DesignAday

The future will not be found in the past

Don Norman’s recent essay, Technology First, Needs Last, has prompted much discussion in the design community.

I’ve come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs.

He provides a very good argument in support of this provocative statement. I’m certainly not going to declare that he is wrong—history backs him up. However, that’s the point I would like to make. Don is talking about history. He provides a list of inventions that have changed society, including the airplane, automobile, telephone, etc. He then asks what role design research played in those inventions. None. But there really wasn’t such a thing as design research at the time these inventions came to be. Even at the advent of the personal computer, the field of design was pretty much limited to graphic and industrial—user-centered design methodology was in its infancy.

Yes, in the past, technology has driven innovation. I would argue that this is beginning to change. More and more, the value of design is recognized by the general populace. At the same time, technology is becoming more accessible, making it easier for people to adapt it… to their own needs.

Don suggests that his examples, such as the telephone, were invented as a technology before the need for them developed. I disagree. There was a need for long-distance communication. At the time, it was being satisfied by the telegraph, a less than optimal method. Bell invented something better. Perhaps the general populace didn’t recognize the need, but I would argue that Bell probably did.

Needs can drive technology, and design research can identify needs. I predict that we will see this become a more common pattern in the future.

Like Magic

I started using Apple’s new Magic Mouse today, and I absolutely love it. I find it very comfortable, a perfect weight, and with just enough resistance as it slides across my desktop. Of course, the best feature of it is the swipe to scroll. I really liked the scroll ball on my old Mighty Mouse, but this is a vast improvement. The scroll ball worked well, but just like the wheels, it could only scroll as far as your finger tip is long. This required you to move your index finger repeatedly to scroll down a page. With the swipe, you have the entire length of the mouse. On top of that, they have added momentum scrolling, like on the iPhone, so that a good swipe can send your page scrolling quite a distance. Also, the scroll ball would collect gunk over time and stop working. Then you would have to turn the mouse upside down and rub it rapidly back and forth on a piece of paper to clean it. That will not be a problem with the Magic Mouse’s touch surface.

Apple has received a lot of criticism over the years for its mouse designs. This one is a winner—likely the best mouse ever. Of course, I’ve been partial to Apple’s mice, so make of my review what you will.

A Litl Something

A new netbook-type product has been released: the Litl. I find this one more interesting than the underpowered laptops we have seen thus far, however. It takes what I consider to be an Apple approach. The creators must have asked the question, “If we were to design a laptop that was strictly for web use only, what would it be?”

The Litl looks like a small laptop—it folds open revealing a screen in the top and a keyboard and trackpad on the bottom. However, the lid rotates around to an angle at which the device can stand like an easel. The hinge acts as a handle.

The biggest change is that they realized a typical desktop OS was unnecessary. Much as Apple did with the iPhone, they created a custom UI designed specifically for web use. It is truly a case of browser as operating system.

The one flaw, to my mind, is that it doesn’t have a touch-screen. Instead, they opted for a dial on the hinge that allows you to flip through selections. I haven’t yet seen a demonstration of the UI in action, but this is begging for touch input.

Assaulted by Batteries

When is rechargeable battery technology going to catch up? Why should I have to worry about how long a battery is left on its charger, or worry about fully cycling the battery, or worry about draining it completely? I could handle it if they all worked the same way, but of course they don’t. It seems that every device I get has slightly different requirements for getting the best life out of its battery. Here are the instructions for the batteries for my Neuton mower:

• A Battery may last much longer if you charge it as soon as it starts to lose power and not let it completely discharge. You should not try to coax a little more power out of your Battery. Recharge the Battery as soon as possible after each use twenty-four (24) to seventy-two (72) hours and remove it from the Charger.
• Avoid leaving the Battery on the Charger for a period of more than a week.
• Charge the Battery for twenty-four (24) to seventy-two (72) hours prior to storage and then every one (1) to two (2) months; and then again prior to the first seasons use.  Be sure to remove the Charger from the Battery after charging.

Other batteries, such as the ones for my Black & Decker screw driver, can be left on the charger indefinitely. Apple claims that their laptop batteries will last longer if you run them down all the way occasionally. How am I supposed to keep all of them straight?

