Tag Archives: Product

More than Form and Function in Product Design

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When the makers of Coca Cola wanted a new bottle design that was instantly recognizable, even in the dark, they asked their bottle makers to come up with something distinctive. Looking to reference the ingredients in the drink, Earl R Dean, the bottle designer, looked to the cocoa pod for inspiration. The result is one of the best examples of form and function coming together in an iconic, winning design.

Useful Function

The Industrial Designers Society of America says design is a professional practice for creating the useful function of products, objects, devices and services. Industrial designers focus on the intersection of functionality, appearance and manufacturability of a product. The result is a product that provides value, an enhanced experience and positive feelings for the user.

Designers are often part of a multidisciplinary team consisting of strategists, user experience and interface experts (UX and UI), branding and graphics specialists, consumer representatives and manufacturers. Often …

Here’s Why Your Customer Won’t Always Care If Your Product Is Better

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If you think better always prevails in a high-tech environment, then here’s a story about the unrivaled persuasive power of simplicity –

Back when I was a young engineer in R&D, I developed a very small and cheap component for replacing a rather costly outdated one in a project I was working on.

One day the head of a manufacturing line calls me up and schedules a meeting with me and a project manager who may need what I’ve developed for another project.

We start the meeting and the project manager explains:

I have a rather old product.

Despite its antiquated, it has proven very successful with our clients, and I don’t want to change anything…

My problem is this one component that’s obsolete in the design and I have a new batch to manufacture… it’s hard to find a trustworthy vendor with who has this component in their storage…