Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

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One of the issues that Industrial Designers, working in strategic roles, often face is the dreaded “Design Creep” or some call “Specification Creep”. Year after year it’s the same old unproductive story, and if I hazard a guess, it is probably the same for you as well. When a project starts out everyone is happy, loves your design and are rearing to go. But as time goes by, things change and people start to waver.

This often happens when you have been developing a program for many months already, that certain changes in the external environment starts to influence the scope of the product. They may loose confidence in your design, or like a hot new market leader or trend setter, or just want to get their money’s worth and pull out the shopping list. At the end of the day its all the same, “Design Creep” is when someone wants a change as he feels that your work may not good enough (for various reasons), or just wants it to do more that is currently does. This could result in either he/she just wanting to add new things or worst change your design!

Such changes in external environments that can influence your designs could also include changing market forces, technology advancements, government and certification changes, or something as simple as a change in the ownership by stake holders and the new guy has his own ideas. Going forward the trick is to ask are such environmental changes severe enough to make the changes in your product specification, particularly if its very late into the development process? Occasionally “Yes” but most of the time “No”. So how would we ensure that this is well managed?

1) Ensure you have as a detailed product brief as possible, that explains the entire process and the reasons for why a product exists within the overall strategic objective and framework. If necessary update it as you develop the product, and especially when your product gets more real in the detailed refinement phase. This is your life line with clients both of an internal or external nature.

2) Ensure that all stake holders have signed off on the document and its updates. This ensures unwavering commitment especially late in the process when all hell breaks loose.

3) Manage the expectations of all stake holders and keep discussions open. Get the buy-in early and ensure everyone has their say. Deal with new “Creep” issues quickly and decisively.

4) Know the design process like the back of your hand, and that milestones are really for finalizing issues and agreeing for things to be set in “stone”. When a design is “frozen” it is “frozen”.

5) The old adage is true, never give an inch, as you will have to take a yard. If necessary, I like to tell them instead, “Let us combined all these changes and make a version 2.0 as soon as possible”?

6) But be realistic, if it will mean the end of your product due to a failure in the market place, lets cut losses and make the change.

I like to conclude and say that most product development cycles can last 1-2 years or more. Thus such “Creep” can be a real unproductive problem if not well managed. Worst still you could have happily gotten the work done and then get slammed for not being “good” enough for considering it in the beginning. But hindsight is always 20/20, and I always remind people that the design decisions that were made were to the best of our knowledge at that time. We have to live with it and it is nobody’s fault. You can avoid and minimised this possibility with lots of experience in project management and by ensuring you plan and push your design concepts as far as possible in the first place. So how do we do this? That my friends is another story for another time.

A few times a year most companies tend to start or re-look at their Innovation and product development cycles for the following year. Often involved in such matters, I’ve experienced that most of the time elements of the answer involves innovation and some of the time it also includes design. Ultimately though it often boils down to the one perennial question: “So fellows, what are we going to make?”

Before we continue lets take a look at a few wonderful quotes on innovation:

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I’m afraid that’s not quite right.” ~ Bill Gates

“Learning to leverage the creative thinking skills of every individual, regardless of their level, creates the sustainable competitive advantage every corporation is striving for.” ~ Jim O’Neal

“Most people think of innovation only in terms of R&D or new product development -– but taking an idea and turning it into cash is an effort that involves almost every part of a company. The challenge is thinking about and managing this extremely broad set of inter-related activity as a unified process.” ~ Hal Sirkin, Boston Consulting Group

I’m sure by now most of us are well aware of the power and importance of innovation as a strategy to come out ahead in today’s market. Anyways back to the story, this year for me the discussion is no different. However, instead of just letting a few managers and R&D people decide, I thought why not make innovation everybody’s responsibility?

Subsequently I suggested to top management to open it to the entire organization and leverage it as a huge resource.

Advantages
And why not? Here are some of the advantages.

1) It involves everyone from the tea lady to the CFO in the life blood of an organization, the creation of its products.

2) If 2 heads are better than 1, can you imagine if you got everyone involved in problem solving? You are tapping on the collective mind power of a large resource.

3) The best ideas come from different perspectives or view points of the problem at hand. You be surprised what ideas my former manager of Logistics could come up with. That guys was brilliant.

Disadvantages
What discussion would not be complete with out a list of disadvantages?

1) No one would participate. Depending on the corporate culture, people may not love their organization enough to help out. Most people go home at 5pm anyway and may not want additional responsibility.

2) You might get tons of unworkable ideas. No idea is bad, just some might be hard to make it work or not meet corporate strategy.

