IDEO Movie Summary

This movie is about the effective innovative techniques of an industrial product design firm. The firm was asked to redesign a shopping cart for the 21st century in a week. This video shows their process of that task. Their first step is interviewing people who use shopping carts, they want to find real experts on shopping carts and get their opinions. Afterwards they get together and show drawn ideas and post them on the walls and collaborate on each others' work and build on them. They end up with hundreds of ideas and then vote on them to figure out what are the best ideas. A way that they are even more efficient is by dividing into teams that will each cover a different area of innovation for the cart. The video showcases the firm's playful and laid back atmosphere.

Response to Reading #1

The book was a very interesting read. I thought that because it captures design in a very appealing way to the reader. If someone who has never really thought how important design is was to read this, he or she would certainly be enlightened when the author talks about the many occurrences of design in everyday life. He basically says that almost nothing in our environment is completely natural, and he's right: everything really needs to be designed by someone. I really liked the part where he states that if we design objects around us in ways never seen before then we can give meaning to our lives.

Good Design (Don Norman/Dieter Rams)

The object, a pencil sharpener, demonstrates good design because it's very simple and easy to use. It features a click lid that flips over and connects flush with the back edge. Opening the lid reveals two holes: one for graphite and another for color. The cylinder shape makes it easy to grip and use. With a thumb press to one side the top third comes off so the pencil shavings can be disposed. There are no unnecessary parts to this object; it is simply a pencil sharpener in its most basic, yet innovative, form.

Scanned Drawings

This drawing shows how the object is curved on the edges, and that it is a cylinder. It also shows how the object has different sides; the top is flat and the sides are curved.