7 ms·

I personally think right now that industrial design, architecture and still fashion have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to designing great things with

I personally think right now that industrial design, architecture and still fashion have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to designing great things with regards to technology. Gone are the days where you can be concerned with the physical looks of a thing. I've met designers who can do everything just that the upper management team(s) don't get it. If we can get these super thin laptop designs why can't we create new form factors? It's purely because people are afraid right now to create new product segments or try new things. I imagine a lot of these designers are leaving because they're trying really hard but keep making things that never see the light of day.

inuhj 7y ago
The last paragraph rings true to me. I've had designers leave my company because I consistently picked other designs over their's. IMO it comes down to a builder versus maintainer mindset.
- da_chicken 7y ago
  And so begins the inevitable rise of tonerheads at Apple.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    It ebbs and flows over the years. The lowest stinkiest neap tide of the worst ebb ever was the QuickTime 4.0 Player Debacle. "Think Different" but "Do Same". http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtimeno.htm http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtimeno.htm Interface Hall of Shame - QuickTime 4.0 Player - Amid much fanfare, Apple recently released a beta version of the QuickTime 4.0 Player. Intended to showcase the technological improvements of the QuickTime 4.0 multimedia technology, the QuickTime 4.0 Player sports a completely redesigned user interface. The new interface represents an almost violent departure from the long established standards that have been the hallmark of Apple software. Ease of Use has always been paramount to Apple, but after exploring the QuickTime 4.0 Player, the rationale behind Apple's recent "Think Different" advertising campaign is now clear. While there are some who would conclude that the revised interface represents innovative thinking at Apple, we would have to conclude otherwise. There is nothing innovative about the user interface of the QuickTime 4.0 Player; the developers adopted the same misguided principles employed in IBM's RealThings, copied some of the same features we critiqued in our reviews of IBM's RealPhone and RealCD, and added a few new follies of their own.
    - chongli 7y ago
      It was much worse than that, long before that. Copland, Taligent, and the warehouses full of aging beige boxes. A million different product lines with inscrutable model numbers. Consumers had no clue which Mac to buy. Then Apple bought Next and Steve Jobs came back and discontinued all of those product lines and all of the dead-end operating system development and set about turning NextStep into Mac OS X. He released the iMac and Apple finally had a recognizable consumer computer for the first time since the 80s.
      - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
        >Consumers had no clue which Mac to buy. Interestingly I think they may be falling back into that now, the laptop line in particular looks confused to me.
        rchaud 7y ago
        Same goes for the iPad and iPhone. Never thought I'd see the day when iPhone model names became as meaninglessly inscrutable as Nokia's or Blackberries (e.g. BB Curve 9730).
        Spooky23 7y ago
        iOS devices are easy. There’s the ones that you can buy, and the ones that they want to sell.
    - Theodores 7y ago
      Thanks for the link. I have fond nostalgic reminiscences of these gone wrong interface experiments when skeumorphic design was king. There was an aspect of being patronising about the thinking that went with this, an implicit assumption that users were stupid. Nowadays these design patterns have great retro feel. To a certain extent everything goes in phases and fashions. The Windows XP style buttons were all the rage for a while, nowadays everything is flat. They won't be flat forever. As we move further away from the analog world the interface mistakes of the past that hark back to skeumorphic analogues of analog devices have a special quality, maybe not for everyone or every thing, but, if you wanted to design a game and set it back in the last century then things like the QT Player or Microsoft Bob provide great inspiration.
DonHopkins 7y ago
Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab to the market with the ThinkPad, including the TrackPoint (the red joy button), the butterfly keyboard, and the transparent LCD display with removable back cover that works with an overhead projector (at a time when overhead projectors were much more common that expensive video projectors). IBM Pointing Stick #1 - 10_25_91: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be&t=26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be... (Not Edwin Selker!) Ted Selker Oral History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI >He worked for short times at Atari and Xerox PARC before joining IBM in 1985. At IBM, first at T.J. Watson Labs, then at Almaden research labs, he rose to Fellow, inventing the TrackPoint cursor control device, making major contributions to the ThinkPad notebook computer, designing artificial-intelligence help and teaching systems, designing wearable computing devices, researching eye tracking systems, and designing an intelligent "living room of the future". (Check out his red TrackPoint lapel pin!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 >IBM ThinkPad 760CDV - Similar to the 760CD, this unique model had a removable back cover on the LCD that would permit light to shine through for use on an overhead projector. IBM ThinkPad 701c "butterfly" keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM Opening and closing IBM ThinkPad 701c with unique keyboard folding mechanism. ThinkPad TrackPoints - how do they work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc Early TrackPoint prototypes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  He sounds like a ‘product’ guy.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    The TrackPoint grew out of his university research, and a lot of user testing and measurement and iterative improvement went into it before IBM allowed him to ship it in a real product. (The youtube video talks about the pressure=>velocity mapping curve they developed and refined.) He collaborated with his father, a material scientist, who designed the rubbery grippy material so it felt just right.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
> If we can get these super thin laptop designs why can't we create new form factors? It's purely because people are afraid right now to create new product segments or try new things. It could also be diminishing returns as technologies mature. Most smartphones have converged on the black slab. That may because physics and relatively inelastic customer needs define the form factor. Said another way, is a breakthrough new form worth ever larger amounts of nonrenewable resources? At what point does it stop? Do we mine the Earth into a wasteland for a single, levitating, all-knowing monolith?
- zwkrt 7y ago
  "People don't design ships, the ocean designs ships". The black slab is popular not because people are making it, but because people are buying it. This doesn't mean that it is optimal, but companies have to respond to market pressures.
  - benj111 7y ago
    What alternatives are there to the black slab? A modern smartphone is over 99% screen, all you've got is bezel and the back to play with. And on the other side, what alternatives are there to actually buy? Also your quote doesn't seem to support your argument. You can't claim that design is customer led, and then use an example where it's led by something else.
    - riffraff 7y ago
      MSFT had a demo/concept of a foldable device with a stylus many many years ago. It basically felt like a notebook and was super interesting, even without having a foldable screen. Sadly, it didn't go anywhere. Could we have a thing that opens up like a deck of cards/fan? How about we use that back side for a low-consuption always on screen? I refuse to think phones are "solved".
      - benj111 7y ago
        Phones aren't solved because we keep reinventing what a 'phone' is. The phone was solved 100 years ago, then we decided people should do their own dialing. Now we are at the point where a smartphone isn't really a phone anymore. I can think of a few improvements to phones as well. Make them smaller, and add a headphone jack, sd card reader and removable battery.... There's probably some good books on the subject that I can't remember right now, I think that design in the large, has a good amount out evolution to it, I mean that in the proper biological sense. It finds one, or a few local maxima, but needs really shaking up to 'progress' from there. We have found the local maxima in the smartphone space, but then Stove Jebs will come along with a voice activated communicator that you wear on your chest, and we'll start again.
Zanni 7y ago
We are getting new form factors, they're just so radical you don't recognize them: laptop->tablet/phone, phone->watch, desktop->VR headset, home assistant. None of them are perfect substitutes yet, which is why the old form factors persist, but look at how many people are doing on their phones today what used to require a laptop or desktop. It's not hard to imagine a watch plus earbuds replacing the phone for most (but not all) users, and home assistant replacing a desktop for some (but not most).
starky 7y ago
Essentially, if you are a public company, you can't afford to spend resources on products that have a limited market when you have projects that you know will be successful to produce. You can only spend the occasional resource on what I call "technological flexing" where a company develops a product to show off what they are capable, such as the Galaxy Fold. As someone that work in the product design field, I fully expect that the vast majority of my ideas don't see the light of day. You have to have zero ego when it comes to discarding good but impractical ideas. My job is to come up with the best ideas that provide the most value to customers and the lowest cost to the company.
- kraig911 7y ago
  If we only concentrate on market forces then we'll always be making faster horses instead of cars.