Neuton

I’ve had a Black & Decker cordless electric lawn mower for over ten years. The past few, it has struggled, due to the fact that the battery has been dying. This season, it had to be replaced. When I first purchased it, there were only two such mowers on the market, the other one being the Neuton. While it had some desirable features, it was smaller and underpowered. I tested it a couple years ago when I was first thinking about replacing my mower, and it just couldn’t handle my lawn, often bogging down in thick grass.

Since that time, Neuton has released a larger, more powerful version, which I purchased and used for the first time this weekend. Being an electric mower, of course, means that you don’t have to bother with fuel or oil. It is literally maintenance free. It’s also much quieter than conventional mowers, and you won’t smell of exhaust when you’re done. It starts instantly with the push of a button—no cord yanking—and it is obviously better than electric mowers that are tethered to a wall outlet.

What really sets the Neuton apart from other battery-powered mowers, though, is the design. It’s the only lawnmower I’ve seen that I would consider to be aesthetically pleasing with its sleek lines and Springish color scheme. All of the interactive parts of the mower are bright orange, standing out from the pale greens. A spring-loaded cover on the top reveals a storage compartment that holds the removable battery, as well as a couple of wrenches, the safety key, and the lever for adjusting the cutting height. The angle of the handle is easily adjustable, accommodating people of different heights.

While my previous mower was quite heavy, the Neuton is very lightweight, making the steep bank in my back yard less of an issue. Also unlike the Black & Decker, the Neuton’s battery is easily swappable. I have a second battery to ensure that I can always get the whole yard done in one go, regardless of the height and thickness of the grass. A meter on the handle shows the blade RPM, by which you can gauge when the charge is running low.

I only have one complaint. There is a trimmer/edger accessory that can be purchased separately and mounted on the front. I thought this was a great idea, as it would save time, allowing me to trim the edges on my first trip around the yard. However, I was disappointed to learn once I tried it that the trimmer will not run at the same time as the mower. There is a switch diverts power from one to the other. It’s not going to be easier to trim with the mower than with a hand-held trimmer, so this is a useless feature, and their description on the website was misleading.

It is obvious that a lot of thought has gone into the design of this product. They’ve paid attention to the details. Like Oxo and Dyson, Neuton is a brand that is set apart by superior design.

Miscellany

There have been a number of items that have attracted my interest but I didn’t feel were worth an entire post. I’d still like to share them with you, in case you haven’t yet come across them elsewhere. So, here are several examples of good design. The first three come from Core77.

PermaFLOW is one of those “Why the heck didn’t someone think of this sooner” products…

Truly stunning engineering makes this tablesaw not work like magic.

Jeff Miller’s BLOOM coat rack makes clever use of the flexible nature of wood…

BBEdit has a brilliant new “sleep” feature that I would love to see become a standard for all software.
When BBEdit gets quit because of a system shutdown, restart, or user logout, it now does a “Sleep BBEdit” in order to restore as much of the application state as possible when starting back up. (This means that you may not be prompted to save new or unsaved documents, since they will be autosaved when the application sleeps.)

The Wall Street Journal reports on the redesign of the hospital gown.
“Nobody is happy with it,” says Blanton Godfrey, dean of the College of Textiles of North Carolina State University. “It is amazing—we have created a product nobody likes.”

EcoStructures

I met John Garlow through my former professor and current colleague Eve Faulkes. John is the founder and president of EcoMod Structures, a company in West Virginia that has developed a near-zero-energy, modular home system. In fact, its design is intended to achieve platinum LEED H certification.

The structure packs in more ecologically friendly innovations than you might think possible in a family home.

• Solar water heating
• Solar photovoltaic and wind turbine energy harvesting
• Geothermal air preconditioning
• Automatic, insulated window shutters
• Radiant floor heating
• Rainwater harvesting
• Grey water recycling
• Composting toilets

In addition, the materials are purchased locally, and most are made of recycled components. For example, the bathroom flooring is made from recycled tires, yet looks like cork, and is made in Pennsylvania. To top it off, the cost is no more than other new-construction homes, and there is the additional energy savings of approximately $25,000 over 20 years (in constant dollars). As they say on their site, “Our existence on this planet depends on living sustainably so it should be affordable. A smaller footprint can be achieved with the creature comforts that technology and innovation bring to home design at a price that is within reach of typical homebuyers.”