3) People could use it as a means to complain. Angry or unhappy people are often “navel gazing”.

Suggestions
So with this in mind here are some suggestions.

1) Create a control document and circulate it as a template for ideas submission. Ensure it encourages submissions to have some kind of estimated Bill of Materials (BOM) and some idea of costings. This forces the employee to really think the idea through before sending it in.

2) Point one might not be so easy for some, if for example they are from non-technical departments. So get employees to form product or idea teams. B&O has been very successful in this as a means to get varied perspectives and yet maintain some kind of control in the greater scheme of things.

3) Create a committee, run by the main product stake holders (for example Sales, R&D, Design, and Management etc.) as a final arbitrator of the idea and to see if formal product research and development can start on it.

Have a go and see what you come up with? I’m still learning and am always pleasantly surprised.

Original Image by: Labnol

There are just so many websites out there these days, so how do Industrial Designers determine the ones that are worth looking at, and relevant to the wide range of topics covered in the Industrial Design profession? Therefore I have decided to create a living resource that lists what I think are some of the best Industrial Design related websites out there.

So before we hit the list, lets take a quick look at how these sites in this article made the cut? First of all I have not included sites that only report design news or the latest eye candy from the design industry, there are just so many out there (Core77 or Moco etc.) that any will do as they will all eventually report the same thing. Next the sites I have included here genuinely provide original content from which designers can learn from, and finally at these sites, there are ways for designers to be part of a community and have means to have an open communication with the authors. In particular I have left out sites that have comments disabled as I find one way communication just defeats the learning process.

Blogs:

FrogBlog
Started in Nov 2006, this is the blogging arm of one of the first Industrial Design consultancies out there. They were very quiet at one stage after peaking with the old Apple computers, but seem to recently come back strong in Industrial Design scene again with a few notable products. The FrogBlog mainly focuses on a strategic application of design as well as the business end of the Industrial Design profession. It’s nice for a change, to read about designers fluent no only in style but in business speak as well.

reBang
Created by my harshest critic and someone I consider a friend, csven, and is about insights on the confluence of the real and virtual environments and everything living in between. I am the first to admit that I don’t always understand what it is all about, but it is an interesting read as we can catch glimps of the potential future of consumerism.

Design Observer
A group blog written by a team of an all stars in the Graphic Design world. Not the best in product critiques, but a fantastic source of discourse on the culture in and around design.

Freelance Switch
Though focusing on a freelancing environment, it can be a good source, even for employed designers, for tips on getting better in design. Other than my blog there are hardly any sites out there that focus on getting better in the technical aspects of a design profession.

Ideas on Ideas
Focusing on branding, Ides on Ideas can give designers insights on ways to bring their products to the next level by communicating brand strategy.

Nussbaum On Design
Even though the blog’s author Bruce Nussbaum often displays a lacking in the understanding about technical aspects of what it takes to do good design, the key take away is that his blog’s audience includes senior level managers that run businesses. Therefore it is worth keeping an eye out at the site as it does provide a perspective that reflects a group of people who do not have a background in design but needs to use it to make a difference, ie the profile of many of the buyers of design services today.

Logic + Emotion
One of my recent favourites, David Armano explores branding, marketing and one of the most important aspects of a good product the experience design.

Design Boom
Though mainly focusing on furniture, their interviews of famous designers are a great source of insight into the minds of our best and brightest. I don’t really bother reading much of anything else unfortunately.

Ted Talks
This is also one of my favourite sites as it covers the latest in cutting edge technology presented during their conferences. Don’t think there is any more I can say but to bookmark it.

Seth Godin
Seth’s blogs walks the cutting edge frontier of marketing, with a lot of fantastic “riffs” that Industrial Designers can get ideas on positioning their design solutions and building loyal customers. The blog gets updated many times a day, too often for my liking, so I have decided to just read his book instead.

Trend Research:

What forward looking designer would not want to know what is coming up next in the wide wonderful world in consumerism? There are quite a few great blogs run by trend research companies. Cheskin and PSFK, are good examples, unfortunately due to the nature of their business, it always seems that they are holding something back. My pick, however would be Trendwatching. Their monthly newsletters are actually based around a spotted trend and past trends reports are constantly kept up to date. By visiting their site you can get a good birds eye view of what they think will be coming up next. Their site has been a invaluable resource to my team and I in the work we do.

On a small note, I like to also recommend Jan Chipchase’s site. He has graciously shared his research work done for his employer Nokia and is a rich source of information on how people use personal devices.

