Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The story of stuff
The story of stuff
This video was focusing on planting new minds to people about sustainable environment by showing the reality of process in production.
We consume so many products in our lives but how much do we consider about the life cycle of the product we are consuming? I know and understand the process of creating a product. There must be extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. We all know these process exist and there are consequences when producing, but we don’t know the severity of the consequences.
By viewing this video, it helped me a lot to understand the true stages of a product life. It is the government that initially controls us to purchase more and more products. Strategy used to boost up the economy by making us consume the product is planned obsolescence (intentionally designing a product with a date of end life so it can be re-purchased) and perceived obsolescence (people purchasing better designed products to catch up with trend even if product is working absolutely fine). They are both strategies to boost up the economy and for the nation to be more successful but it is a selfish strategy. This gives a huge impact on the environment. We have to use up the earth’s resources, pollute the environment when producing and find somewhere to dump the waste. It was surprising to hear that we have used one third of the earth’s resources in the past three decades. Countries like USA use more than their share of the earth’s resources and move on to use other nation’s share, creating pollution at the same time. It alarmed me since we are definitely going to run out of the earth’s resource if we kept consuming products that we don’t need. Only 1% of products purchased are still used after 6 months of purchase, meaning 99% of products get thrown away within the 6 months time. We will continue to consume products and repeat the process of purchasing and disposing, not knowing that we are harming the environment unless we realise the consequences. Filling our life with more and more products won’t help us to have a happier life since we fill our leisure time with those products and less interaction with the special things around us such as our family and nature. We know that we are heading to a disastrous conclusion and therefore we should work it out to fix the problem urgently before it becomes too late. This video definitely has influenced me about the way I thought about sustainable environment and it made me be cautious about the products I am purchasing.
This video was focusing on planting new minds to people about sustainable environment by showing the reality of process in production.
We consume so many products in our lives but how much do we consider about the life cycle of the product we are consuming? I know and understand the process of creating a product. There must be extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. We all know these process exist and there are consequences when producing, but we don’t know the severity of the consequences.
By viewing this video, it helped me a lot to understand the true stages of a product life. It is the government that initially controls us to purchase more and more products. Strategy used to boost up the economy by making us consume the product is planned obsolescence (intentionally designing a product with a date of end life so it can be re-purchased) and perceived obsolescence (people purchasing better designed products to catch up with trend even if product is working absolutely fine). They are both strategies to boost up the economy and for the nation to be more successful but it is a selfish strategy. This gives a huge impact on the environment. We have to use up the earth’s resources, pollute the environment when producing and find somewhere to dump the waste. It was surprising to hear that we have used one third of the earth’s resources in the past three decades. Countries like USA use more than their share of the earth’s resources and move on to use other nation’s share, creating pollution at the same time. It alarmed me since we are definitely going to run out of the earth’s resource if we kept consuming products that we don’t need. Only 1% of products purchased are still used after 6 months of purchase, meaning 99% of products get thrown away within the 6 months time. We will continue to consume products and repeat the process of purchasing and disposing, not knowing that we are harming the environment unless we realise the consequences. Filling our life with more and more products won’t help us to have a happier life since we fill our leisure time with those products and less interaction with the special things around us such as our family and nature. We know that we are heading to a disastrous conclusion and therefore we should work it out to fix the problem urgently before it becomes too late. This video definitely has influenced me about the way I thought about sustainable environment and it made me be cautious about the products I am purchasing.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Reflection on Design Excellence
The award winning product, Stryker Bone Mill is the improved design of existing bone mills that are used in the sterile fields today. This improvement is essential, highly developing our medical procedures and resulting successful surgery for patients. In the process of the product form analysis, i have realised how much thought is needed to be put in to come up with a design in both functional properties and aesthetic aespects. All design elements and principles must be considered to produce a successful design with no faults. It is the designers role to consider and produce a design that best suits the design brief.
Don Norman: Emotional Design
When designing a product, aesthetics and functionality are thought to be the most important aspects to consider. In my perspective, I have thought that functionality will always take more part in design and the aesthetic qualities come after. This is because majority of people purchase products because they need the product. When a product is bought and the purchased product does not function well, then the consumer will then have to purchase another product that will work better. However, my opinion on design was challenged when watching this clip of Don Norman: Emotional Design. I was introduced to a new perspective of design.
It cannot be denied that more people will look for products that function over products just looks good and does not function. But it becomes challenging when it comes to comparing products that function well but given less thought in its aesthetics with products that look absolutely remarkable but functional aspects not as outstanding. Don Norman’s view of design was interesting and fun. His view on design was that fun design and design with emotions will always work even the functionality is given less thought.
People become more and more focused on the appearance and continuously want to be introduced to something new and innovative. Instead of holding on to ordinary products that still works fine, they will go for a improved design that they have not seen before. When a product is designed to hold emotion people get attracted to the design. Successful emotional design is when a design can create an emotional response from people. Aesthetics of product became very important. In some cases the functional qualities are not even being considered when the product is aesthetically pleasing and people purchase the product because they already feel happy just from possessing the product. In this case, functionality is not important at all. It is like owning a famous designer’s product. That product will never be used for its purpose but it is consumed for personal collection. Sometimes people don’t even have to understand what the product is used for. Don Norman shares a story of his case when he purchased a special edition of Philippe starck’s juicer by Alessi. The juicer came with a note saying “Do not use this juicer to make juice as the acid will ruin the gold plating”. He says he has this juicer in the hall way. This is an example of a situation when product is purchased for only its aesthetical properties, like when a bottle of water being purchased for its bottle not the water.
I think it is not just about choosing if functionality is more important or the aesthetics but its about providing people with improved design, emotional designs that creates emotional links between design and people. Don Norman makes it clear that pleasant things work better. Behavioural design is feeling in control which includes usability, understanding but also the feel.
It cannot be denied that more people will look for products that function over products just looks good and does not function. But it becomes challenging when it comes to comparing products that function well but given less thought in its aesthetics with products that look absolutely remarkable but functional aspects not as outstanding. Don Norman’s view of design was interesting and fun. His view on design was that fun design and design with emotions will always work even the functionality is given less thought.
People become more and more focused on the appearance and continuously want to be introduced to something new and innovative. Instead of holding on to ordinary products that still works fine, they will go for a improved design that they have not seen before. When a product is designed to hold emotion people get attracted to the design. Successful emotional design is when a design can create an emotional response from people. Aesthetics of product became very important. In some cases the functional qualities are not even being considered when the product is aesthetically pleasing and people purchase the product because they already feel happy just from possessing the product. In this case, functionality is not important at all. It is like owning a famous designer’s product. That product will never be used for its purpose but it is consumed for personal collection. Sometimes people don’t even have to understand what the product is used for. Don Norman shares a story of his case when he purchased a special edition of Philippe starck’s juicer by Alessi. The juicer came with a note saying “Do not use this juicer to make juice as the acid will ruin the gold plating”. He says he has this juicer in the hall way. This is an example of a situation when product is purchased for only its aesthetical properties, like when a bottle of water being purchased for its bottle not the water.
I think it is not just about choosing if functionality is more important or the aesthetics but its about providing people with improved design, emotional designs that creates emotional links between design and people. Don Norman makes it clear that pleasant things work better. Behavioural design is feeling in control which includes usability, understanding but also the feel.
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