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James Dyson answers design questions from Twitter [video]

open-source-ux 5y ago
Summary: He talks about: - His favourite products - The worst designed product he owns - His design heroes (and why) - On the lack of experience when creating a product and turning that to an advantage (see below) - On creating a prototype and patenting your physical product - Speed of execution when creating a product - Why hand dryers are not quiet - Why he believes design and engineering is inseparable An interesting opinion from Dyson on the lack of experience: > "I think a lack of experience is a great help. An expert thinks he knows it all but he's also rather inhibited by his experience, his knowledge. He finds it difficult to steer off the well-known path. > Whereas if you have a lack of experience, but huge curiosity, and you approach your new challenge with naivety, I think it's easier for you as inexperienced designer to come up with something different and to follow a different path."
- elil17 5y ago
  “I think a lack of experience is a great help.” A great quote from someone whose vacuums don’t work very well. He’s an expert in product user interfaces and marketing. His vacuums and air purifiers are great at that and not so much at doing the job they’re meant to do (the old air multiplier fans before they added filters and the original air blade designs are, of course excellent).
verisimi 5y ago
Does he talk about the design of the legal structure for his tax avoidance vehicle that holds the land he has bought up in the UK? lol https://whoownsengland.org/2017/09/19/why-is-james-dyson-hoovering-up-land/ https://whoownsengland.org/2017/09/19/why-is-james-dyson-hoo... "By July 2017, Farmers Weekly was reporting that Dyson’s empire had grown to 13,355 hectares, or 33,000 acres."
- brink 5y ago
  Bill Gates is doing the same thing. It's annoying. https://agfundernews.com/gates-if-not-for-climate-then-why-is-bill-buying-up-so-much-farmland.html https://agfundernews.com/gates-if-not-for-climate-then-why-i...
  - verisimi 5y ago
    "Despite sustainable agricultural development being one of the key focus areas for his nonprofit Gates Foundation, the Microsoft co-founder claims that his farmland investments are not tied to climate. But while Gates might be solely focused on returns, one should not overlook farmland investing’s potential to drive sustainability on a massive scale." how is a non-profit able to make farmland investments at all? What exactly is the difference between an investment vehicle and a non-profit? But... these guys care for us!
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
      1. His 501c3 gives back less than 1% back to the USA. 2. Personally, I feel like most nonprofits are shady, especially the rich boy tax dodging ones. 3. I have paid a tax on every pc I bought over the years because of him. Will never understand his fans.
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      Because a non-profit in the US just means that they can't distribute profits to the shareholders, not that they can't try to make money. They just need to use their profits to further their mission instead of distributing to shareholders. For example, the Gates Foundation could own a completely conventional farm, and run it like a conventional farm, but any profits they generate could be used to buy and deliver malaria pills to at-need countries (or something like that). That would be an acceptable reason a non-profit owns farmland.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        The giant German conglomerate Bosch is structured in a similar way. 92% of the company is owned by the Bosch family charitable foundation 'Robert Bosch Stiftung'
LeoPanthera 5y ago
Here are the subtitles from the video, if you don't want to watch a video: https://pastebin.com/zwapbcy0 https://pastebin.com/zwapbcy0
chrisseaton 5y ago
When he says printers are the worst designed things, would be great to see a Dyson-engineered printer that was solid and reliable. Shame there probably isn't the market for them anymore.
- estsauver 5y ago
  Brother printers are consistently reliable and high quality, particularly the laser jet ones. I highly recommend getting one that doesn't have a scanner also, they just do one thing, really really well.
  - gorgoiler 5y ago
    …and for scanning get a Fujitsu ScanSnap ix1500 (or sibling.) An amazing product. The UI is a touchscreen but it makes up for it by 70% of it being a giant blue button with “SCAN” on it :) And so fast too.
  - rcdemski 5y ago
    I second this. I bought a brother multifunction laser printer several years ago and it consistently works without fail, works with built in drivers on Windows and Mac so there’s no funky packages installed, and their toner lasts forever.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    I've got a higher-end Brother laser printer with no other functions integrated and it still frequently gets confused. Just doesn't feel robust or solid.
  - aaronax 5y ago
    Eh, the multifunction one I bought a year ago told me the toner was out and wouldn't print until I reset the counter using some obscure menu process. I have printed hundreds of pages since then, so they apparently are into scamming just like the rest.
    - djur 5y ago
reedf1 5y ago
Maybe he should explain his Brexit position? As far as I know this man is not an expert in anything but shirking expensive gimmicky fans and being a huge hypocrite, why he should be considered a authority in design I don't know. I've ways wondered what clout James Dyson gets for being confused with Freeman Dyson, an actual genius.
- blamazon 5y ago
  Also, Dyson products feel incredibly cheap in the hand to me for the price paid. You can just feel how many cycles of cost reduction each one went through. Expensive products are one thing, but products that are upmarketed primarily because a big name wants more money, rub me the wrong way. It shows a disdain for your customer. I feel holding him up as some guru perpetuates this annoyance.
  - kmlx 5y ago
    depends on the dyson product. i've got the dyson supersonic hairdrier. rock solid, feels super expensive (and it is). best hairdrier i've had, and i went thru them all.
- krona 5y ago
  > Maybe he should explain his Brexit position? Do you also think Freeman Dyson should explain his position on climate change to your satisfaction?
  - blitzar 5y ago
