Product Design MT1
Why does Kodak put holes in their design if don't want light to get through?
-fixtures or robot grabbed, enabled for manufacturing company *cheaply manufactured *if feature is on there is on purpose, all features are expensive
3 schools of thought at work at OSU
-Fisher=market factors -Engineering: focused on the artifact -Design=design process itself *should expose yourself to all to design products that work well *best to step into reality and see real people doing real stuff (paper clip cable holders and prosthetic limbs out of PVC pipes)
Disastrous Consequences
could have the best idea in the world but couldn't make it and market it cost-effectively the longer the TTM: greater the likelihood get idea wrong
3 design levels
meta-level: stuff not encountered elsewhere product level: developing new products tool level: techniques/tools for doing design, used in any design concept
Dealing with Constraints
putting more effort into business class and found different ways to arrange seats need to prioritize constraints: saving on space while making sure people didn't need to make awkward eye contact
Design require specifications
specifications: -are on dimensions that can be measured *not worth it if can't be measured -can be tested -we can set both target values and minimally acceptable values *allows us to measure our designs against both our target users' needs and our competitors' products
Goal of benchmarking
total understanding of rationale behind the design
Ultimate designer goal
train yourself to become hyper-sensitive to around you and see all product opportunities
Four Step Algorithm
*every evolution process follows this: 1) Variation: generate as many candidate solutions as possible 2) Selection: designs that best fit their specific context survive 3) Propagation: surviving designs are reproduced in quantity 4) Iteration: repeat as needed..again and again x whatever it takes
What to do when have data
*where the process can seriously go off track -need to keep track of all that learned and the significant facts -need to do in a way that doesn't allow amount of data that's collected to overwhelm the team *best method: simple, effective, and are widely used by people who do this for a living
emerging constraints
*why design is so hard -second class of constraints between the artifact and the specific user: addressed as emerge with use *requires designers to go back and actually look how designs are used *few designers perform post occupancy evaluations
Your market
-Asked before product taken to firm: who/where is market? how large is it? how segmented is it? how will your product(s) match needs of each market segment? how do you know?
The TearDown Artists
-GM has their own chop shop in Warren, MI where they take apart their competitors cars and take it very seriously *ex: purchase a Lexus off a lot -Mechanic John Klucka removes its tires, engines, door, seats, dashboard, and everything but wires/windshield -helps GM unravel everyone of Lexus' secrets: down to weight and production cost of each nut/bolt just as they do with Toyota's hybrid models or latest Prius -have GM Vehicle Assessment and Benchmarking Activity center: tear up VWs, Mercedes, Chryslers, and Fords *in Detroit, auto makers reverse engineer their opponents' newest/hottest vehicles in competitive teardown *every culture is under-cutting the next but it's best to pick up the parts, feel them, weigh them, and know the process that made them *teardowns: cat and mouse game and very important -every company knows exactly how their competitors cars are put together from radios, seat cushions, welds, drive trains, headliners, etc. so they can learn how to save money on parts, shed weight, and improve manufacturing methods and help executives make long term decisions -tear down of 2004 Prius helped GM design hybrid technology so they could roll out their own hybrid trucks/buses *1 teardown: 6 weeks and do about 40 per year
Why talk about the Prius?
-GM saw the Prius was just a marketing thing, saying there was no profit to be made here for Toyota and GM was saying, why should we follow? they ended up doing the same thing with the Volt (electric vehicle) -why taking loss on the Prius? Cost per car will go down and they can develop technology over time, the corporation is learning about something they don't know how to do and investing in brand new technology
Contrasting Articles' Attitudes about Teardowns
-GM's Teardown Artists: -GM's Teardowns: shows how they're about validating their own insights into what their competitors are doing *all about showing how you already got it figured out *executives looks at teardown as way of reinforcing his sense of how smart he is and attitude can lead to ruin of company *article leaves you with impression that Toyota was doing something underhanded by producing the Prius at a loss but GM is now doing this with the Volt -Dave Meeker in Teardown Artist: about learning to rip stuff apart and shows that from every teardown you can learn at least a zillion things *saying: 'you can learn anything from anything' and goes on and explains how=better attitude
Shape of Things to Come
-Jonanthan Ives: took control of Human interface which expanded his role using technology and information from software/hardware *used information to help balance innovations to make them more approachable to make them reach a new mass market *took information got from the Google glass and saw this design didn't work so channeled this into another wearable and made accessible with Apple Watch *tested wearable on people to see how much information they could absorb at once *Ive's goal: creation of something that was as beautiful as it was functional -The Studio: began in 1997, Apple used to be a dead company *Jobs started re-focusing the company by hiring new designers to focus on evolving digital consumer trends -started collaboration on "think different" campaign to differentiate themselves from Dell *studio now has 2 infinite loops (Job's office=1 infinite loop and Ive's lab=2 infinite loop) to create office togetherness -offices include open kitchen design, wall of books, individual worktables, CNC milling machines that allow you to shape plastic/metal to produce models/prototype parts (turns the studio into a workshop) -worktables' heights accommodate seated study and standing visits--simplicity/modesty of the arrangement • Managing newness: Ive took charge of the Apple Human Interface: typefaces, icons, swipes, taps so he expanded his role from software and hardware -Ios7 operating system: introduced new sounds from calls/texts/emails many of which got from Dutch sound designer: Hugo Verweij who produced minimalist ringtones -he manages newness and helps balance the need to make technological innovations feel approachable so they can reach a mass market -Ives grew up exposed to tools at an early age in England and grew up in the context of workshops; understood that everything here was made in some way and is the consequence of multiple decisions -Ive studied design starting in 1985 at Newcastle Polytechnic (Northumbria Uni) where he used a Mac for the first time; Ive would have models of everything all over his living room and people called him the most focused person ever (who Ive thought they meant Jobs) -breakthrough: "primitive" design geometry that was usual before the computer era--2 straight lines joined by a fragment of a circle *Jobs and Ives used to talk about corners for hours -Ive wanted tablet to come out before the phone -apple studio assumes manufacturing is just as important as engineering *all in house manufacturing b/c their process is hard to manufacture -Jeff Williams said Apple watch echoed Ive as an essence *first discussed watch's overall architecture over its face *with this watch didn't want to give their consumers too many options: can customize 1-9 screen watch faces *Ives/Dye wanted to blur the lines between hardware/software with this watch and mirror the image of the watch's body with face's squareness -Newson said role of designer: to figure out what the world will be like in 5-10 years
Requirements and objectives
-Like Boeing, every component has requirements and objectives: engineering metrics built on both *need to begin with customer needs -requirements: establish the minimally acceptable value *they must be met -objectives: targets where the closer your design comes to meeting objectives, the better it is! *often not met, but never ignored *requirements: today; objectives: tomorrow *objectives of extreme point and shoots: waterproof, shock proof, light weight
Products that demand tinkering
-Linux OS: open system from get-go that depends on continued evolution -Wikipedia
Consumer products=artifacts
-artifact: an object made by a human being *comes from Latin: arte= 'by or using art' + factum = 'something made' *invariably have information encoded in them * designers MUST learn how to encode information in their own designs to be successful and decode the information from other designs
Dell HBS Interview with Michael Dell
