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Tim Brown On Current Design Challenges
prostoalex writes "Tim Brown is the CEO of IDEO, design company that is quite famous for its work on designing office chairs, Palm computers, Microsoft mice, Nike shoes, etc. MIT Technology Review interviewed Tim Brown on current challenges in the design world, exciting fields for a designer to be in, current annoyances in the user interface design."
Intellimouse = biggest waste of my money, ever. I've blown through 3 of them, and one of the times, the woman on the phone at M$ had suggested I had a "stolen" mouse, because the Product ID wasn't authentic.
I laughed and told her I don't buy my mice from shady men on the street. Yay @ crappy story.
Well, first off, these guys only designed the original Microsoft "dove bar" mouse, none of the current designs. Other designs include the and of course the Palm V, which is looking a bit tired these days. Interestingly enough they also designed the Handspring Treo and the the Handspring Edge.
Their design philosophy makes sense, but doesn't always lead to good designs. IMHO, the Microsoft Dove Bar mouse was one of the worst designs as it had a lot of usability problems -- the buttons (esp. the big one) were notorious for sticking, and the odd differently sized left and right buttons left much to be desired.
My journal has hot
I have mapped the on off button on the case of my pc to the hybernate function for the few times I turn it off to minimise the noise in the office. It takes about 5 secs from pressing the button to turn it on to a perfectly functioning Windows desktop, fully loaded. Most of the 5 seconds are BIOS checking and checking for CD-ROMs to boot from... Not bad at all...
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Background here and demo here.
I'd suspect they'd be positive, seeing as IDEO also designed Apple products, though all of these were pre-Jonathan Ive.
This guy designed the Duo Dock. Cool ....
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Not going to happen. That is like asking Alexander Graham Bell to design a cell-phone. You have to go in with knowledge about the function of a product. If not you either get something that looks great but doesn't do anything, or a single-purpose device. Computers are neither of those.
If you've ever sat down with someone who hasn't used a computer much and watch them struggle to do the simplest things, you'll understand how bad current GUIs are. The trouble is people that use computers are so used to their bad design that they fail to notice it.
I have, and it is frustrating for everyone. But is it the design that is wrong, or the person? My mom didn't know anything much about computers until a year or two ago. She still struggles with the interface. My 8 year old neice picked it up very quickly. Don't blame the interface when the problem might be in the mind of the user. After all, in another generation there won't be anyone alive who remembers when there weren't computers.
For example, when I press the on button, I want it to turn on. Instantly. I don't want to have to wait several minutes for it to "warm up" like the old TVs used to. And when I press the off button, I want it to turn off. Instantly. And if I press the on button again, I want to see the same stuff on the screen as when I last switched it off. And that's just the functionality of the on-off button!
This is functionality, not design. Yeah, this would be a nice thing, but it has nothing to do with the interface design. You have to wait for the hardware behind the curtain to catch up to this idea. So you want a big, embedded computer. We'll probably get there some day, but it has nothing to do with UI design.
It's 2003 for christsakes. Why am I still using an interface that was designed in the 1970's, when computers had a tiny fraction of the power and functionality they currently have?
Umm, because the interface doesn't rely on the power and functionality of the device? So which is it? You want a super-powerful, multi-function computer that is instant-on that everyone intuitively knows how to operate? Gee, anything else? Maybe we could fit them on the head of a pin too. How about infinite storage?
I am all for forward thinking, but let's put a little more emphasis on the thinking part.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Although originally designed for mobile web surfing, WAP is now used a lot by content vendors as delivery mechanism for pictures, ringtones and java games. Even Nokia does it with their Club Nokia WAP site and its insert-coin download stations. The reason is simple. The users pay for the WAP pull, and all the vendor has to pay for is a simple OTA bookmark or something similiar. So WAP is far from dead, and has found its usefulness in areas that it wasn't designed for. Just like what the WWW is.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer