Keep it simple, stupid!

Who knew that by extending an umbrella a couple more inches and making it more of an oval shape as oppose to a circular shape, you could make some serious cash. According to Jeff Mulhausen, one of the five new design philosophies is simplicity. It’s interesting to me how with time the population has moved away from “GIVE ME MORE!!!” to “MAKE IT WORK!” People are not so much concerned that your bottle opener can cut through metal, as much as they want to be sure it can open a bottle. In America, we live in a world of abundance; anything we could possibly want, we can find it. Even the most obscure things like a star wars outfit for your pet lizard can be purchased with the click of a button; so now it’s time for companies to think basic. To survive in the modern market, they have to focus on things like universal design, a concept I found extremely interesting. Universal design focuses on designing products which are not exclusive to any group of people; one example I thought was really simple and logical was the new potato peeler which had a thicker handle and was comfortable for everyone to use, including people with arthritis.

Another concept that I think is extremely important, especially for marketers is designing for the majority. Living in the US, we assume that our opportunities for product design are limited by what the US population needs and wants; but if we look at the top 10% of the global population we will realize that most of the people in this world live in developing countries. One product, the hippo water roller, has been improving people’s access to fresh water; this is a cylindrical container with a handle that allows people to roll water from point A to B. Products like this make me question, “How come I didn’t think of that?” Answer: because it’s so simple!

I believe that incorporating a design philosophy into a marketing plan is always useful, UNLESS your philosophy doesn’t evolve with the rest of the world or you don’t have the means to carry it out. One of the things the IDEO HCD (Human Centered Design) Toolkit mentions are the three important parts of any good design: desirability, feasibility, viability. I think one of the important things design philosophy sometime leaves out is viability: can you make it happen!? Even if your product is strongly desired and very practical, if you do not have the means to make it, rethink your marketing plan.

The goal of any design is to empower the consumer and help solve a problem or tend to a need. As we discussed in class, the music industry has taken a rough blow due to their arrogance and love of their business model. They had a very specific philosophy, “sell by the album” which with time was no longer meeting the needs of the consumers. If their philosophy was more user-centered, they would have been able to take advantage of the new technology and new capabilities.

When I think user-centered, innovative products and services, one company comes to mind immediately, Apple. Henry Dreyfuss said, “Good designs become an icon.” Without doing research, I can honestly say that the Apple icon is probably among the world’s most recognizable images. But how did this company become such a big deal?

It had a simple, understandable, consistent message. Their commercials, their product designs, their array of products and advertisements, they all emphasized that Apple is different. I thought it was really interesting that a lot of Deiter Rams’ product designs such as the radio and the calculator look very similar to Apple’s iPod and the calculator that’s on the iPhone. Apple took the historical concept of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and revolutionized the computer/music/entertainment industries. I think it’s interesting to note that before smart phones were created, there was no real need or demand for them. As we discussed in class, sometimes consumers do not know what they need (world of abundance); it’s the job of the marketers to go out and seek out problems to create opportunities. Next time you lose or break your iPhone and you’re left smartphone-less, thank Apple for the drug-like withdrawal symptoms.