-Michael Dell created in 1984 to create BTO computers *created 12 billion dollar business in 13 years *direct model eliminates time/cost of TPM *used information to become dominant firm: direct business model allows you to have direct relationships with customers that creates valuable information that leverages their relationships with customers/suppliers -allows them to have virtual integration which allows them to use information to enable cross country coordination -virtual integration: helps them achieve new levels of productivity, efficient, and returns to investors by having new insight to customer focus, supplier partnerships, JIT manufacturing, mass customization *many info links between them and customers; allows them to extend value delivered to customers -virtual integration: tightly coordinated supply chain (originally through vertical integration) and benefits that drive virtual corporations *helps create focus and coordination across business -instead of creating everything themselves (which leveraged other computer companies components) they allow leaders of the business to build their components so they can focus on delivering solutions to customers *focused on where to add value more quickly *grow faster without physical assets: less to manage and less to go wrong -use of contracting/outsourcing: dell doesn't just outsource IT but focuses on coordinating activities to create more customer value *work with them in real time when new product comes out; tell suppliers daily requirement -challenge in collaborating: changing focus from how much inventory to how fast moving -computer chips: "97-23": made in 23rd week of 1997 -have sophisticated data exchange with transportation like UPS to pick up number of computers per day, go to sony factory and get that number of monitors and match computers to monitors *further away suppliers are like Sony, the higher costs and more risks -have 90 day lag between point of demand and point of supply: leads to more variability, more inefficiency, and longer inventory and time -differentiation with customers with direct model: differentiate between largest/smallest customers *developed scalable businesses -fast cycle segmentation: finer cuts at customer segmentation where forecasts what customer needs/when *segmentation gets them closer to their customers and helps them better understand their needs *segmentation lets them tailor their customers' needs -use of forecasting demand: account managers lead customers through future PC needs discussion -keep updated with customers through forums and customers can access support face to face and leverage tech -performance metrics: split P&L on monthly basis to split customer segments; balance sheet to track cash flow *greater challenge with suppliers: getting them up to speed with company's pace and challenge finding managers who also can get up to speed
Innovation
-US used to be most innovative economy on Earth but lot of concern we've lost our edge -good metric of innovations=patents *China rapidly increasing in patents -as of 2012, we own the most patents, 50% from US but if normalize by population, S. Korea has population of 50 billion with roughly 16% of worldwide ownership -what trend lines tell us: not a static situation
Physical Constraints
-factors we're trained as engineers to deal with (conductivity, weight) -often limit choices with materials --> fabrication processes *tend to not be dominant in early design phases but show up once we start to converge on design *think Blackberry vs. iphone
Patents
-a great source of product ideas *product ideas stripped down to bare essentials -3 essential sources to know **** freepatentsonline.com, patentlens.net, and uspto.gov *their evolution: from beer facet to futuristic space gun/toy weapon; to nose hair trimmer
The Natural World
-a primary source of optimal solutions *living world around us has had millions of years to evolve optimal solutions to unique problems *human engineering is just now at point where we can begin to understand and replicate how nature solves problems *need to cultivate interest in biology if interested i design: source for innovative ideas
Persona Modelling
-a tool for ideation and presentation -presenting data to client -use user/scenario modelling -personas=fictitious characters (but based off research) created by design teams to explain who they're designing for; based on real users, but often combine the backgrounds, needs, etc. of different people -once develop personas, need to place them in scenarios in which possible design will be used
Other constraints
-about any other constraint is a combination of one of these categories -safety starts with constraints of use but also involves physical, technological, and cultural constraints
Design Brief: Constraints
-actually a condensed statement of what the constraints on the design are at this point in the process, along with clear design goal statement -details about actual device don't need to be a part of this *where a lot of design teams go wrong by trying to define the solution too early before the problem
Adaptations of Interest
-all adapted to their specifc situations: *design variations with natural selection: -trap jaw ant (odontomachus bauri): head adapted for jaw speed -leaf cutter ant (atta cephalotes): head adapted for jaw strength -oecophylla smaragdina: head, jaws, and neck adapted for tensile strength *studying ant colonies and complexity theory: network of tunnels/dens built by millions of Leaf Cutter ants in Brazil; they eat fungus not leafs and when the fungus over takes them, they move to another colony (emergent behavior)
Market constraints
-always start with market cost and TTM but always are more involved -dominate new development of project in early stage -factors to consider: project dev. budget, size of manufacturing plant, and expertise of firm and competition *will change very quickly as a result of tech. innovation like with the smart phone -Boeing 787: had to farm out a lot of places b/c made of expensive carbon fiber so had to build out of composites
Following the trail of patents
-always traceable through patent numbers *sequential patents doesn't mean 2 patents relate to one another *how to use: go find similar patent to what working with and get number and now have place to start and then find what class (start with D: design patent and starts with U: utility patent) it's in*under that references every patent it's similar to
Apple Knowledge Navigator Video: 1987
-analyze it as a tool for design *about using device in 2010/2011 ○ Why was video designed this way? ○ What's the context? Puts your in frame of mind of the designer; what Apple thinks technology would be in 25 years ○ Who was it designed for--intended users? Intended for the designers of Apple b/c in 1987 Apple was farming out their designers ○ Why did designers choose this persona? Want to legitimize this idea; stability to education with the professor; looking for extreme case of the user: college professor is a lead user b/c he stretches the system to the max; uses it in a very demanding way ○ Did they limit the video usefulness by their choices? Could of chose a female like Siri, but probably couldn't think of a better persona ○ What ideas trying to evoke? Remote collaboration in 25 years ○ Could you think of a better persona for this device? no ○ Apple: creates a dialogue that center around a primary task that the persona is trying to achieve, using an imaginary device, along with a few secondary tasks ○ Device and the characters are embedded in a realistic situation ○ How important are the secondary tasks in the context of design intent of video? ○ Looking at device itself: -how closely did they predict life in 2012? Pretty good--Face time/skype; virtual system that talked and responded to you; touchscreen device right after GUI's came out; USB drive on the side; Internet was not a thing yet neither was Google/search engine was a thing -what did they miss? Design of device is bulky/robust/big -were you surprised by anything new in video? It was touchscreen so they did predict that -were you impressed with it? Yes, they made assumptions about Internet and a search engine with Google
Trade Journals/Websites
-another great source of product ideas -trade journals: used to have 1 for every occupation can think of devoted solely to practitioners of that specific trade/occupation *have now evolved into websites but typically kept trade journals same name *give both snapshot of state of art and also window into problems trade is currently facing
Cultural constraints
-apply between artifacts and groups of people -can be hard to understand b/c must know norms of people as well as product -where anthro, psych, and sociology all collide and where a lot of designs can fail *think of colors in other cultures like black=death in US but white=death in Asia *why camera still looks the same as if use film so photographers can easily use *where aesthetics plays in: aesthetic appeal can affect how it's used and how it's adopted as much as how culturally based (designers tend to ignore this!) -can be used to transcend the preferences of specific group and work worldwide -designers also need to think design language and how our objects communicate messages to us
Misuse + innovation
-as designers need to be alert for situations in which design intent or functional application of objects is altered by users to suit different context -actual functions of artifacts can and will change--this is a rich source of ideas for new products and can often lead to new markets (i.e.: the mountain bike) *newest adaptation: bike for Manhattan canyons: no gears, all of bike controlled with feet *another example: IBM main frame plus Steve Jobs and Microsoft and now ends up and still evolving--what's next is our task?