    Thats gonna be tricky, you thinking dig up the corpse and ask him or break out the Ouija board?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Either way, the point stands. Just because you don't like someone isn't really justification for asking a tough question if you're not willing to ask similar tough questions to somebody you do like.
gswdh 5y ago
tigerlily 5y ago
Well, the worst product I own is one of his bagless vacuum cleaners. The crummy look and feel, the unbelievably loud and high-pitched whine and the accompanying tinnitus-inducing higher order acoustic harmonics, and just the overall plasticky shittiness of it after about an hour of dragging it around is simply vomit-inducing. My pet hate is the 100x added friction between the retractable bristles and my plush carpet. It's costing me extra in time and energy to push this thing around. My next vacuum cleaner will instead be a janitor-grade Nilfisk.
- mas-ev 5y ago
  I love my Dyson SV10. Bought it 3 years ago and it's still working like a champ. I don't use it to vacuum a whole room but more for rugs or clean up jobs. I've got a Roomba S9+ for whole floor jobs. Swiffer wet jet for mopping/dust/hard floor.
- blitzar 5y ago
  > just the overall plasticky shittiness of it after about an hour of dragging it around is simply vomit-inducing Get the battery one. No more hour of dragging it around - you only get 5-7 minutes before it is dead, then back on the wall. The downside is I think they found an even lower bidder for the plastic when they made them, so that 5 minutes feels like a lifetime.
  - freshpots 5y ago
    Really 5 minutes? That has not been my experience, not even close.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 123pie123 5y ago
  >My pet hate is the 100x added friction between the retractable bristles and my plush carpet. It's costing me extra in time and energy to push this thing around. we had the same issue, there should be a slider on the front to turn down the vacuum power. We turn it to about 50% on the deep pile carpets
verytrivial 5y ago
How nice of him. I'd rather he paid his tax though.
AussieWog93 5y ago
So many angry people here using any excuse they can to shit-talk this guy. It's almost like I'm on Reddit and someone has made the mistaking of expressing a shred of admiration for Elon Musk.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Yeah, had no idea there was this much bitterness and hatred for Dyson of all people!
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    You live, you learn. For some people, the discovery that successful and reasonably charismatic entrepeneurs can be ... well, shall we say less than ideal human beings ... comes as quite a shock.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - adwww 5y ago
    He's actually quite a bit like Musk. Only without the personality, and his only fans live in public toilets.
  - austinjp 5y ago
    "Of all people"? You seem surprised. I'm surprised you're surprised. His corporation has a track record of closing factories in the UK and moving manufacturing abroad, while actively avoiding tax. Of all people? Really?
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Neither of these things out of the ordinary for most business owners or comedians or sports people etc!
      - 5y ago
vladharbuz 5y ago
I find it repulsive that his first recommendation to “inventors” is to file for a patent. Really, the most valuable piece of advice you have is “make sure you secure legal protection in case other people rip you off”? By all means, that's probably a thing you have to think about at some point, but surely there is more important advice for creatives than “lawyer up”.
- blamazon 5y ago
  To quote Dyson from the same video: > “An expert thinks he knows it all but he's also rather inhibited by his experience, his knowledge. He finds it difficult to steer off the well-known path.” One of Dyson’s well-known paths might be wielding patent laws against competitors.
- krona 5y ago
  He speaks from experience.
- wavesplash 5y ago
  For patents on physical things/devices, he's giving very good advice. You need to file within the 1st year you've used the item in commerce. The internet is littered with great products that weren't patented, then copied (sometimes by their overseas contract manufacturer itself just running a 2nd shift on the production line). If you don't have global patent protection, you find yourself competing with your own product sold cheaper by someone else and no way to fight it. Super common problem for popular products.
  - vladharbuz 5y ago
    Fair enough, that makes sense, maybe it's just my being allergic to legal combativeness.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
elil17 5y ago
If you’d like to hear people absolutely obsessed with vacuum cleaners talk about why Dysons are terrible and also the history of vacuuming: https://overcast.fm/+R7Mg3Gl98 https://overcast.fm/+R7Mg3Gl98
NoPicklez 5y ago
I wonder if the people on this thread that complain about the battery life shortly after buying it use the vacuum in its "turbo" or "power" modes. I purchased one of the LG stick vacuums and I've vacuumed almost the entire house with it. Whereas my housemate picked it up and vacuumed one large room and the battery was half flat, he complained about it, then I caught him vacuuming the entire room on the boost setting simply because he wanted the most suction possible. But it wasn't needed at all.
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
Quick.. ask him about brexit and how although he was a big supporter of it he moved to Singapore!
the_cat_kittles 5y ago
im thinking of starting a crusade to inform people that there is an actually cool billionaire inventor who is totally legit, and his name is dan gelbart. i challenge anyone to watch his prototyping series on youtube and then tell me elon musk is cool lol.
thot_experiment 5y ago
I didn't know too much about him, thought he was probably a chill engineer type. Holding him in somewhat lower esteem after this. He sets off my bullshit detector, too good at business and showmanship and not enough of that spark for the science. I would have respected him if he had said "there's a fan in the bottom and we blow air up out the circle in a way that pulls a bunch more in with it" with a glint in his eye. The way he described it made me want to throw up in my mouth.
- goldenchrome 5y ago
  He's a designer, not an engineer. He seems like a designer to me.