Portfolio and Networking sites:

A few years ago there was only one Coroflot, but in the last 2-3 years a whole myriad of sites have popped up, from which you could almost find one targeted to each and every design discipline. Designer ID, Design Related, Creative Hotlist, Carbonmade are all sites you might like to consider. I am a member of almost all the sites listed, however my personal favourite and the one I find that I keep on going back to is the new Behance Network. It is a great site as not only does it allow portfolios to display different media (even video clips!) its main focus is the cross pollination of ideas based on an open communication and interaction between members. It is open to all design disciplines, and has one of the best interfaces I have experiences on portfolio sites.

Also for Industrial Designers it is almost vital that you have something on Coroflot, the whole world is there, and most ID talent spotting agencies frequent that site first. As a closing to this segment, I do recommend that all designers join Linked In as well. It is more focused towards businesses in general and a great place to list a CV. For designers to be successful in industry they will need to cross that business line and this site helps bridge the gap.

Forums
Finally designers should occasionally frequent discussion forums. Though not really necessary these days with blogs, but the few I visit include Core 77 Forums, Product Design Forums and IDAsia.org.

Core77 used to be filled with “flame wars” but have since been cleaned up with better moderating and is now a good site for help. It is thought very US centric. Product Design Forums covers the European market, however the site tends to lean towards a more how-to environment with lots of advice and tutorials on technical design skills. Finally IDAsia.org, a site that I manage, aims to cover a much smaller Asian industrial design scene.

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I hope you enjoyed this list as much as I did compiling it. It is by no means complete or intended to be comprehensive, but it is meant to be a living resource that is open to suggestions and additions or deletions. Please let me know if I have missed out any sites or if there is a site that I should also consider?

Our guest contributor py brings us this week a very informative article on how a designer can get better in the use of materials and their manufacturing processes. As usual it is very well researched, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks py!

A strong understanding of material use and manufacturing processes is essential and needed in the Industrial Design industry today. Materials are an important consideration for any product design that needs to be realized. Therefore the right selection of materials and manufacturing processes is important in enabling a successful product launched to market.

Due to the advancements in modern technology, the range and variety of materials have increased way beyond basic materials such just wood, metal and plastic. So how then can we choose the right material for our products?

1. Function and Personality of the Materials

First and foremost, one has to grasp a good knowledge of materials characteristics. Different materials have different functional properties. Ceramics are particularly heat resistant and hard. Plastics can be easily formed into an infinite range of shapes and colours. Glass is hard and has some outstanding optical qualities. Wood is easy to work without necessarily using expensive machinery and is also naturally highly decorative.

While it is easy to consider materials only from the perspective of obvious functional attributes, the emotional and aesthetic qualities should also help define the product as much as the form and function. The surface texture, the translucency, the softness or hardness all have an effect on the way a product is perceived and used for different product characteristics.

So considering the two above perspectives, evaluating the requirements for the final product should help to decide on the right material. In 2001 - 2003, Chris Lefteri came up with a series of books of in-depth materials studies with Rotovision on the following, that has given very updated and in-depth materials studies suitable for industrial design usage.

2. Manufacturing Processes, Quantity and Cost

This is the next important factor that one needs to consider when manufacturing their products. Choosing the right material and having a good understanding of various processing methods to form products are very essential factors to decide the suitable manufacturing methods.

For example, glass can be a very cheap material but handmade pieces can be very expensive, as compared to the tooling of a mass-produce wine bottle. Plastic, on the other hand, are very cost effective tooling processes for large quantities. Different methods of casting, forging, moulding and stamping also cater to different demands for tooling costs, unit price, product volumes and rates of production.

Therefore, it is always good to start a matrix which matches the design demands versus the various manufacturing methods suitable to see which would be the best manufacturing process suitable. A book that I would highly recommend would be the latest design book by Chris Lefteri called “Making it – Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design.” Published in 2007, it gives an extensive overview of all the possible and updated design manufacturing processes possible for different materials.

3. The question of sustainability

The increasing importance of providing a sustainable future also means that designers and manufacturers today have to be more selective with the materials, and to ensure that they have added sustainable value. Therefore choosing the right material that has strong sustainable qualities ( recyclability, energy efficient, solar-powered etc.) are important. This is to ensure that usage of sustainable materials are applied more intelligently in the society.

The “Total beauty of Sustainable Products” by Edwin Datschefski, is an eco-product design book that explores the sustainable values of every eco-product existing in our society through evaluating 4 eco-elements values : Cyclic, Solar, Safe, Efficient .