How push evolves into pull
-b/c actually part of larger system -think DeWalt 18 volt cordless drill: originally technology push that evolved into a pull *has driver of the battery that they then asked what else they could do with it: applied across entire product platform to fit in all other tools
House of Quality or Quality Function Deployment
-basic design tool of the managerial approach that originated in 1972 from Mitsubishi's Kobe shipyard site *used by AT&T, Digital Entertainment, HP, Ford, GM, etc. *more developed by Toyota and suppliers -acts as a set of planning/communication routines and focuses/coordinates skills within an organization from design to manufacture and marketing goods that consumers want to purchase and will continue to purchase -foundation: belief that products should be designed to reflect consumers' desires which allows marketing, designers, and engineers to all collaborate from time product is first dreamed up *acts as a conceptual map that provides means for inter-functional planning/communication and people with different problems/responsibilities who can throw all their ideas out there *hard part: so many dimensions of what a consumer means by quality that designer has to try and satisfy all at once -strategic quality management: not just avoiding repairs but means companies must learn from consumer experience and reconcile what engineers can do in reality -used to be before the IR that whole manufacturing process was tightly integrated in 1 individual; now today: everyone has their own domain from marketing to engineering *when managers are disconnected, leads to lower quality products but HOQ helps guide these different sectors' conversations -Toyota improved its prevention record from 1 of the worst in the world to one of the best by coordinating design and production decisions to focus on customers' concerns -allowed designers to break down 53 items and cover anything from climates to operation modes *they got customer evaluations and ran experiments on every detail of production from pump operation to temperature control and coating composition -today's new marketing techniques allow companies to measure, track, and compare customers' perceptions of products with remarkable accuracy *now all companies can compete on quality and the costs of these cars can reflect new quality levels *first need to look at customer needs and then design across corporate function to reduce prelaunch time and after launch tinkering *reduced Toyota's costs from 1977-84 by 60%
Card Sort Method
-basics: post it, whiteboard, colored markers, camera -put every bit of data down on a post-it and use different colors for different categories: different user groups example -stick post its to white board and group to eliminate redundancy -move groups of notes around to form larger groups, use space/markers to establish hierarchy *keep a record when going through this phase to keep record of what teams thinking so can go back/retrieve idea or piece of information from sessions *take photos/videos of whiteboard as it evolves and archive them
Use constraints
-becoming dominant factors in product design *often overlooked and misunderstood *more we add complexity to product more constraints we add as well--> become products that we don't understand anymore -split of physical ergo: how well humans/machines fit together vs. cognitive ergo: how humans/machines interact cognitively *to uncover these need to watch real users in real situations cope with real products *designers need to become immersed in what they do and how they do it
Bicycle fork form specialized
-begin with customer needs: reduce vibration from hands, allows easy to slow difficult terrain, -some can be subjective: "Instills pride" *takes interviews, asking, statistics, focus groups -start developing metrics -engineering models are built on these metrics -qualitative benchmarking against competition: 1-5 stars -quantitative benchmarking on metrics
Think of Vise Grips and their function
-can be used to permanently attach a clamp/handle -shift level from uncle's 1956 Chrysler NY -artificial hands of former student's grandfather *function with specific context defines the artifact's meaning
Legacy Designs
-can constrain future designs b/c such a large consumer base that limits market when consumer base won't buy changed product *if Harley doesn't look/feel/smell like a Harley, won't buy it or the Kitchen Aide classic mixer *importance: knowing when to quit to stop innovating with a successful product (cough cough Microsoft/Apple)
Model differentiation
-coffee lids: why are there so many designs? don't they all do the same thing? *must think: all have different contexts of use that they're designed for *context = source of meaning that have to have to make sense of information
big picture benchmarking
-corrugated cardboard packaging from the teardown artist: what does this have to do? *indication of how supply chain works b/c packaging is near manufacturing dpt. -companies are looking for more than any single product: trying to determine how their competitors are structured -what are they making in house? -what does their supply chain look like? *Kodak asked class to benchmark Fuji -look at: # parts, materials used, component dimensions/weights, shutter speed (mean/std. dev.), flash recharge time, fit/finish, highest cavity number seen
Our bench marking approach
-create an exhaustive list of design issues for the product, based on all the research your team has done to this point -should include everything you've learned from users, patents, experts, and your team's own expertise -dissect and closely examine relevant products that are on the market, function by function -try to determine which product is the best at each important function***
How new products are often created and come to market
-created by 'outsiders' or by end users (like with mountain bike and personal computer) who adapted a specific technology to an entirely new concept *people take products out of their original context and force them into new contexts
Hardest design task
-dealing with immense flood of information -need to know how to condense/distill the data into design specifications *certain point on curve of graph where more information leads to confusion so need to find that sweet spot
Constraints
-define the boundaries of what's possible=design space -ask: what's it's primary function? what's it's secondary function? what were the most important constraints? how well does the design confront constraints? ex: soda cans -primary:hold liquid/pressure with carbonation -secondary: aesthetic, ergonomically fit in hand; get liquid into mouth; easily recyclable; cheap -important constraint=cheap, rapid reproducibility ex2: mini cooper primary constraint=maximize interior but minimize exterior
Michael Dell on Dell's 'Scale of Firm'
-delivered better consumer experience by focusing on what his business could do and bring in what others' could do *he understood what the Internet could do for his business: information flowed both ways on it *his problem: made computers into commodities *virtual integration pun is about vertical integration *in virtual integration can always share information: even had a lot of outsourcing *his business model risks: outsourcing could break down communication and have longer delay lag time, more channels created by further distances and higher costs; less face to face contact and had to keep supplier up to speed *Dell's defined value=their customer *broke his market down by fast-cycle or customer segmentation: difference between college students computer and Boeing's orders
Decoding Information
-design intent: clearly visible in each of artifacts b/c every one had a specific purpose but without any knowledge of their context: there's not much to say *some see as native american spear heads or some see them as arrow heads/drill bits -archaeologists can read and understand the code, and can use these artifacts to understand the culture that created them -think about what they'll see in the year 3050: hip bone or artifact? is this a hammer? a weapon? a religious artifact? *what's to say it's a hip joint and not an art object?
Propagation and Iteration
-designed systems: designs that survive in their market niche will 'live' to influence future designs *market success breeds imitation: see again and again *everything starts again: surviving designs mutate and some are selected for, some die off, and survivors propagate
Information product encoding
-designers encode information into artifacts that pass that information into the future just as a virus uses DNA/RNA to encode and transmit their genetic information into the future *artifact=snapshot of information at a particular moment in time *this information encoded goes out into market to battle for survival of other products *same algthm at work as in art, science, engineering, bio.... *encoding is like the little pictures that airports have or little Ikea pictures
Final products
-detailed analysis of the market, competition, and your initial concepts -trend analysis of where your team sees the market today and where you see it going *both qualitative and quantitative *look at post long-term trends: market categorization: where is it now? where's it going? what are the relevant tech. trends? what are the emerging competitive trends?
Technological Constraints
-determined by the state of the art at the time the device/system is designed -can appear as legacy issues, when current designs are constrained to work with technologically obsolete systems *apply to both product/process used to manufacture it: Honda's high speed steel *artifacts=snapshots of technology frozen in time; has to evolve with products: think how NASA technology failed with computers that didn't meet the time period *closely linked to market constraints
Product dissection methods
-document the process as you dissemble-use video with commentary -identify the functions of each assembly, sub-assembly, and component as you go -ask: how many parts were used? what materials and processes? are components purchased or custom-made? what kinds of fasteners are used? *why this level of detail? -classify the exact role of each sub-assembly and component as disassemble: main functions (mass, energy, info) functional supports (user adjustments, seals, etc.) geometric supports ergonomic supports (handles, grips, etc.) production supports fasteners (reversible, one-way) *keep track of: physical/functional dependencies between components; camera: lens holder and film plane; multiple system states (off, low, medium, high); special tools needed for assembly/dissembly
The Teardown Artist
-engineer (Dave Meeker) takes a deeper look at his competitors' products and takes things apart for a living -graduated from Carnegie Melon as a ME where he learned value of understanding every step of product's production from design to manufacturing -first job=AVCO where he worked on the design, costing, and manufacturing of a boosted kinetic energy weapon for the destruction of runways -went on to work for AMTG, DFM institute, HP, and teach at MIT -Xerox first machine sold to: IBM and Kodak *all of the companies take a look at each others' machines and competition *true economic competition: each of the 3 companies wanted to know exactly what their competitors were doing so they could improve their own designs and lower their costs (easy way to get a jump into the new market) *he takes products from coffee grinders to erasers apart and does benchmark testing (not reverse engineering *he takes as much of a product apart as he can and takes steps forward and innovates beyond *this is a necessary step for product evolution; without this, it's difficult for products to evolve because the true information embedded in the artifact itself is lost *consider how companies like Honda and Yamaha went beyond the British motorcycle industry with cars and pianos *4 different IU machines do the same thing but different architecture, design, and cost-> all sort of trade offs that have been made around accessibility and service *shows effect of design teams ranking design constraints differently: some ranked service over the size of the artifact -Meeker: well informed on case laws as well as stays up to date with the newest engineering technology in every field *reads every periodical he can find: shows important role of trade magazines *requires good, old-fashioned detective work -how his job starts out: finds artifacts with the best price and then takes apart the packaging *he said you can look at the bottom of the box to find a lot out about the product: can see that boxes are usually not taken far away from the product was assembled--> look at the SC through where the components were put into a box -said some components like screws, wires, and chips and other elements are easier to track down than others (some are secretive like when OSU tried to reverse engineer Kodak OTUC in the 90s) -once you find a few letters in the subassembly you can use that to find a company logo (vendor) and then go to that company and find a model number in a parts catalog --> getting quotes and costs -his clients often went every part identified from the quotes for each part to an explanation *although he seems that he's an expert at everything, he's not: he still has an expert he calls as well or looks at the Internet -he claims no one can really protect themselves from doing what he does and acquiring so much information; even if they take measures for better labelling that doesn't stop people like him -even with traps and pitfalls in the semiconductors that are supposed to prevent disassembly, there's still ways to slowly take them apart *people use X-ray chips and pop the top off of ceramic packaging to see the die size and then they work their way through the chip *better for companies to spend their money on benchmark testing like what Meeker does than trying to figure out how their competition is copying them: then they can understand how their competitor's products are made, how it works, and how much it costs *in every tear down, someone can learn something...even if you're the leader of that industry