Summary: He talks about: - His favourite products - The worst designed product he owns - His design heroes (and why) - On the lack of experience when creating a product and turning that to an advantage (see below) - On creating a prototype and patenting your physical product - Speed of execution when creating a product - Why hand dryers are not quiet - Why he believes design and engineering is inseparable An interesting opinion from Dyson on the lack of experience: > "I think a lack of experience is a great help. An expert thinks he knows it all but he's also rather inhibited by his experience, his knowledge. He finds it difficult to steer off the well-known path. > Whereas if you have a lack of experience, but huge curiosity, and you approach your new challenge with naivety, I think it's easier for you as inexperienced designer to come up with something different and to follow a different path."

elil17 5y ago
“I think a lack of experience is a great help.” A great quote from someone whose vacuums don’t work very well. He’s an expert in product user interfaces and marketing. His vacuums and air purifiers are great at that and not so much at doing the job they’re meant to do (the old air multiplier fans before they added filters and the original air blade designs are, of course excellent).

verisimi 5y ago

Does he talk about the design of the legal structure for his tax avoidance vehicle that holds the land he has bought up in the UK? lol https://whoownsengland.org/2017/09/19/why-is-james-dyson-hoovering-up-land/ https://whoownsengland.org/2017/09/19/why-is-james-dyson-hoo... "By July 2017, Farmers Weekly was reporting that Dyson’s empire had grown to 13,355 hectares, or 33,000 acres."