inuhj 7y ago

The last paragraph rings true to me. I've had designers leave my company because I consistently picked other designs over their's. IMO it comes down to a builder versus maintainer mindset.

da_chicken 7y ago
And so begins the inevitable rise of tonerheads at Apple.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  It ebbs and flows over the years. The lowest stinkiest neap tide of the worst ebb ever was the QuickTime 4.0 Player Debacle. "Think Different" but "Do Same". http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtimeno.htm http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtimeno.htm Interface Hall of Shame - QuickTime 4.0 Player - Amid much fanfare, Apple recently released a beta version of the QuickTime 4.0 Player. Intended to showcase the technological improvements of the QuickTime 4.0 multimedia technology, the QuickTime 4.0 Player sports a completely redesigned user interface. The new interface represents an almost violent departure from the long established standards that have been the hallmark of Apple software. Ease of Use has always been paramount to Apple, but after exploring the QuickTime 4.0 Player, the rationale behind Apple's recent "Think Different" advertising campaign is now clear. While there are some who would conclude that the revised interface represents innovative thinking at Apple, we would have to conclude otherwise. There is nothing innovative about the user interface of the QuickTime 4.0 Player; the developers adopted the same misguided principles employed in IBM's RealThings, copied some of the same features we critiqued in our reviews of IBM's RealPhone and RealCD, and added a few new follies of their own.
  - chongli 7y ago
    It was much worse than that, long before that. Copland, Taligent, and the warehouses full of aging beige boxes. A million different product lines with inscrutable model numbers. Consumers had no clue which Mac to buy. Then Apple bought Next and Steve Jobs came back and discontinued all of those product lines and all of the dead-end operating system development and set about turning NextStep into Mac OS X. He released the iMac and Apple finally had a recognizable consumer computer for the first time since the 80s.
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      >Consumers had no clue which Mac to buy. Interestingly I think they may be falling back into that now, the laptop line in particular looks confused to me.
      - rchaud 7y ago
        Same goes for the iPad and iPhone. Never thought I'd see the day when iPhone model names became as meaninglessly inscrutable as Nokia's or Blackberries (e.g. BB Curve 9730).
        Spooky23 7y ago
        iOS devices are easy. There’s the ones that you can buy, and the ones that they want to sell.
  - Theodores 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. I have fond nostalgic reminiscences of these gone wrong interface experiments when skeumorphic design was king. There was an aspect of being patronising about the thinking that went with this, an implicit assumption that users were stupid. Nowadays these design patterns have great retro feel. To a certain extent everything goes in phases and fashions. The Windows XP style buttons were all the rage for a while, nowadays everything is flat. They won't be flat forever. As we move further away from the analog world the interface mistakes of the past that hark back to skeumorphic analogues of analog devices have a special quality, maybe not for everyone or every thing, but, if you wanted to design a game and set it back in the last century then things like the QT Player or Microsoft Bob provide great inspiration.