Product Design vs. Engineering Design
-engineering only part of product design -factors we disregard as engineers can play a large role -good designers need to prototype
One bench marking approach
-establish exactly who your competition is and who it's likely to be in the future *not easy as it seems *look out for the 2 guys in the garage: Jobs/Walzneck, Hewlett/Packard; Island/Gates -idea of disruptive technology =very prevalent these days
Designer tasks
-every design artifact is embedded with information -our task: decipher that info and use it -good designers become obsessed and immerse themselves in it -need to surround ourselves with other designers and look closely at work of other designers to learn the craft
Customer attributes
-every important user/enterprise need that gets its own row in the matrix *summation of what team learned from use interviews, surveys, persona/scenario exercises, and other products *each one gets its relative importance score -much match each attribute to at least one engineering characteristic/specification which has own column: if not then you're missing something *roof=where conflicts *conflict and mutual reinforcement of the two specs is in the roof design *must resolve these before any new design decisions *- sign on roof of matrix: want to reduce * *relationship matrix: check mark means works but x: conflict with that other EC
Most important source: other products
-every problem created as solution to specific problem: with specific mission and specific set of constraints *your product will solve that problem but must be unique *still good to look at how others solved related problems *looking at other products=best education
Constraints create context
-every real design exists in a world of constraints *these constraints create the context of use in which specific designs exist -designers need to understand: primary function(s) of a product constraints their design confronts *10-20% designs exceed in market
Design Evolution
-evolution of the 200 years of first lathe machine -evolution of basic tools like rock to the hammer/knife *many variations of basic tools now like the hammer b/c each is specific solutions to specific problems so people make their own to adapt to their needs
Guidelines:
-express needs in terms of what a product should do, not how it should do it--think functionality first: "what not how" -express user needs as attributes of products: an attribute of the product -express the needs as specifically as raw data will allow-but not more specifically *specificity *try to use positive phrasing: avoid "must" and "should"
Invention vs. Innovation
-innovation: ideas that are brought to market and have impact -invention: something you file a patent for that could just sit there
Classes of Techniques to get to know customers: watching
-fly on the wall (active): sitting and observing/recording what observe; details are crucial and need to know what really looking at *why have anthros -shadowing (active): following someone throughout day and observing what they do -immersion (active): actually doing job of consumer/user -time-lapse video (passive): set up camera and leave, can have privacy issue; captures behavioral changes in space/time -behavioral mapping (passive): mapping how people move through space; visual summary in comparison to time lapse video *used by architects, planners, and IEs *google applies with their mapping behavior with suggestions
Prototype early & often
-good prototyping=communication tool (with yourself/design team) and learning tool (what worked/didn't) -build real 3D models to learn what works and what doesn't: need to see/feel them *best way to communicate ideas to yourself -learning transitions into testing/verification but also early on triggers other prototypes *make sure: prototype corresponds to the design stage you're in, don't spend a lot of money on expensive one too early (why don't use CAD early) *best to sketch which is prototyping in 2D
Why talk constraints?
-helps have framework for thinking about how factors will limit design space -hard to understand these factors at the beginning and how they interact -constraints=opportunities to: explore other options tighten/relax them in order to innovate
Using the House
-helps the team set targets which are on the bottom line of the house *easy way for engineers to summarize basic data in a usable form -for marketing: it's the VOC and GM's use it to discover strategic opportunities: still relieves no one from making tough decisions but allows each group to participate in debates *can use objective measures of the competitors' product, customer perceptions, and consider cost/technical difficulty information to see if benefits > costs *in setting targets: important for the team to emphasize customer satisfaction values over tolerances (be more exact rather than stating range) *tolerances allow the team to drift towards the least costly end of the specification limit and doesn't reward deign/components who's value could increase customer satisfaction
iPods and Integration
-highly integrated device *very much so about function not aesthetics *Ipod was about navigating content and not having to do too much with device -integrated: deals with digital online systems that allow you access plethora of info (the long tail) and share information constantly (like Dell's virtual integration model) *birth of new global market with digital markets: beware of privacy however *Google in a way is flipped view of iPod: Google started with software and is now designing devices whereas Apple started with a device and ended up with software
Supply chain issues
-how a firm chooses to structure its SC is a life/death decision *sole source or not? off shore or on-shore? *sole sources are easier to manage relationships but if have natural disaster: very bad *what technologies should you keep in house or what do you push down to suppliers? *car suppliers: give the manufacturers all of the same parts, no one gets special privileges
Technology progression
-how design ideas passed from one generation to the next *good ones preserved, bad ones rejected *lots of information passed down by word of mouth *others passed down informally: when people come into contact with ideas in form of objects, use them, and adapt them to suit new uses or change them completely
Questions to ponder with innovation
-how important is culture? asking why India often sends us our brightest people but why don't we buy stuff from them? -how important is political/legal system? -does innovation solely depend on education? *no! although do need an education -are patents/PhDs a useful metric to measure innovation? more PhDs just b/c people need to differentiate themselves more; look at funding -think of innovation in terms of nations? sort of b/c of different legal system in different countries -what about cultural innovation? -why are the US/UK so dominant in popular music? both are melting pots of lots of cultures -some sources of innovation in US culture? a lot of our schools attract people from overseas -why silicon in CA? b/c failure not a big deal here
Challenge of benchmarking
-how to turn vague statement into information that we can use in new designs -compare your designs to what's out there on market and do it in a way that helps improve your design -converting qualitative data into quantitative metrics; ensuring every customer and enterprise attribute is captured in design
Gathering and managing data
-how we collect information can bias the results *need to make every effort to listen to what the user is saying, not what want them to say *pay attention to body language in the context of use as well *write up initial data in a way that doesn't hide the details that make a difference between a product killer and road kill product
Long Tail and Product Evolution
-if the idea of article is true, what effects should we expect it to have on product evolution in near future? Will only the products at the top live on? More opportunity to make more products--the selection is much bigger than what we used to be and amount of product that's out there that we can be aware of is a lot more, more unlimited choices with greater range of variation -when we talk about 'products': we're not just talking about things we can hold but also Google is a product -what effect will the Web have on product evolution? • Pondering: both organisms and products co-evolve within fitness landscapes no matter the niche -many organisms are well adapted to their local ecosystem to any random change to the genome/ecosystem will be fatal to the offspring -what about products? Same caveat apply? *think of how Dell computers designed for rapid evolution: took different strands and put together for BTO computers
Categorizing product constraints
-inward constraints: usage constraints cultural constraints *between you/product -outward constraints: market constraints technological constraints physical constraints *looking out and at markets -when first start market constraints look to be most important and then technological constraints become significant; others involved in design itself of artifact
Dissecting the competitions' products
-know the major design issues ahead of time -have a thorough functional understanding of the product -have the entire team participate in the product teardowns *especially manufacturing people -be open-minded and willing to learn from what you see
What's disruptive technology?
-like a car, a technology that completely changes that industry *caused them to re-build cities *always lurking to apear
Another look at information and long tail
-look at how Besos from Amazon took Jobs' idea of just using bytes to store information to make everything digitally and continually available -online retailers like Netflix/Amazon wins vs. brick and mortars: block buster/barnes and noble
Sources of potential solutions
-look at what designers/inventors have done *entails: looking at patents, trade journals, natural system, and other products *products=themselves a prime source of ideas for new products b/c they're solutions to similar problems
Why did Michael Dell carry such little inventory in his factory?
-low overhead costs -can have quicker changeover -lean inventory is a big thing with industry changing very quickly like computers
Mapping needs/constraints
-match those constraints started with with what users told you -once ok with hierarchy of user needs, go back and look again at constraints you assumed at beginning *have you overlooked any? *did you over-emphasize some that aren't as important now?
Condensing the Data
-might sound trivial, it's not! -your competitors aren't stupid: they're listening to same folks you are so you need to pick up on the details they're missing* *messy/tedious stage: put effort into separate pieces of paper and use post-its and then sort *what IDEO does
Why HOQ?