brink 5y ago
Bill Gates is doing the same thing. It's annoying. https://agfundernews.com/gates-if-not-for-climate-then-why-is-bill-buying-up-so-much-farmland.html https://agfundernews.com/gates-if-not-for-climate-then-why-i...
- verisimi 5y ago
  "Despite sustainable agricultural development being one of the key focus areas for his nonprofit Gates Foundation, the Microsoft co-founder claims that his farmland investments are not tied to climate. But while Gates might be solely focused on returns, one should not overlook farmland investing’s potential to drive sustainability on a massive scale." how is a non-profit able to make farmland investments at all? What exactly is the difference between an investment vehicle and a non-profit? But... these guys care for us!
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    1. His 501c3 gives back less than 1% back to the USA. 2. Personally, I feel like most nonprofits are shady, especially the rich boy tax dodging ones. 3. I have paid a tax on every pc I bought over the years because of him. Will never understand his fans.
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    Because a non-profit in the US just means that they can't distribute profits to the shareholders, not that they can't try to make money. They just need to use their profits to further their mission instead of distributing to shareholders. For example, the Gates Foundation could own a completely conventional farm, and run it like a conventional farm, but any profits they generate could be used to buy and deliver malaria pills to at-need countries (or something like that). That would be an acceptable reason a non-profit owns farmland.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      The giant German conglomerate Bosch is structured in a similar way. 92% of the company is owned by the Bosch family charitable foundation 'Robert Bosch Stiftung'

LeoPanthera 5y ago

Here are the subtitles from the video, if you don't want to watch a video: https://pastebin.com/zwapbcy0 https://pastebin.com/zwapbcy0

chrisseaton 5y ago

When he says printers are the worst designed things, would be great to see a Dyson-engineered printer that was solid and reliable. Shame there probably isn't the market for them anymore.

estsauver 5y ago
Brother printers are consistently reliable and high quality, particularly the laser jet ones. I highly recommend getting one that doesn't have a scanner also, they just do one thing, really really well.
- gorgoiler 5y ago
  …and for scanning get a Fujitsu ScanSnap ix1500 (or sibling.) An amazing product. The UI is a touchscreen but it makes up for it by 70% of it being a giant blue button with “SCAN” on it :) And so fast too.
- rcdemski 5y ago
  I second this. I bought a brother multifunction laser printer several years ago and it consistently works without fail, works with built in drivers on Windows and Mac so there’s no funky packages installed, and their toner lasts forever.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  I've got a higher-end Brother laser printer with no other functions integrated and it still frequently gets confused. Just doesn't feel robust or solid.
- aaronax 5y ago
  Eh, the multifunction one I bought a year ago told me the toner was out and wouldn't print until I reset the counter using some obscure menu process. I have printed hundreds of pages since then, so they apparently are into scamming just like the rest.
  - djur 5y ago

reedf1 5y ago

Maybe he should explain his Brexit position? As far as I know this man is not an expert in anything but shirking expensive gimmicky fans and being a huge hypocrite, why he should be considered a authority in design I don't know. I've ways wondered what clout James Dyson gets for being confused with Freeman Dyson, an actual genius.

blamazon 5y ago
Also, Dyson products feel incredibly cheap in the hand to me for the price paid. You can just feel how many cycles of cost reduction each one went through. Expensive products are one thing, but products that are upmarketed primarily because a big name wants more money, rub me the wrong way. It shows a disdain for your customer. I feel holding him up as some guru perpetuates this annoyance.
- kmlx 5y ago
  depends on the dyson product. i've got the dyson supersonic hairdrier. rock solid, feels super expensive (and it is). best hairdrier i've had, and i went thru them all.
krona 5y ago
> Maybe he should explain his Brexit position? Do you also think Freeman Dyson should explain his position on climate change to your satisfaction?
- blitzar 5y ago
  Thats gonna be tricky, you thinking dig up the corpse and ask him or break out the Ouija board?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Either way, the point stands. Just because you don't like someone isn't really justification for asking a tough question if you're not willing to ask similar tough questions to somebody you do like.

gswdh 5y ago

tigerlily 5y ago

Well, the worst product I own is one of his bagless vacuum cleaners. The crummy look and feel, the unbelievably loud and high-pitched whine and the accompanying tinnitus-inducing higher order acoustic harmonics, and just the overall plasticky shittiness of it after about an hour of dragging it around is simply vomit-inducing. My pet hate is the 100x added friction between the retractable bristles and my plush carpet. It's costing me extra in time and energy to push this thing around. My next vacuum cleaner will instead be a janitor-grade Nilfisk.