DonHopkins 7y ago

Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab to the market with the ThinkPad, including the TrackPoint (the red joy button), the butterfly keyboard, and the transparent LCD display with removable back cover that works with an overhead projector (at a time when overhead projectors were much more common that expensive video projectors). IBM Pointing Stick #1 - 10_25_91: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be&t=26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be... (Not Edwin Selker!) Ted Selker Oral History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI >He worked for short times at Atari and Xerox PARC before joining IBM in 1985. At IBM, first at T.J. Watson Labs, then at Almaden research labs, he rose to Fellow, inventing the TrackPoint cursor control device, making major contributions to the ThinkPad notebook computer, designing artificial-intelligence help and teaching systems, designing wearable computing devices, researching eye tracking systems, and designing an intelligent "living room of the future". (Check out his red TrackPoint lapel pin!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760 >IBM ThinkPad 760CDV - Similar to the 760CD, this unique model had a removable back cover on the LCD that would permit light to shine through for use on an overhead projector. IBM ThinkPad 701c "butterfly" keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM Opening and closing IBM ThinkPad 701c with unique keyboard folding mechanism. ThinkPad TrackPoints - how do they work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc Early TrackPoint prototypes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU

dillonmckay 7y ago
He sounds like a ‘product’ guy.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  The TrackPoint grew out of his university research, and a lot of user testing and measurement and iterative improvement went into it before IBM allowed him to ship it in a real product. (The youtube video talks about the pressure=>velocity mapping curve they developed and refined.) He collaborated with his father, a material scientist, who designed the rubbery grippy material so it felt just right.

paulryanrogers 7y ago

> If we can get these super thin laptop designs why can't we create new form factors? It's purely because people are afraid right now to create new product segments or try new things. It could also be diminishing returns as technologies mature. Most smartphones have converged on the black slab. That may because physics and relatively inelastic customer needs define the form factor. Said another way, is a breakthrough new form worth ever larger amounts of nonrenewable resources? At what point does it stop? Do we mine the Earth into a wasteland for a single, levitating, all-knowing monolith?

zwkrt 7y ago
"People don't design ships, the ocean designs ships". The black slab is popular not because people are making it, but because people are buying it. This doesn't mean that it is optimal, but companies have to respond to market pressures.
- benj111 7y ago
  What alternatives are there to the black slab? A modern smartphone is over 99% screen, all you've got is bezel and the back to play with. And on the other side, what alternatives are there to actually buy? Also your quote doesn't seem to support your argument. You can't claim that design is customer led, and then use an example where it's led by something else.
  - riffraff 7y ago
    MSFT had a demo/concept of a foldable device with a stylus many many years ago. It basically felt like a notebook and was super interesting, even without having a foldable screen. Sadly, it didn't go anywhere. Could we have a thing that opens up like a deck of cards/fan? How about we use that back side for a low-consuption always on screen? I refuse to think phones are "solved".
    - benj111 7y ago
      Phones aren't solved because we keep reinventing what a 'phone' is. The phone was solved 100 years ago, then we decided people should do their own dialing. Now we are at the point where a smartphone isn't really a phone anymore. I can think of a few improvements to phones as well. Make them smaller, and add a headphone jack, sd card reader and removable battery.... There's probably some good books on the subject that I can't remember right now, I think that design in the large, has a good amount out evolution to it, I mean that in the proper biological sense. It finds one, or a few local maxima, but needs really shaking up to 'progress' from there. We have found the local maxima in the smartphone space, but then Stove Jebs will come along with a voice activated communicator that you wear on your chest, and we'll start again.

Zanni 7y ago

We are getting new form factors, they're just so radical you don't recognize them: laptop->tablet/phone, phone->watch, desktop->VR headset, home assistant. None of them are perfect substitutes yet, which is why the old form factors persist, but look at how many people are doing on their phones today what used to require a laptop or desktop. It's not hard to imagine a watch plus earbuds replacing the phone for most (but not all) users, and home assistant replacing a desktop for some (but not most).

starky 7y ago

Essentially, if you are a public company, you can't afford to spend resources on products that have a limited market when you have projects that you know will be successful to produce. You can only spend the occasional resource on what I call "technological flexing" where a company develops a product to show off what they are capable, such as the Galaxy Fold. As someone that work in the product design field, I fully expect that the vast majority of my ideas don't see the light of day. You have to have zero ego when it comes to discarding good but impractical ideas. My job is to come up with the best ideas that provide the most value to customers and the lowest cost to the company.

kraig911 7y ago
If we only concentrate on market forces then we'll always be making faster horses instead of cars.