-might think its a waste of time in early project stages but.... *repays the effort required upfront to construct it b/c saves a lot of time later on by avoiding conflicts and preventing oversights *best constructed when your team completes initial user surveys and focus groups, and begins to transform needs/wants into specifications *at end: link houses to convey VOC through to manufacturing from HOQ to parts deployment to process planning to production planning
Encoding information: biological systems
-molecular biologists can tell us precisely how information is stored in the DNA molecule -we all know how mutations lead to variations in populations which are fare either better/worse than the original population when it comes to survival/propagation -biology encodes information in molecular structure (viruses that are info transmission devices) -viruses are purely information transmission devices *their goal is replication): think of how the swine flu virus is all the DNA coming together from different organisms *think of the Phone: how many layers of DNA converges here -lots! clock, camera, GPS, counter, all strands come together to form the phone
Focus on use
-must emphasize the design users -good to emphasize with them and create ficitional users with user-centered design -need to design usable products that can fabricated at high quality and low cost no matter who customers are -users aren't consumers (the person who buys it) - users could also be in manufacturing there, retail, service personnel, the end user or anyone that comes into contact with the product -example: toys-consumer: mom/dad; user: kid
Patentabiilty
-must meet the NUN criteria *Novel: must be new in light of prior art, including inventor's previous patents *Useful: must have some real world utility *Non-obvious: must be 'non-obvious' to a person knowledgeable in the field in time it's filed
Kodak Bench-marking Fuji
-number of parts -materials used -highest cavity number seen: allows you to see unique identifier molded in the part, helps them get idea of how many cameras they'd make at a time and how many molding machines they had -component dimensions and weights -shutter speed: mean and std. deviation -flash recharge time -fit/finish
Where do you start?
-often too early after define the problem, an idea is borrowed from another context and is shoe-horned into another 'solution' ○ What's our problem? Preventing children from future illness by poisoning themselves with bottles' contents ○ What's the context we're trying to solve? Kids often see their mom use these products; families have multiple kids so hard to watch over them all the time (kids easily observe parents) ○ How do we know we've found the context? -started by taking OSU Design students who began a series of interviews with parents who brought their kids to NCH emergency room -followed up with in-home visits and observed their kitchens and their bathroom cabinets -saw that over 95% of the time the spray bottles weren't turned to the lock positions ○ Who's our target user? The kid, the parents (enable for mom, disable for junior) ○ How many personas should we think about? Definitely consider busy mom with multiple kids, doesn't have time to work with all of them ○ Early concepts: trigger safety activated by dual medal compression *need solution that would be probable with only one hand *none of their early ideas worked b/c wouldn't have worked in actual context with mom with observant, multiple kids *needs bottle she can use with 1 hand that locks itself as soon as she releases it *design chosen: one that mimicked standard, American spray bottle with level in the back and red color is showing you where the moving parts are and signifies possible danger/caution ○ Designed the lever blended in as much as could to the back of the bottle so the kid wouldn't see it as much *couldn't make it too different for the industry or else the industry would never pick it up; couldn't make the manufacturing too tricky *what happened with bottle: OSU/NCH gave up after 3 years trying to sell to manufacturing firms *basic problem: forgetting to ask-who's asking for it? *overlooked market/cultural constraint that manufacturers didn't want their consumers to think their products were dangerous ○ Market constraints: clearly didn't give enough thought to here; even though their idea followed the problem they defined, the market wasn't asking for a solution to this problem* -time will tell if this is needed by the Federal gov. who could mandate it
Products as artifacts
-old things are not only artifacts but need to look at new products like the iPhone and think: what will we see hundreds of years from now? *ask what can this product tell me about its function, its materials, how it was made, who made it, and who it was made for?
Establishing a Hierarchy
-once determine the data relationships, need to establishing importance of hierarchy *should be obvious b/c some needs are more important than others *constraints selected will help define too *think Pareto *where design will start to look different from other designs out there
Attach meaning from artifacts: the point
-original intent of a designed artifact will often disappear and humans will attach their own meaning to it *context is the source of all meaning *anything can have multiple uses and mean different things at different times to different people *imagine with what could happen to a device that's specifically designed to have multiple uses...
Benchmarking: analytical side of design
-part of design that will appeal to anyone who likes to read mysery novels -done right requires an obsessive attention to the smallest detail, coupled with a lot of imagination *primary goal: predict the future, not just describe the present; figure out where the market is going not just where it's been
Keep track of:
-physical/functional dependencies between components -camera: lens holder/fil plane -multiple system states: low, off, med., high, etc. -special tools needed for assembly/dissembly -goal: total understanding of rationale behind design
Houses Beyond
-principles apply to any effort to establish clear relations between manufacturing functions and customer satisfaction that aren't easy to visualize -usually the interfucntional team allows us to take the "hows" from our HOQ to the "what'" of another house concerned with details of product design -Ecs in first house can become rows in a parts deployment house while parts characteristics become the columns and process continues on third/fourth houses phase as the "hows" of the one stage become the "whats" of the next -the four linked houses implicitly convey the VOC through manufacturing *technique helps break down functional barriers and encourages teamwork which is always rewarded
Mission Statement: Screwdriver Project
-product description: hand-held, power-assisted device for installing threaded fasteners -key business goals: product introduced in fourth quarter of 1997, 50% gross margin, 10% share of cordless screwdriver market in 1999 -primary consumer: do it yourself consumer -secondary: casual consumer; light-duty professional *tells us it's not for contractors -assumptions: hand-held, power-assisted, nickel-metal-hydride re-chargeable battery tech. *general to specific b/c this type of battery you can tell is something that's company specific and that they want in every one of their products -stakeholders: user, retailer, sales force, service center, production, legal dpt. *Note: says "hand held power assisted device," not a power screwdriver like... *Note need both needs of the firm and the customer/user to appear: market, use, and technological constraints are emphasized; go from market constraints to use constraints to technological constraints that you get right out the gate from the client *primary target market is defined along with secondary markets and include stakeholders
Design with process & product in mind
-product design --> process design (can't separate design and fabrication) *think about how design will be made right away as well as how one will assemble the design (*think Ikea pictures with global economy) -components are either made in house or purchase (Boeing uses TPM) -dies, molds, fixtures, and supply chain all impact the choices you make
Market pull: another variant of product dev. process
-products are pulled onto market by customers of similar products (wanting more/less of something) -ex: hottest game/app, Swiffer from P&G; more absorbent diaper; new cat liter with smell like roses *example: Amazon Kindle: bring consumers to buy this product so they'll buy others
Co-evolution
-products change us and our culture as much as they're changed by us and our culture *observed in every evolutionary system: the coupled evolution of predator and prey, products and users, and competitors in the market *think smart phones changing us now and our behaviors *even how Michael Dell said how his direct model evolved with the changed computer industry but also how his model furthered the computer industry's evolution and enabled Dell to emerge itself
Technology push: 1 variant of product dev. process
-products come to market b/c pushed by new/improved technology (like from R&D labs) *products: chip set from Intel, Boeing 787; new polymer blend *processes: robotic surgical techniques; server software, hot sheet forming for cars *a lot might not come to market b/c of factories and change the factory technologies face
Classes of Techniques to get to know customers: asking
-questionnaries (passive): what questions? how many? (between 5-10); good to do 1 and then follow up -camera journals (passive): hand out cheap cameras; subjects record their actions and annotate their photos and return to design team -focus groups (active): used in political situations; they can have biases and we tend to be too polite but good to do with videotaping and props so can read into body language *good to hire on other companies -extreme user interviews (active): difference between extreme users and lead users is crucial to success *lead users: experts about product *extreme: difficulty with use of product *talk to both -five whys (active): RCA and keep asking until get to bottom of it
De-materialization in the Long Tail
-replacing material with technological information *even when this happens, it's still a product (a transaction) : can always replace products with experiences like with Uber *can turn anything into information and transport it at zero cost via Internet *picture on slide=the Internet, more nodes is more information
Designers opposing point of view
-to figure out what the user wants before they know/do (Jobs quote)
Ford's River Rouge plant
-total integration of production *everything came in as raw material and left as Model T cars so could control quality at every stage and make profit at each step *problem: when have highly integrated production line, can't mess up and 1 line can't be down *have to manage more employees and can have communication break downs; have to pay them more and give them benefits *differences with Honda/GM: have OEMs and use them or farm out for almost every different component *suppliers will not have incentives to change to new technology (classic vertical integration): no efficiency to be efficent
Variation Extended
-variation occurs randomly at the molecular level in biological systems (blind variation) -mutations are fatal to the organism: it's already optimally evolved for its niche -sometimes mutations will have a slight advantage to succeed generations and survive/thrive -design intent is at work in culture, technology, music, or art -variation is not blind b/c human ingenuity is guiding the shape/form of the variation in response to earlier trials -mind-assisted evolution: change happens much more quickly but first step is to generate as much variation as possible *no variation, no evolution
The Long Tail