With the continuous evolution of materials, material hybrids and more efficient manufacturing processes, it is highly encouraged that the use of materials goes hand in hand with skilled and relevant production technology methods. Therefore, it is important for us, as designers too, to be well-aware of the evolution of the design materials and processes around us. Finally, by having a great feel of the material’s properties as well as manufacturing processes, designers can find that they will be able to draw great inspiration when redefining product languages and forms.

We have finally reached the end of this 7 days series with this last instalment. It has been an interesting journey, as I wanted to try a different way of blogging with this series. On one hand it has been tough making the time commitment to write each post daily, but on the other I quite enjoyed it as each post took very little time to write once I had outlined the structure it last Sunday.

Before we continue here is the link to Saturday’s post if you missed it.

Hats by drumsnwhistles

7) Able to wear many hats
The most effective designers have the ability to wear many “hats”, in other words they can step into the shoes of the different disciplines that are related to Industrial Design. He/She is then able to speak the language or terms of that discipline, and thus able to communicate the design so as to maintain that design’s intent.

For example the effective designer, can speak about a product’s design in terms of target market and branding with the Marketing department. This designer can then discuss the BOM costings, technology constraints, solve molding and manufacturing issues with the Mechanical Engineers or R&D departments. After that, this designer can then relate to senior management the strategic importance of the design and the role it will play in furthering the company’s business.

To a small extent today’s habit “tips its hat” to Thursday’s habit where we spoke about diverse interest, as well as Saturday’s habit when we spoke about communication. However in this case, it goes beyond interests or curiosity, as the effective designer recognizes that he needs to achieve competence as required by the job. He recognizes it must be done as a means to ensure that the design can be the best it can be, but may not enjoy nor is interested in the process. He only does it for the good of the design or project.

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Well I hope you enjoyed these series of 7 posts, and please let me know if my intent of making bite size and digestible works for you? Also this series felt more of an “organic” growing experience rather than the usual mixed feelings of happiness and exhaustion whenever I finish a long post. What do you think? Thanks in advance and please keep in touch!

Almost there! This is the second last habit of our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Friday’s post if you missed it.

Talk bubble by spekulator

6) Strong communication and people skills
This one is pretty interesting as there are two sides of the coin in this discussion.

The first side basically should come as no surprise; effective designers have the ability to communicate to other designers well. He can articulate complex design problems or theories in a language that even the non-designer can understand. Fantastic presentation skills are also part of the equation. Look for the designer that always gets the client’s approval and the designer that every one loves working with. This designer also has vision and control, so much so that people are both inspired and motivated to work with him.

On the other side of the coin these effective designers have great “bed side” manners. They are superb active listeners and have the ability to empathize with the other party. The listen, analyse, and make great recommendations to problems. No only that, their empathy with other people, allow such designers to come up with great user focused design solutions.

Of all the habits, the designers that are strong in this habit, are the ones that also makes the best design managers.

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I do hope you enjoyed Saturday’s entry; if you did, do check out Sunday’s final habit which is up here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Thursday’s post if you missed it.

Post-it Note Sold by cccdebbie

5) Ability to sell well
Well, actually it’s not so much about the ability to sell. Let’s look at it in another way; selling is really all about persuasion, or about persuading someone to buy your product. So in other words the effective designers are not good salesmen but good persuaders.

I think you can see where I’m heading towards? Effective designers have the ability to sell ideas to clients, build convincing design proposals, negotiate contracts or get a project buy-in from all the stake holders. The list is endless, and the ability to sell makes life a lot easier for everybody.

But how, you may ask, if one feels that he/she is not good at selling? That is again why I encourage you to look at this habit more as persuasion rather than selling, and that is something everybody can do. Think about it, when you were a kid, have you not persuaded your parents to increase your allowance before? What about convincing someone to trade that hot collector’s baseball card? Or what about staying up an extra hour after bed time? If you think about it we are well equipped to be good at persuasion.

Not only that the good negotiators also are masters of yesterdays habit. That is having wide and varied interests. This variety helps to come up with different and creative ways of approaching a subject or attacking a negotiation point.

Before I close for today, I like to leave you with one more tip on persuasion, and that is to tie an to a great story. That’s right, convincing people is a lot easier if you can paint a picture that puts him into your shoes. Wait a minute, is that not why we learn to do mood boards or consumer use scenarios in design school?

The circle is complete. Heh-heh!

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I do hope you enjoyed Friday’s entry; check out Saturday’s habit here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week.

Sorry it’s a little later today as I had a few important things to sort out first. Here is the link to Wednesday’s post if you missed it.