mas-ev 5y ago
I love my Dyson SV10. Bought it 3 years ago and it's still working like a champ. I don't use it to vacuum a whole room but more for rugs or clean up jobs. I've got a Roomba S9+ for whole floor jobs. Swiffer wet jet for mopping/dust/hard floor.
blitzar 5y ago
> just the overall plasticky shittiness of it after about an hour of dragging it around is simply vomit-inducing Get the battery one. No more hour of dragging it around - you only get 5-7 minutes before it is dead, then back on the wall. The downside is I think they found an even lower bidder for the plastic when they made them, so that 5 minutes feels like a lifetime.
- freshpots 5y ago
  Really 5 minutes? That has not been my experience, not even close.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
123pie123 5y ago
>My pet hate is the 100x added friction between the retractable bristles and my plush carpet. It's costing me extra in time and energy to push this thing around. we had the same issue, there should be a slider on the front to turn down the vacuum power. We turn it to about 50% on the deep pile carpets

verytrivial 5y ago

How nice of him. I'd rather he paid his tax though.

AussieWog93 5y ago

So many angry people here using any excuse they can to shit-talk this guy. It's almost like I'm on Reddit and someone has made the mistaking of expressing a shred of admiration for Elon Musk.

chrisseaton 5y ago
Yeah, had no idea there was this much bitterness and hatred for Dyson of all people!
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  You live, you learn. For some people, the discovery that successful and reasonably charismatic entrepeneurs can be ... well, shall we say less than ideal human beings ... comes as quite a shock.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- adwww 5y ago
  He's actually quite a bit like Musk. Only without the personality, and his only fans live in public toilets.
- austinjp 5y ago
  "Of all people"? You seem surprised. I'm surprised you're surprised. His corporation has a track record of closing factories in the UK and moving manufacturing abroad, while actively avoiding tax. Of all people? Really?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Neither of these things out of the ordinary for most business owners or comedians or sports people etc!
    - 5y ago

vladharbuz 5y ago

I find it repulsive that his first recommendation to “inventors” is to file for a patent. Really, the most valuable piece of advice you have is “make sure you secure legal protection in case other people rip you off”? By all means, that's probably a thing you have to think about at some point, but surely there is more important advice for creatives than “lawyer up”.

blamazon 5y ago
To quote Dyson from the same video: > “An expert thinks he knows it all but he's also rather inhibited by his experience, his knowledge. He finds it difficult to steer off the well-known path.” One of Dyson’s well-known paths might be wielding patent laws against competitors.
krona 5y ago
He speaks from experience.
wavesplash 5y ago
For patents on physical things/devices, he's giving very good advice. You need to file within the 1st year you've used the item in commerce. The internet is littered with great products that weren't patented, then copied (sometimes by their overseas contract manufacturer itself just running a 2nd shift on the production line). If you don't have global patent protection, you find yourself competing with your own product sold cheaper by someone else and no way to fight it. Super common problem for popular products.
- vladharbuz 5y ago
  Fair enough, that makes sense, maybe it's just my being allergic to legal combativeness.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

elil17 5y ago

If you’d like to hear people absolutely obsessed with vacuum cleaners talk about why Dysons are terrible and also the history of vacuuming: https://overcast.fm/+R7Mg3Gl98 https://overcast.fm/+R7Mg3Gl98

NoPicklez 5y ago

I wonder if the people on this thread that complain about the battery life shortly after buying it use the vacuum in its "turbo" or "power" modes. I purchased one of the LG stick vacuums and I've vacuumed almost the entire house with it. Whereas my housemate picked it up and vacuumed one large room and the battery was half flat, he complained about it, then I caught him vacuuming the entire room on the boost setting simply because he wanted the most suction possible. But it wasn't needed at all.

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

Quick.. ask him about brexit and how although he was a big supporter of it he moved to Singapore!

the_cat_kittles 5y ago

im thinking of starting a crusade to inform people that there is an actually cool billionaire inventor who is totally legit, and his name is dan gelbart. i challenge anyone to watch his prototyping series on youtube and then tell me elon musk is cool lol.

thot_experiment 5y ago

I didn't know too much about him, thought he was probably a chill engineer type. Holding him in somewhat lower esteem after this. He sets off my bullshit detector, too good at business and showmanship and not enough of that spark for the science. I would have respected him if he had said "there's a fan in the bottom and we blow air up out the circle in a way that pulls a bunch more in with it" with a glint in his eye. The way he described it made me want to throw up in my mouth.

goldenchrome 5y ago
He's a designer, not an engineer. He seems like a designer to me.