-represents the most obscure part of the demand curve -IoT makes things that weren't popular more popular and available: more product diversity -reveals truths about what consumers want: they like more than just the mainstream stuff -information makes: music easy to use, accessible, no limit on how much to put up, makes suggestions about what you like, and can make the price lower -why does it matter? all obscure products add up to a profit b/c all more accessible -with Long Tail there's physical retailers like record stores and hybrid retailers like Amazon/UPS and pure digital: Amazon *shows how technological innovation will decrease in price while experience prices increase -article touches on how two books Touching the Void and Into Thin Air show how the new digital market utilizes infinite shelf space to see the buying trends/public opinion to lead to rising demands -Pareto rule here is wrong in entertainment industry: it's not 20% of the movies/films will be hits, really more like 99% *popularity no longer margin of profitability *look at Rhapsody and Spotify -sheer size is amazing: combine enough non-hits and bigger market than hits (need to rid of our scarcity mindset) -New rules of entertainment industry: 1) make everything available like Netflix 2) cut the price in half and then lower that: Apple's prices are too high (overpriced by 25%) *people buy more with lower prices *could stop competing with individual tracks at all 3) help me find it: -anyone could upload files that would be available to them -could surpass record labels and allow artist to easily communicate with listeners with MP3.com -why failed: only focused on long tail *need for both ends of the curve
Tech's Frightful 5
-rulers of consumer tech: Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft -all playing the game, no one is really losing b/c all winning in comparison to others in tech. -every year rise and fall in comparison to competition and become larger, more powerful and expand in new sectors *all information typhoons and compete b/c all in consumer tech industry -ride wave of technological change: decrease cost of IT, with better network connectivity and rise of mobile phone -central business of each of them revolves around computers -Windows=desk tops, Google=web searches, Apple/Google=phones, operating systems, apps and Google with advertising; Amazon/Microsoft/Google=control iCloud -platforms generate network effects: as more people use them, become increasingly what more people use *these effects allow them to explore new markets as well like Apples' new music subscriptions -all have expansive visions -each are top 10 most valuable American companies overall
Goal of new design
-seeing any designed artifact as a solution to a problem posed by a specific set of goals/constraints -ask: why did the designer do this? how did the design team balance constraints? were the constraints used creatively? how could i do it better? *major role: deciding which constraints to focus on b/c good design is consistent across all 5 categories *best is to have simpler design
The Goal: Design Brief/Mission statement
-should include: brief product description key business goals primary/secondary markets important assumptions about the product identification of key stakeholders
3 primary functions of HOQ
-simple tool to help design and project keep track of projects 1) matches user/corporate needs to engineering specifications 2) highlights potential trade-offs/conflicts between specifications *best part about it 3) provides a visual method for keeping complex projects on track
Evolution
-simply an algorithm for passing along information from past to future: no more or less -how designs, cultures, people, technology changes slowly by the same basic process *answers question: what worked best in this specific context?
Confront design constraints constantly
-some are fixed while others will change continually as design matures -keep returning here to assumptions about constraints and ask: "does this still apply? have things changed?'
Examples of the natural world
-spiders: best structural engineers on the planet *can spin 7 different kinds of silk for specific uses *their toughness is better than Kevlar -model for surveillance drones=the dragon fly -squids are now inspiring better camouflage for soldiers -ant: best adapted to life on earth award
Think function first
-step back from problem and think of actual function want to achieve -creating new way of doing old things -ask: what specific tasks will users of design need to accomplish? what specific contexts will they try to do this? -never will create something new if only focus on the artifact and not the user/task -functions of iPhone: communication with you and you with it *we create products and change them and they change us -need to think more abstract so can adapt to different contexts more readily like with mountain bike -think evolution of game controllers *note: don't just think in terms as a successful designer about what the product is but what it must do *function by itself is necessary but not enough to define a design
Design evolution at work: operating systems
-struggle: designers of operating systems vs. designers of computer viruses *how evolutionary algthm applies to products: a pure info product *Linux operates more quickly b/c more minds at work fixing bug rather than when Max OS is down
Immerse yourself in context of use
-success of any product determined how used/misused -ask: who will use this design; how will they use/misuse it; how can we learn something from this? *people will adapt to anything to get the job done -misuse tells us it's time for a new product -think about who all product will come in contact with; who's assembling the device *point: nothing changes until users change it like the mountain bike
Selection
-the designs that best fit their context will be selected for -selection imposes direction on evolutionary processes: not random at all -product's ecosystem=the market and designer has no control over this step so even if we put our best effort forward, market still decides whether products live/die
Information: end of humanity?
-this guy is the most lethal virus known to modern science -Ebola RNA codes for only 8 proteins (very simple genome) yet has the potential to wipe out human life on Earth *why hasn't happened? Very lethal that kills hosts too quickly and can only be spread through someone that has it
Distilling
-to extract the essence of something 1) condense all the data by consolidating redundant terms 2) establish relationships among data: can be both positive/negative 3) establish a hierarchy of needs: think Pareto Principle *Pareto: 20% of features cause 80% of problems 4) prepare effective presentation that team has learned for the client and to refer back to
Another note on formulation stage
-we just defined the problem not the solution -all the raw data found from FGS, interviews, observations, etc. must be distilled into useful information by the team *can be one of the hardest phases of the process *if not done correctly, the right design will never happen *Olin president says it's best for students to be creative and come up with their own idea of what's important with defining the problem
Looking Closely at competition
-what specific market segments are they targeting? *look globally -have they overlooked or disregarded an important segment? -are there market niches your designs can fill? -what are the strengths and weaknesses of existing products? -where is the competition putting their resources? *have to dig -where will they be in 10 years? 15 years?
First task of design
-when looking at successful product (swiss army knife) can see it's successful b/c is still around -first question to ask: how do we define that task in a way that will lead to the success of our products? *end with design that not only survives but also thrives in the market?
Moving from problem to solution
-where start to look for solutions to specific problems: both at product and component level
All about information
-while our body is busy developing virus antibodies, the viruses are mutating like the flu -most mutations are lethal to the organism that it mutates: it's already optimal for its biological niche -a few mutations have a slight advantage as our immune systems adapt to destroy the original virus: these mutations survive and next year=new variant of the flu (most will die but some survive and will reproduce themselves) -why have cold and flu viruses evolved in a way that causes their hots to vomit, cough, and sneeze? They want to evolve and spread themselves to other hosts
Who designing for
-who's your customer? -know VoC *best to know who customer is before listening for their voice *at every part of the supply chain, essential to know if you have 1 more customer and who they are and what they want *make sure know what voice you're hearing: is it immediate customer or ultimate user of the product? *don't listen to your own voice of what you want to hear: BMW's iDrive with no tactical display so drivers had to take eyes off road *make sure know customers and users aren't always the same people
Benchmark by function
-why benchmark by function, not component? *different companies can see different functions as important *customers are really interacting by function not components -map specific function to specific component groups (product architecture) -compare component groups across products: *how many parts were needed? *are there more/less clever ways to achieve the function? *are there more/less expensive ways to manufacture needed parts? *want highest quality and lowest cost to still reach this quality? *can establish function form diagrams: estimate manufacturing costs, assembly costs, total cost analysis, BOM *can compare your design to your competition to decide if you can actually turn over a profit? *best in class by function establishment: always will have 1 design that's better than the others so that design=best in class for that function
Another View of Frightful 5
-would add Samsung too -network effects: more people using, more valuable becomes -they watch what you do and make money through advertising -a lot of power placed in these companies
3 Stages of Iteration (DTC)
1) Divergence: gathering information, converting an initial idea into several competing ideas; listening to users and other experts=most important part 2) Transformation: bringing all that information back into the house, and trying to make sense of it; important part: establishing a hierarchy of needs, constraints, and design goals *tv remote: what's the most important button: power but has a lot of other buttons 3) Convergence: at the end of the formulation stage, coming up with a concise statement that defines what we're trying to design, who it's being designed for, and other pertinent information *not convergent on a solution yet
Establishing Relationships
1) Mind Maps: -allows you to connect ideas as words/graphics -useful for brainstorming b/c so non-linear; not good to create lists -better than lists b/c non-linear and encourage non-linear thinking by linking info by multiple paths *inverse relationship between neatness and creativity *handy for capturing information in brainstorming session 2) N-squared Charts or Design Structure Matrix or Dependency Structure Matrix: more of an engineering tool made from the MIT Aero Department -visual method of documenting connections among constituent parts of a system *works for any system and any component can think of *corresponding rows/column represent same component -how to do: diagonal of chart is blank; off-diagonal mark signifies a dependency relationship between those elements *reading across row shows what other elements the element in that row provides and reading down column shows what elements that element is dependent on *helps keeps connections sorted out
Why benchmark?