A local PBS station did a short feature on the company that is up on YouTube.

Touch Book

I’ve worked on a number of projects in which the goal was to deliver computer-enhanced capabilities to technicians in the field. We focused on tasks such as data logging, repair procedures, diagnostics, and the like. As part of the solution, we’ve evaluated PDAs, laptops, tablets, and even wearable computers. Most recently, I’ve worked with Panasonic Toughbooks that can pull the Transformer-like move of flipping the screen around to go from laptop to tablet. This makes for a versatile solution, allowing the user to carry it around and enter information with the stylus, but still type when he has a place to sit down. The one issue is that these laptop-tablet hybrids can be pretty hefty.

Always Innovating has announced an interesting product that is the first “netbook” I’ve found at all interesting. The Touch Book is a small laptop that has a detachable keyboard. Unlike the laptops with the flip-over screens, the guts of the computer are inside the display portion, rather than the keyboard portion. This allows the keyboard to be removed, leaving an 8.9” touchscreen that weighs less than two pounds. Rather than a hard drive, it uses a micro SD card for storage, and they are claiming 10 to 15 hours of battery life. They’ve even magnetized the device so that the display can hang on the fridge (or whatever metallic surface happens to be in the vicinity).

While they are marketing this as a consumer device, it seems to me to be the perfect device for a mobile field worker, except for one thing. A ruggedized version would weigh more and be a bit pricier, but would be necessary for many of the environments I’ve designed for.

Another thing I noticed is that the company has given credit to the designer, Fred Bould, on the product page. This is a rarity, and it’s obvious that Always Innovating has put much import on the design of the device. I think it’s going to pay off.

Key to the Kingdom

Something is happening with the iPhone that I find very intriguing. It started with Apple’s own Remote application that can control an Apple TV or iTunes on a computer over a Wi-Fi network. To do this, it presents a robust user interface on the phone that follows iPhone OS conventions. If you know how to control music playback on your iPhone, then you know how to control music playback with Remote.

Then other companies started creating “remote control” applications. Control of media players is, of course, quite popular. Boxee, the software that can turn an old computer into an outstanding home media center, has its own remote app, as does Sonos, for its multi-room music system. XBMC and VLC have remotes developed by third parties, and there’s an application for controlling your TiVo.

But media playback isn’t the only use the iPhone is being saddled for. There are a number of applications, like Air Mouse and Jaadu RDP, for remote control of your computer. Some desktop applications have iPhone remote apps, such as Photo Keys, which turns your iPhone into a Photoshop toolbar, and Apple’s own Keynote Remote for controlling presentations.

Controlling a desktop computer is all well and good, but things really start to get interesting when we look beyond it. For example, Lextech Labs is using the iPhone as a controller for their security systems, allowing manipulation of camera positioning and viewing of multiple camera feeds. There’s an application for controlling the Rovio, presenting its video feed on screen. Going bigger, there are home automation applications ranging from X10 controllers to more expensive, custom installations. Chrysler is even employing the iPhone as the key for their upcoming Peapod NEV.

The car will feature an iPhone docking station that will turn your iPhone into a key. With the Peapod exclusive software, your iPhone will not only be able to turn your car on, but it will also show you how much energy you are saving while driving, control your sound system, and display a navigation system.

There has been much talk in the past about mobile phones becoming our main method of identification and payment, but the iPhone is beginning to move to an entirely different level. Could it become the universal interface to everything? Imagine if you could program your microwave using a well-designed application on your phone, rather than the confusing keypad and tiny LCD display. The possibilities are invigorating.

Innovative How?

I was perusing BusinessWeek’s table of the 50 most innovative companies to see if there was anything of particular interest. The usual suspects are on the list, and Apple took the number one position again. As before, there are a number of companies that I don’t consider to be particularly innovative. Then I noticed the right-most column, “Known for its Most Innovative”. I decided to sort by this column, and I discovered that the majority of the companies that I don’t consider to be innovative are in the “Process” group. This makes sense, now that I think about it, as I’m much more focused on products and experience. Companies like Microsoft, Walmart, and Procter & Gamble were all highly ranked. If I could assign weights to the groups, such that process was less important, the rankings would shift significantly.

Of course, I found their list of The World’s 25 Unsung Innovative Companies more compelling.