Yves Behar: Designing objects that tell stories

Yves insisted that the design is not about designing the skin to suit the technology. Design shall be designing the skin as well as the inside, the body and function. We have to ensure that the function of the object is useful and user friendly, it shall not just purely be an extra function. So design shall be working from the inside out, to bring the most unique, comfortable feeling and best visual experience to the final user.

Yves believe on being original and unique to give a new experiment on the design. For example, the mini cooper watch that Yves designed, the display of the watch can change to vertical and horizontal just by moving your hand. Another example is the 100 dollars laptop. Yves had help in designing this affordable laptop for children in developing country, so this laptop has an attractive appearance and useful function of a real laptop.

Also, the design has no boundary; it can go to any type of products. Yves has design a condemn distributor machine which is catchy, streamline, comfortable and easy to use.

Just like what Yves had said, “If we keep in mind the value of the work we do, we can change the work we do, we can change these value, we can change the company we work with and eventually, together maybe we can change the world.”

Image: http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/2b.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGn8F4j6pH8

Don Norman: Emotional design

Don bring out a very interesting idea which said that the ability to personalise something make something yours. If you can’t personalise something, which is to use the thing your way, then you are just using something common and ordinary, not special. For example, Don shows a juicer, but asks not to use it as a juicer as it will damage the gold plate of the juicer. So one of Don’s friends use the juicer as a hat hanger and personalise the juicer. In today society, where most people want to personalise things and they did so by getting expensive and exotic goods, but Don is suggesting an easier way to achieve this- use the things your way and you will personalise it.

As the car user nowadays want more and more features in the car, the switches and function controller in the car is getting very complicated- so carmaker like BMW and Mercedes tried to simplify it. They did so by making the exterior looks neat and clean, but the controlling of the actual function is not as how the exterior look. Instead the controlling of the actual function is getting more complex. For example, BMW claim to come up with an “easy” way to simplify the function of the car, which is a screen and a knob that can control 700 functions! We don’t even know that our car have 700 functions! Another example is the Mercedes, it also claim to have a more simplify design, whereas just like BMW, the exterior look perfectly clean and organise, but it is a disaster when come to the actual functions. In order to adjust the volume of the radio, one has to go the screen and select Menu - Entertainment System - Radio - Volume, that is a total of 4 steps before one can adjust the volume!! So Don is pointing out that designers are doing a bad job in simplifying the car, a good design not only need to look perfect, clean and neat from the exterior, but it must also be user friendly, easy to operate and safe to use.


Image source: http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/de2008/images/day_images/don_norman.jpg

Sketches

Good Design

David Kelley:The future of design is human centered Design

David Kelley pointed that the designers are becoming to focus on making the products more human which have personalities that will benefit people more and let people's life more convenient and enjoyble.

The Prada store in NY is a good example to show that good design and advanced technology combines together can do excellent job to our life. One very good example is the changing room in the shop, the customer who is using the changing room just need to push on a click on the LCD door from inside to darken the door. After changing the clothes, the customer just need to push the click again to turn the door into transparent screen and allow friends outside to see through and ask for their opinion without the need of coming out the room. There are also design in the shop like by scanning the clothing, the customer can see the model wearing the scanned clothes and get an idea on how it look like on the actual person. All these show that the design are more tend to be more user friendly.

Another example that is really impressing is the "spyfish" that benefit people who want to see the underwater world but do not want to get wet or is not physically fit to go underwater. The "spyfish" is a small device that can go under water to a dept of 500 feets to capture the image underwater with it two camera fitted on it. The image is then transfer to the television on the boat. The device can be control by a wireless remote control.

The above are some of the very good example which show that the design nowadays are more user friendly and have more personalities in them. This David Kelley video will benefit those people who are learning or in industry design because this indicate the focus of the design now and give industry designer an idea on what the customer in the future is looking for which is not just purely product but product with personalities and user friendly.

The link for the David Kelley video is below :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXndL3TNCmo