Impact of Design

Human centered design is really interesting to me because as companies are discovering the importance of design they are becoming more successful. I happen to be a firm believer in giving the customer what they want and not deciding for them. I found it surprising that it took so long for these philosophies to develop. In class, Jeff Mulhausen referenced the craft stage and it amazed me that crafters created what they wanted and customers bought it without considering comfort or ease for the consumer. Expectations from the consumer have become so vast over the last 100 years. They now receive almost complete transparent access to information about products and expect the best product with the least amount of effort. Henry Dreyfus said, “If people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient or just happier, the designer has succeeded.” His influence was so pervasive that we still use his products 70 years later despite the drastic changes in technology. His efforts changed the design business with one quote that seems to be quite obvious to me. Unfortunately, there are still many companies who do not invest in design as part of their marketing techniques and they may survive for a while because they provide what the consumer is used to but eventually a competitor will come along and provide a design centered option to draw customers away.

Technology is a major space where design and engineering are at a constant battle. The engineers pull for features and capabilities while the designers are concerned with being unobtrusive, aesthetic, useful and self-explanatory according to Deiter Rams’ philosophy. For a long time technology was like the craft age where the companies told consumers what to use. The best option was dictated to us because we weren’t knowledgeable enough about the industry to make demands. Now that Generation Y is coming of age and have had access to technology all of their lives they can make educated demands of the product. Rising products for the younger generation are obviously design focused. Google has mastered the online technology world in design. It may seem obvious, but it is important because there are other companies who don’t see the importance of design. Google utilizes almost all of the principles of design of the philosophy started by Deiter Rams from being innovative to unobtrusive to having as little design as possible. They have managed to be the first in online applications and because of their careful human centered design have not met very strong competition. The only lacking principle is honesty. I don’t think it is well known how much information consumers are giving to Google when using their free applications. It makes sense that users should pay in some way for the products, but sacrificing privacy can be a major price. Luckily for Google, once the consumer does discover the reason behind the creepy advertising that happens to go with the content of their emails they have already become so attached to the product they don’t seem to care. They also have developed for Jeff’s philosophy of design. My personal favorite is the system. If you have the email you will use the chat and if you become attached to the chat you are likely to adopt the calendar and docs. Once the consumer is integrated fully into the system it will be very difficult to get them to stray because it is one easy synchronized system that can be accessed in one place with one password. It is made for the masses and not just the tech savvy while empowering the user. Google seems to be fully invested in design when producing and marketing products to their consumers.