

The Design of Everday Things Part 2 (9/24/10)

1. My favorite quote from the article is, "When things are visible, they tend to be easier than when they are not. In addition, there must be a close, natural relationship between the control and its function: a natural mapping" (p16-17). It is a passage that had a big impact on what the author was trying to say. It was a great sentence because throughout the article, you are reading and asking yourself, "Why this? Why that? Why?' This 2-sentence passage answered my question, not a 4-page article.

2. Norman's book is about a topic that will be a debate within companies for many generations to come because the topic is a key to the successes/failures of businesseses.

3. On my checklist, the most important factor for evaluating a product is whether it can be understandable. I don't want a product that is complicated and no manual is included. If it is hard to use, I would not mind if there is a manual for it.

The Design of Everyday Things Q&A

1.      The author of this article, Donald A. Norman, illustrated many key points in this article. Norman uses many examples throughout the article of why people get frustrated with technology every day. Norman’s explanation to this is the poor design of the technology and the designers’ ambitions to combine newer technologies to attract customers. When designers create products, they tend to focus on adding technologies instead of improving the mapping and design of the product to make it easier to use. This is called paradox of technology. Another key point the author pointed out was how products are very difficult to use without instructions or pictures. “When things are visible, they tend to be easier than when they are not.” The author’s overall message in this article is for the designers to create technology to meet the people’s needs, not advance them so rapidly that it causes a paradox of technology.

2.      This past weekend, I had a lot of trouble setting up my printer. There are only 4 buttons on the printer and over 20 functions it can perform. It had an instruction manual but it didn’t show all the functions the printer could perform. I had to go online to figure out how to perform a specific function. This example follows Norman’s explanation of how good design is where one button performs one function, not multiple functions.

3.      The designers addressed the issue of design by making the iPod simple by giving one or two functions for every button or touchpad it had. The buttons and touchpad were labeled and easy to use.  They also made it easy to use by giving the donut-shaped touchpad the function to navigate through thousands of songs and menus instead of a button requiring to be pressed multiple times to navigate through the device.

"The Perfect Thing" Q's & A's

1. In the second page of the article, Apple's goal was to build an MP3 player "that would work with Apple's existing iTunes application and would not suck." The article also illustrates how the company set its goals to make the best MP3 player in the market, such as finding the strengths and weakness of the existing MP3 players. They realized they needed to build a MP3 player that could store thousands of songs and be able to fit in your pocket. After the "blueprint phase," the company went on to build models with trial of errors. After building the models, they went on to decide which model was the best. After approving a model, the company went on to build a prototype and find a name for it. The company also went into the issue of music piracy. Afterwards, it initiated the digital crash test to determine the durability of the product and improve if necessary. Afterwards, they started mass-production.

2. The three most important factors I use to evaluate a "perfect thing" is durability, usefullness, and style. I believe a "perfect thing" is a product that is perfectly balanced on factors(durability, price, appearance, etc) that determine the effectiveness of the product.

3. I believe the iPod is overrated because of Apple's reputation. I still think it is an excellent product, but there are other products, such as the Zune, that deserve the reputation of the iPod. Though, I do not have an iPod, one weakness I see is its durability. I have heard stories people breaking their iPods from shallow falls. The greatest strength I see in the product is the ability to use the device with ease, such as navigating throughout the device.

Introduction

My name is Tyler and I come from Westlake, OH, which is west of Cleveland. I plan to swim for the KZOO swimming and diving team and looking forward to it. I am original from Tennessee and still have a little southern accent. I am looking forward to being a part of the Design Intelligience seminar and meeting everyone.