1) to purge the 'not invented here' virus from your firm -don't think it's not worth it b/c you didn't invent it -what GM thought and what Apple thinks now: it's always worth it to look at other product 2) stay abreast and beat your competition 3) points of reference for: quality manufacturing processes performance best in class
Why Care?
1) we need to know not to invest too much in designs that quite aren't fitted to their environment (their fitness landscapes) 2) if we understand evolution, we can design products to evolve more easily 3) we can use what we know about co-evolution to change the way our culture uses and misuses products *think about how evolving away from old cell phones--what will we do with them?
Building the House
1. Begins with what the customers want: requirements=customer attributes (CAs) that describe customer's products and product characteristics *typically from 30-100 -some Japanese manufacturers place their product somewhere and then just listen to what customers say -formal market research: Focus groups, qual. interviews, and other techniques -CAs are grouped bundles of attributes that represent an overall customer concern and generally reproduced by customers' own words (some times raises question of interpretation: what did they mean?) *not all customers are end users but CAs can include other users like regulators, retailers, or other vendors 2. Weighing the preferences by importance: designers generally have to trade off one benefit over another -HOQ measures relative importance of all the Cas to bring in VOC -weightings are based on team members' direct experience with customers/surveys -some use statistical techniques while others use "revealed preference techniques" which judge consumers taste by their actions and their words (which is expensive but more accurate) -displayed next to each CA usually in terms of % 3. Yielding competitive advantages: companies need to know where they stand relative to their competition -on right side of house, list customer evaluations of competition matched against their own product -good to be based on scientific surveys *good b/c can identify improvement opportunities *seen as a perception map based on bundles of Cas that identify strategic positioning of a product/product line *natural link to the strategic vision 4. Changing the product: describe the product in an engineer language -along top of HOQ: design team lists the engineering characteristics (Ecs) that are likely to affect 1+ customer attributes -negative sign: hope to reduce *if an EC affects no CA: probably don't need *if a CA is unaffected by an EC: could be an improvement opportunity *any EC may affect more than one CA -Ecs should describe the product in measurable terms and should directly affect customer perceptions -good to be very specific here and not ague so there's no confusion with what customers actually need 5. Engineers influencing customer-perceived quality: interfunctional team now fills in the body of the house--the relationship matrix--indicating how much each engineering characteristic affects each customer attribute -base these responses on expert engineering experience, customer responses, and tabulated data from statistical studied or controlled experiments -uses numbers/symbols to establish relationship strengths (often use check marks for positive and crosses for negative) -now adds objective measures at the bottom of the house beneath the Ecs to which they pertain -now can move to establishing target values--ideal measures for the next EC in the re-designed product (test to measure benchmarked values) 6. How an engineering change affects other characteristics: uses the HOQ's distinctive roof matrix to help engineers specify the various engineering features that have to be improve collaterally *sometimes one new feature impairs the others so the team will have to decide to leave it alone *roof matrix also facilitates any necessary trade offs: can be the best place to balance the trade offs *some design teams also custom build their houses like adding a new column of Cas or to their Ecs *some house users impute relative weightss to the engineering characteristics and compare to the actual costs set for their improvements needed (very important when goal= reduce costs)
Steps of Teardown at GM
1. Mechanics measure the device with a 3D vector arm taking all the car's inner/outer dimensions like the bumper height/distance from driver's eyes to steering wheel 2. Create a digital blue print 3. Disassemble the car 4. every part: weighted, named, and labeled with a number 5. have cost estimates that gauge price of every part to help understand their competitors as well as suppliers' prices -they know the mass of the part, what the labor rate is, what shipping costs are so they can add up the puzzle pieces: can be more aggressive with suppliers to push the cost down b/c have no person babysitting the parts and no parts room which equates to huge savings 6. Enter all information into a database for GM engineers to come up with new car designs
5 core principles
1. Think Function First 2. Immerse yourself with context of use 3. prototype early and often 4. design with both product/process in mind 5. keep design constraints in mind
Bottom up examples
Apple's 40 billion apps that has been downloaded from store: everyone's now making them -we need to make sure we don't make the mistake as engineers/designers of overlooking the innate creativity of people who don't have our education *goal: listen/observe the people closest to the sharp end: users, repairers, the re-sellers
How learn from other designs
Ask: -did it meet/exceed expectations? -what factors constrained its design? -has it succeeded in the market? -has it impacted the design of other products? -did the artifact or its use change over time?
Design implementation
How designs become real what factors constrain their implementation? how are the product and production system designs related? what factors in the world will impact how we design and make products in the future? what impact will our designs have on the environment and society?
Formulating Problems
How to uncover them, how to define them, how to do design research: how to recognize a design problem? what constraints apply to problem as we define it? where's the info we need? who has it? how do we turn a flood of unrelated data into product specs what tools are helpful?
Designing solutions
Look at design process itself and how to convert problems into products/services how do we move from general problem statements into designs we can refine and bring to life? how can we turn constraints into opportunities for innovation? who should be involved in the decision making process? what are some to0ls/methods we can use to come up with more creative solutions?
Products
Must compete for survival in open market place and appeal to real people among many dimensions
Why is design so complex?
No right answer to design problems: not all designs are equal Designing for: -remote in time: designing for the future -remote in space: designing for people who will use our situations in which we won't ever encounter
Design process map
Phase 0= exploration and discovery (design opp. defined) *fuzzy end that can be most frustrating *need to spend a lot of time here to force yourself to slow down and watch people use real products in real situations Phase 1=design/development Phase 2=implementation/production (new product specifications defined) *iterative process: no one gets it right the first time and each phase is equally important
Meta level issues
Relationship among technology and society Why certain products thrive/die in specific markets Every problem in society directly correlates to technology so we're the future of solving these problems: can't separate technology and culture ○ Why the change on the curve? ○ Can we separate technology and our culture? ○ Is change evolutionary/revolutionary? ○ Does technology evolve the same way a virus evolves? ○ What drives technological change? ○ What are archeologists going to think about when they find our products in 100 years? ○ Is evolution inevitable? ○ Why do some products evolve in fits/starts?
