Alison Black’s examples demonstrate how a user-centred approach can benefit everything from cable management to collapsible kitchen strainers
Project: Apple iMac
Client: Apple Industrial Design Group
Year: 1999
Link: www.apple.com/imac
The iMac was a radical step in computer design, restoring Apple to its niche of the 1980s as a designer of computers as desirable objects. The iMac also enhanced the Macintosh reputation for user-centred design, enabling 'plug and play' internet access. This combination of user-focused industrial design and functionality has been sustained in subsequent models and has been the foundation of Apple's business revival.
Project: Nokia mobile phones
Client: Nokia
Year: From 1992
Link: www.nokia.com
Nokia's user-centred design process has helped keep its mobile phones and communication products ahead of its competitors. As mobile phone functionality has become more complex (with concerns that the phone approaches Swiss army knife complexity) the clarity and consistency of Nokia's user interface has made its products approachable for new users and retained existing users. Nokia invests substantially in user research, alongside its technology research, to understand future user need and evaluate products in development.
Project: Google user interface
Client: Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Year: 1998
Link: www.google.co.uk
Unlike most of its competitors Google continues to present a simple, uncluttered user interface with limited distraction from advertising (although the recent appearance of promotion for Google Book on its results pages could be seen to violate this principle). Behind the simplicity of the user interface is a powerful search engine and ancillary tools that deliver better search results than most competitors. Google dominates the search engine market. It has won many design awards, none of which, incidentally, are displayed on its homepage.
Project: Sony Walkman
Client: Sony Design
Year: 1979
Based initially on a technical investigation of a small-scale 'play-only' music product, the Sony Walkman was developed and promoted by Sony's Chairman Akio Morita, having observed his own teenage children's music-listening. The product nearly failed on launch in Japan because the press failed to see the relevance of a device that could not record as well as play, but it went on to become a required accessory for teenagers worldwide and paved the way for today's iPod.
Project: QWERTY keyboard
Designer: Christopher Latham Sholes
Year: 1868
A counter example: despite the power of user-centred design some very non-user-centred products are firmly embedded in our day-to-day lives. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to reduce typists' speed by separating letters that commonly occur together in words, so minimising any jamming of the letter hammers in early mechanical typewriters. Typing with a QWERTY keyboard takes longer to learn and is less efficient ergonomically than other potential configurations that have been proposed. However, QWERTY persists, even on electronic keyboards where the mechanical constraints of letter hammers no longer apply.
Project: Apple iPod and Nano (and iTunes software)
Client: Apple
Year: 2001 and 2005
The 21st century successor to the Sony Walkman, the iPod digital music player and its slim-line successor, the Nano, are intuitive to use, with their simplicity reflected in product design that conveys directness. Features such as 'Shuffle' play, which selects tracks randomly from users' complete music collection (like a personalised radio station), have taken the iPod a step beyond other MP3 players and contributed to its current cult status. The compatibility of iTunes with both Mac and PC platforms has broadened the iPod market beyond traditional Apple devotees.
Project: Easyshare 6000 dock print station
Client: Kodak
Year: 2003
A linked system of digital camera, docking station and printer which removes the use of a conventional computer from the process of creating digital pictures. Launched in the context of Kodak's shift in emphasis from production of traditional film and film-based products to digital equipment and processes, it represents a 'non-geek' approach to digital photography.
Project: Installable hearing aid batteries
Clients: Duracell EasyTab and Energizer EZ Change
Year: Both launched 2001
Two different approaches to the problem of installing tiny hearing aid batteries, particularly for elderly people who may have limited dexterity.
Project: Swissbit USB memory stick penknife
Client: Victorinox
Year: 2004
Link: www.victorinox.com/index.cfm?page=157&lang=E
Something of a conundrum: linking a digital storage device to an everyday item people are likely to carry with them. Whether the pocket knife is the right link, given other likely (often dirty) uses of penknives is another question. A special air travel version comprises pen, light and memory stick (no blade).
Project: Collapsible kitchen funnel and strainer
Designer: Normann Design, Copenhagen
Year: 2004
Link: www.normann-copenhagen.com/the1.html
A clever re-think of two bulky kitchen utensils, using pliable materials that collapse for storage and yet have the durability to hold hot food when in use. (Not to be confused with Tupperware's Flat Out food containers which work on a similar 'collapsible' principle but fail to meet a basic need for their target user group by not being suitable for microwave ovens.)
Project: Cable management
Designer: Sumajin, Tunewear and Stenform
Year: various
Sumajin produce a very simple (and cheap) solution to the knotty problem of cable management for mobile devices such as phones and MP3 players. Alternatively there is the more playful but slightly more bulky Tetran winder, distributed by Tunewear. The cable identifiers designed by Sternform Produkgestaltung present an easy-to-use way of making sense of a jumble of household or office cables when one needs to be unplugged.
Product: Sheewee
Designer: Samantha Fountain
Year: 2004
Link: www.shewee.com
'Inspired' by her own backpacking experiences, Samantha Fountain developed this device to help women urinate without having to squat. It has been developed with the input of other women, particularly those who do outdoor pursuits and sports, and has potential as an aid for women with disabilities. Sadly the product failed to get backing on the BBC business show Dragons' Den, but that decision was not made on the basis of the product's user-centred design.
Project: Dulux EasyCan paint packaging
Designer: Tin Horse
Year: 2004
Link: www.tinhorse.com
A paint container that resolves many of the small niggles people have with conventional pain tins. It is easy to open and hold and has an inner ledge to rest and wipe a brush, avoiding clogging the container's rim.
Project: St Gemma's Hospice Leeds
Architect: JDDK
Year: 2003
Link: www.jddk.co.uk/news/news.php?news_id=2
This project, which won an NHS Patient Environment Award, involved the reorganisation of a campus of 1970s buildings. It was approached from a perspective of understanding the needs of patients, relatives, staff and volunteers. The team focused on reducing the stress and increasing the 'psychological comfort' of people involved in the care process as well as meeting their practical needs.
Project: Directgov
Client: e-envoy
Year: 2004
The office of the e-envoy had identified low-levels of uptake of e-government services (in 2004, while 50% of the UK internet population had visited a government website, only 8% of internet users claimed to have carried out a transaction with a government service online). Their research suggested a root cause could be the design of the original e-government portal (www.ukonline.gov.uk) which did not signpost people well to the areas they were interested in but was organised according to government’s view of its operating departments. Countries with higher uptake of e-government services tend to cluster online access around the needs of user groups or specific topics (eg parents, drivers, businesses) providing cross departmental access. The re-launched e-government portal (www.direct.gov.uk) seeks to address this problem as part of a wider strategy of looking at how people really want to use e-government services (through mobile devices and interactive TV as well as via computers) in order to increase uptake.
Project: University of Washington Services Renewal
Client: University of Washington
Year: 2003
Link: www.washington.edu/user/user_approach/index.html
Exemplary case study of the university's user-led development and installation of a new payroll system, written up by the project team facilitator. Shows user-centred methods applied to a programme of technology and organisational change.