4 ms·

"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

by zwkrt 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.
    - mercer 7y ago
      I think Stove Jebs did a great job changing what we think a 'phone', or for that matter a 'computer' is, and that shouldn't be underestimated. Even now, ten years later, I find myself amazed at how much of a change in the adoption of computing the iPhone has made, and how we are still trying to understand the effects, good and bad, this has on society. I still vividly remember 'chat' being something geeks do, or self-consciously using my stylus-based Palm device for todos and calendaring because I sure as hell didn't want my high school classmates to catch me in the act. But I'm also very curious about what the next thing will be that punts us out of this 'local maxima', whether it's some reconceptualization of how we actually use these devices responsibly, a completely new device, or something I can't imagine.
- zwkrt 8y ago
  My point was that designers don't get to decide what products get launched, the market does. If there was an alternate design that created excitement and was relatively affordable, it would very quickly become popular. Products are created through user testing, market research, and limited by available components (which themselves are limited by what's already out there), so change is slow and conservative.
  - benj111 8y ago
    The market decides what is popular, to a point. They don't get to decide what is launched. I don't think designers really get to decide that either though. I'd disagree that change is slow and conservative. In the smartphone biz they're coming out with half baked ideas all the time. I'd agree progress is slow for certain things, but then its astonishingly fast in other ways. Trying to identify what we actually disagree about here, it seems you see a lot more order in the process? I made the point in another reply in this subthread that I see it more like evolution. Its messy, with lots of dead ends, and as soon as you start trying to generalise, the Duck billed Platypus says hello. For every product that has gone through user testing, we have Samsung coming out with one that evidently hasn't.

by zwkrt 8y ago

benj111 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.
  - mercer 7y ago
    I think Stove Jebs did a great job changing what we think a 'phone', or for that matter a 'computer' is, and that shouldn't be underestimated. Even now, ten years later, I find myself amazed at how much of a change in the adoption of computing the iPhone has made, and how we are still trying to understand the effects, good and bad, this has on society. I still vividly remember 'chat' being something geeks do, or self-consciously using my stylus-based Palm device for todos and calendaring because I sure as hell didn't want my high school classmates to catch me in the act. But I'm also very curious about what the next thing will be that punts us out of this 'local maxima', whether it's some reconceptualization of how we actually use these devices responsibly, a completely new device, or something I can't imagine.
zwkrt 8y ago
My point was that designers don't get to decide what products get launched, the market does. If there was an alternate design that created excitement and was relatively affordable, it would very quickly become popular. Products are created through user testing, market research, and limited by available components (which themselves are limited by what's already out there), so change is slow and conservative.
- benj111 8y ago
  The market decides what is popular, to a point. They don't get to decide what is launched. I don't think designers really get to decide that either though. I'd disagree that change is slow and conservative. In the smartphone biz they're coming out with half baked ideas all the time. I'd agree progress is slow for certain things, but then its astonishingly fast in other ways. Trying to identify what we actually disagree about here, it seems you see a lot more order in the process? I made the point in another reply in this subthread that I see it more like evolution. Its messy, with lots of dead ends, and as soon as you start trying to generalise, the Duck billed Platypus says hello. For every product that has gone through user testing, we have Samsung coming out with one that evidently hasn't.