Re: Designing a calculator housing Message #2 Posted by DaveJ on 8 Sept 2009, 8:52 a.m., in response to message #1 by Thomas Radtke
The problems in product design are many...
- There are so many design issues that it really is easy to overlook what some will see as basic stuff.
- The person or people doing the design usually cannot objectively review a design. Smart product design companies will call upon independent people to overlook the design at all phases of development. But getting people that are good and thorough at this is really hard.
- Even if you do find issues before release it's often too late in the design process to fix them. And many factors may mean you simply can't get these fixes implemented.
- Small things like you mention actually have zero measurable effect on unit sales, so it's often not in anyone's interest to fix things like this. Often design guys like me who raise issues like this will get shot down in flames, so often the natural evolution of that will make it's way into the final product...
You'd be really surprised at how easy it is for simple things to slip through (deliberately or unnoticed), no matter how good your intention or what processes you put in place. You really have to have experience in product design in a big company to appreciate (the often absurdity of) it all.
I've said this before, if HP (and other companies) were *really* smart and open minded they would make use of the "geek factor" and get a bunch of select calculator geeks to review their products at all stages of the design process. But that is a massive leap of faith which would be way too wacko an idea for them to seriously contemplate.
As for kids, their reference point is what the other kids have. And baring any such reference point they will choose whatever matches their phone or has been subliminally put in their heads by advertising or fancy packaging :->
Dave.
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