Aerial screw by Leonardo Da Vinci

4) A Renaissance outlook in life and unique specialist interests
The most effective industrial designers draw inspiration from many sources outside of design. These designers are in many ways are very much like Leonardo Da Vinci, one of our first “Renaissance man”. They have an open mind, diverse interests, and always willing to try new things and methods. And yet they have very specialist skills such as 3D CAD design or cycling or even looking after kids.

Not only are these people great to have a conversation with, they have the uncanny ability to think outside of the box and come up with great unique solutions. It is their varied interests in things that allow them to do so and gives them an edge over other designers. Basically if you only look at other designer’s work for solutions to your design problems you might risk creating variations of the same work. These days, as design industry gets more competitive, we just cannot afford to come up with similar design solutions.

I do realize that this is some what similar to what Tim Brown, from IDEO, calls as “T” Shaped type people:

We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do. We call them “T-shaped people.” They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well.
Source: Fast Company

But my focus here is slightly different and more towards designers. It is not really about doing other jobs, per say, but the ability to explore other interests and draw inspiration from it. In addition to variety, a designer that has a narrow specialist interests in, for example, sailing can also bring a lot to the discussion table. Thus from my point of view specialist interests does not necessary need to be related to design, in fact it should not be related to design, but can be useful in coming up with design solutions.

Unfortunately, this is more easily said than done, and surprisingly many designers are not as varied as they think. Many designers I have interviewed, strangely continue to design in their spare time. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but they risk being one sided and having design thoughts stuck in a never ending spiral. In reality, it does require genuine interest in learning new things, as well as overcoming the fear of stepping off the beaten path and trying different things. An easy test on the interview table is making a calculated off-handed suggestion of an interviewee’s work that is opposite to his design solution to see if that designer takes it constructively.

As a designer, there is already so much to do and so little time in a day, so how can we try on new things? The easiest way is to offer to take on occasional non-design related tasks, another good way it to read voraciously, read anything and everything.

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I do hope you enjoyed Thursday’s entry; do head on over to the next habit which is up here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Tuesday’s post if you missed it.

Outlook Calendar 2004 by arkitekt

3) Good general management skills
I’m not saying that all designers should be design managers to be effective. No, but the highly effective Industrial Designer are naturally practical, well organized, and efficient in getting things done. This is simply because their time management, self management and big picture thinking skills are all top notch.

This is harder said than done, and I will be the first to admit it that it does take me some time to get myself organized. You see the product of a creative mind means that things tend to get pretty chaotic around them and their environment. Strangely enough, the more creative a designer, the seemingly more disorganized he/she is.

Unfortunately the reality of work is that there are datelines, program requirements, and problems that need to be solve methodically and efficiently. Thus it is highly valued for a designer that can overcome the chaos required in creativity; control it, and ultimately managing it in an effective manner. Do use all the tools available, personal management tools like Microsoft Outlook and Project, PDAs and diaries, and most importantly always carry a sketch book around to take notes and keep track of things.

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I do hope you enjoyed Wednesday’s entry; here is Thursday’s habit.

This post continues our week long series, where by I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Monday’s post if you missed it.

Fly by VinnyPrime

2) Proactive, passionate, motivated and truly loves what he/she does
I can’t emphasize enough of the value of a proactive designer in any team or organization. More so than in any other profession, design deals with a lot of unknown, and a proactive designer, always passionate and eager, is a boon any project as you can be sure that he/she will have ensured that the best design solution has been sorted out and worked through to the end.

Furthermore, believe you me, that the majority of design work is not the glitz and glamour of the so-called genius concept or sketch, awards and the sexy rendered coffee book images. A lot of it is managing piles of issues, tiring nights, and sometimes just down right dirty work. The pro-active and motivated design is a positive influence in the team, chewing through the work like a paper shredder.

There will be times where there are jobs nobody wants to do, but it has to be done. For example, after the team pulls an all nighter, someone needs to reposition a logo. Or everybody wants to jump on that sexy mobile phone project for a high profile client, instead of that latch design for a back room server. The pro-active designer takes on the job, and treats it as a learning experience, and that through these hard knocks he/she will become a better designer.

edit: After reading Jon’s post here, I think there is one more attribute that I forgot to put into the mix, that should be in there, as it sums it all up. An effective designer has to truly love what he/she does. When there is love, the proactive information searching and motivation comes naturally. The problem with many designers, especially with the senior designers, is that they are all jaded after too many late nights and design constraints and forget what they loved about design in the first place. If this is the case, then its time to stop, take stock of your work and life, and perhaps decide to move to a different design environment.

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I do hope you enjoyed Tuesday’s entry; do check out Wednesday’s post after you are done with this?