Building a Better Business Class
The V Concept: German's new concept in airline's focusing on business class Seats: 6 ft, 6" long, 2 ft. wide can withstand 16 times force of gravity with padded footrests business class: 1/2 revenue of some airlines like British Airways constraint of seats= airplane seats, now more seats jammed into tight space --> discomfort with passengers so airlines investing in unique seats challenge: placating passengers while fitting as many as possible Lufthansa: Europe's largest airline attempts to understand passengers; hired designers to poll travelers to see what they wanted (privacy, bed/sleep with comfort, storage space) -eliminated maintenance costs and breakdown times by taking away some of the massaging chairs or seat adjustment options Next gen seats: travel 10-14 hours comfortably and fully recline Balancing: space, comfort, and space features constant trade off: comfort with space vs. cost space vs. cost: first class: takes up 6-8 coach seats and business class: takes up 4 coach seats; first class: x2 more than business class; business class: x 4 more than coach Adding bucket of seat prices from $2000-$6000 depending on what buy: pay for more premium seats and sold more expensive near flight date business seats=perishable items putting more quality/space into business class now seat needs: desk, entertainment center, dining facility and a bed
Product Design Emphasizes
Understanding the product user and their needs defining design constraints thinking about architecture of product/system considering how the design will evolve over time thinking about how design will be fabricated
Seat Configuration Types
Yin-Yang: 1/2 of passengers sit backwards and fit person's shoulders with opposite person's feet = space efficiency (awk eye contact) Herringbone: staggered diagonal seats (sleeping passengers stick out in aisles) latest trend: higher density seating with shorter beds and narrower seats so when seats lay flat they slide under passengers' armrests in front (seats in front get more attention and create a weight problem)
What's really a design?
a creation of a set of instructions for how to make an artifact -design (n): information -design (v): act of creating it
airbus dealing with constraints
catered design to major hubs/cities like Duabi with Emirates and modelling planes after the Dreamliner
another benchmarking goal
combine the best in class designs for each function to serve as the baseline for our design *helps to: generate new concepts transform function to form identify the best suppliers, materials, and components *trap: be careful to not lose sight of new possibilities by following just best in class design too closely
Intrinsic constraints
constraints apply to the thing itself without consideration for the user
Concorde Video
crossing atlanta in 3.5 hours represents class/style cut the world travel time in half breaks the speed of sound what happened: noise/enviro. concerns threatening ozone layer; couldn't keep up with high ticket prices after 9/11; airplanes sitting on ground=wasted money
Class Design video
every object speaks to who put it out there and has a story -Henry ford: "every object has a story, must know how to read it" always make assumptions when you see an object goal of industrial design=mass production and producing serialized items new consultant design firms focus on the consumer -design looks at focusing on the extremes in design need to look for ways people can use/improve something without them really thinking about it users react positively when things are clear/understandable good design is: aesthetic, innovative, useful, understandable, long-lived, detail consistent, environmentally friendly, as little design as possible Jonathan Ive says: designs should almost feel undesigned b/c they make so much sense; should get a clear sense of who designed it -next gen of products where form doesn't really follow function -3 phases of design: formal design; symbolism/content of design; design in contextual sense (human/object relationship) -design=search for what form an object should take -design is now a way designers can add value to their designs which jacks up the price -biggest question of designers: will this product make a difference? -hardest task: designing something that gets better with age -future of design: will be culture generators and not just designing products but scenarios -connected world will now allow everyone to become a designer
extrinsic constraints
exist between product and user: smart phone adopted with unique apps for specific situations
Airbus A380
had first-class suites and couches; thought would outdo every plane in sky very quiet engine and feels more like a cruise holds up to 500 passengers, 6,000 square feet, 50% more than original jumbo jet, cruises to 39,000 ft in 15 minutes biggest problem: more passengers=more congestion Airbus' idea: thought to make a bigger plane to fit more passengers between hub cities; built A380 for high traffic, high volume routes and for high congestion Airbus problem: introduced plane during downturn with flight economy; only customer=Emirates in UAE -they forecasted wrong and made wrong travel predictions with preferences -had manufacturing problems and struggled to keep weight down and coordinate complex design with suppliers -competitor=Boeing who thought air traffic would move from big airports/hubs to secondary airports; built the Dreamliner Dreamliner: smaller, more efficient plane that flies longer and consumes less fuel airbus struggle: finding more customers/carriers but all not interested however Emirates wants a next gen
Design
in this class talking about design/engineering of products not just mechanical/system design or style heart of many human endeavors: engineering, architecture, music, art, literature
Major Constraints
must sacrifice comfort (space) vs. cost weight and drag constrain and number of seats have to design seats for different sizes of people
Major design constraints for airbus
slot constraints: restrictions on daily takeoffs/landings width of airplane barely fits in terminals/gates
Reverse engineering
the disassembly of something with the sole purpose of replicating it which is usually against the law *not what Meeker does
Big picture
what are the major forces in society at work that will affect our career as engineers/citizens? can design play a positive role in alleviating problems we have? what's the engineers/designers responsibility in a highly advanced society? can we apply design thinking outside engineering?
Product level issues
why does one group of designers get design right when everyone else is trying to do the same thing? focuses on expertise of psychology, marketing, and anthropology Looking at other disciplines of problems we examine ○ Looking beyond engineering but also psychology, marketing, and anthropology as well as engineering/IE ○ Why are some cars fiascos and others legends? How does one product become dominant when products are more or less the same?
Product Success
○ It's not possible to explain why some products work without engineering ○ Differentiation is now features not quality; functionality is not enough now ○ To make great products, we have to understand the product factors and constraints of design
Case Study: Child Safe Spray Bottle
○ Problem: 3 years ago Nationwide Children's approached Department of Design to design a new spray bottle that minimized injuries of children; had a lot of statistics that showed the problem --> lead to blindness and lasting respiratory symptoms; rarely a fatal issue but can still hurt the kids ○ Scenario: child under 5 picks up a spray bottle and points it at their face and uses thumbs to pull trigger; a lot of the locks on these bottles are not effective ○ Their original idea: patterned off of a cigarette lighter
Insights GM learned
○ Toyota installs many of the same parts from seats to door handles from the Corolla to the Lexus ○ Details reveal: what type of body material they use -if they use a caulk-like substance like Ford b/c can be made by a robot so there's no person with automation which makes it cheaper -you can also look a the number and type of welds to see how many robots Ford has ○ Full time-saw cut: take 100 mm wide cross sections from the doors and roof pillars and fenders: do this with the Mercedes ML350 SUV (to be competitive need to look at this car) -do to up to 20 vehicles per year -flatbed scanners turn the slivers into digital blueprints and diagrams enable the company's engineers to analyze all of the arcane information such as the slender structure on the side of the windshield that supports the roof but also contains sound dampening information ○ Dissected hybrid: the Prius demystified: -has 1,432 parts whereas the Malibu has 822 -2 electric motors plus a lot of software and finely machined gears to transport power to wheels which makes it more expensive to build -Prius owners love the design of it and that's why they sell 105,000 Priuses a year but that is still nothing to the mere 16 million searching for a car, all for publicity *need to figure out the bigger market for hybrid cars in North America: now Toyota is introducing hybrid engines like the luxury Lexus SUV; better b/c has stronger horsepower than the non-hybrid *marked by its strong performance as well as its fuel efficiency *Toyota is charging big time for its cars b/c of the hybrid technology in its cars: costing nearly $10,000 more for its cars that only get 3 more miles/gallon (means the car will never pay for itself when it comes to fuel savings) -a typical Toyota move: took a car like a Corolla and added huge amounts of cost/complexity so they don't make any money on the car however Toyota reps claim they're making new models this year and they make money b/c their consumer base not only buys for the efficiency but also the lower fuel emissions and cleaner air ○ Teardowns: all about validating GM's insights into what their competitors are doing and thinking about where they're going wrong -GM has the hunch that the Prius was not originally designed for fuel efficiency but more about technical/assembly equipment in Japan and they stumbled into efficiency as a marketing strategy -GM convinced that Toyota uses the Prius to show they're not just a good car company but to show how "high tech" they are ○ GM's new idea: next to the Chevy Malibu and the Prius they have a vehicle that uses hydrogen fuel cells (called the Sequel hoping to unveil by 2010) -even with more parts than the Prius, the vehicle's parts don't move which eliminates a lot of the traditional aspects of auto -tables inside the drive chains are nearly empty in comparison to these other cars -allows GM to tell their story: move directly from gas to fuel cells to hybrid tech -acts as a classic example where a carmaker used tear down research to leapfrog a competitor *however critics say its technology is every bit as complicated as a hybrid: it's a new propulsion system that no one currently knows how to drive/repair *technology always becoming cheaper/easier to build over time: think personal computers that used to weigh 50 pounds in the early 1980s *will never figure out how to make hybrids better and cheaper until you put their technology in the real-world of cars -the oil price over the next few years (article written in 2006) will tell whether or not GM has made an inspired bet or if it will fall to the Toyota hybrid--> if they spike then consumers will want the Prius *no one (even car experts) want to service a car that is so new like one that relies on gas/electric/hydrogen *mimics story of why camera look has remained the same of the year: designers don't want their users to question how to use it