After viewing David Kelley: Human centred design.

I was amazed at the designs that are out there in the world which I never have seen before. It was even more surprising that the video was from year 2002. With the rapidly developing technology, this would mean that there are so many amazing products that are continuously being designed and created at this moment. This video made me feel like I am very delayed and I should watch more of these kind of videos to improve my knowledge on the latest contemporary products. I have come to understand that designers have always focused on products but as time goes, designers now design human centred designs. This means designs of products, services and environments now have behaviours and personalities involved in its design stage.

All the latest examples of design in the video such as retail store of Prada, cubical, Greenwich water cycle pavilion and spyfish grabbed my attention. When I saw the retail store of Prada, I felt like I was introduced to a new world. I have seen touch screens, scanners and liquid crystal doors but these were combined to create something more interesting. I have never seen a store with scanner that scans the product and uploads the product to be shown from a screen, liquid crystal door that change from visible to invisible for the fitting rooms, touch screen in a fitting room giving information about the product, and out of all, the mirror with 3 seconds delay for the consumer to see the back of themselves was just amazing. It was different to see how these innovative designs are now being used in familiar environments. I can see that these innovative designs are naturally being fitted on to our everyday life and new designs are being introduced.

I first didn’t understand very well about designs playing with emotions and giving personality and behaviour to the design but the video about the cubical design helped me understand. This cubical was designed entirely to improve the surroundings to fit human desire. Flower in a pot that drooped when the person leave the cubical and stands back straight when the person return was designed to make emotional connection with the product and the person. The lighting was orange to give similar effect as the sun, punching bag and hammock was also fitted. It was a great example to see how product can be designed to fit human needs and satisfaction. It was interesting to see how they come up with the ideas, including surveys, testing ideas with alive walls or taking pictures. I have realised how the designer has to actually become the product user and feel the need to come up with a better design.

It was challenging to hear that one person has created 19 thousand companies starting from a desire to help who are in need which successfully made a huge impact in Kenya. I realised the importance of the designer’s role to discover the needs of people according to their environment and actually come up with innovative product that can be used usefully by people who needs it.