designBytes 08.23.10

08.23.2010
Welcome to designBytes, the electronic newsletter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Here's the latest design and design-related news we've collected from around the Web.

• What Apple Can Learn from Xbox Live: It is difficult to know right now what Apple has planned for its Game Center. The service could reinvent the gaming experience for every part of the gaming community. It could also be bogged down by inefficient relationships between proprietary technologies. What some in the gaming community are hoping for is that Apple advances the social aspects of its gaming system. Here’s one outline of how that could happen: http://gear.ign.com/articles/111/1114671p1.html.
  
  
• Why Does Nokia Struggle in the U.S.?: Is there something unique about the way Nokia successfully engages with markets in India, Ghana and Brasil? Younghee Jung, who does a lot of work with Nokia’s Open Studios in those countries, may argue in the affirmative. But she may not be able to approach the full answer to the question of Nokia’s U.S. shortcomings. One blogger—who is a Nokia fan, but something less than an evangelist—offers some insight as to how perception and other factors are driving Nokia performance in the U.S.: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/nokia-rules-the-mobile-phone-world-so-why-do-we-diss-them-in-the-us/4527.
  
  

  

• Onweerlegbaar Bewijs: According to Babelfish, that’s the Dutch phrase for “incontrovertible proof.” And proof is what we have via the recently released work of the Association of Dutch Designers (BNO). In its report on design effectiveness, BNO’s research showed that the profitability of a new product gains by 20 percent if design plays an important role in the development phase. The report is the kind of thing you may want to share with your boss (and/or your clients). You can access a PDF of the full report here: http://www.dexigner.com/design_news/twenty-percent-more-profit-through-design.html.
  
  
• What Businesses Can Learn from Designers: Yes, the title of this piece suggests a certain grandiloquence, but the piece itself actually has rather humble goals: it wants to briefly share learnings on best social media practices from two instructors at Standford’s B-School. Not surprisingly, these learnings—like many of the other articles in GOOD’s Designing for Impact series—draw from best design thinking practices. http://www.good.is/post/what-businesses-can-learn-from-designers/.
  
  
• Making Magic Predictable: There are no shortage of analogies to explain who designers are or what we do. How we do it, Ravi Sawhney, FIDSA tells us, makes us magicians. He’s co-written a new book that explains our magical process and he talked with Justin Thoreau Lund, IDSA at the DIY conference in Portland about how the hero’s journey that each of us takes—as creator, user or both—helps facilitate the magic. Justin shares that conversation via his blog: http://justinthoreaulund.blogspot.com/2010/08/ravi-sawhney-interview.html.
  
  
• Tapping the Genius of Your Employees: Most great ideas for enhancing corporate growth and profits aren't discovered in the lab late at night or in the isolation of the executive suite. They come from the people who daily fight the company's battles, who serve the customers, explore new markets and fend off the competition. In other words, the employees. This Wall Street Journal essay offers seven ideas for how you can better tap into the genius of your own team: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575146083310500518.html.
  
  
• The Virtues of the Disruptors: Disruption can be good for more than just the source of upheaval. If your company is struggling to practice the right mix of exploration and exploitation, a disruptor in your industry or category could light a path toward nimbleness and success. IDEO’s Tom Hulme uses Netflix and American Idol to explain how you can borrow effectively from disruptors: http://www.director.co.uk/ONLINE/2010/08_10_disruptors_not_incumbents.html.
  
  
• Making Effective Use of Personas: This is a subject we haven’t talked about in a while. (With good reason as some of you are surely thinking.) Last week, we stumbled onto a blog written by a member of Microsoft’s Visual Studio User Experience team that made a pretty compelling case for employing personas. And, of course, it suggested some best practices for extracting the most value from them. Even if you’re the most ardent critic of the use of personas in design, it’s worth a read: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stevencl/archive/2010/08/19/making-effective-use-of-personas-in-design.aspx.
  
  
• A Brief History of the Future of Steel: Reducing vehicle weight is one of the central challenges that car manufacturers all over the world are facing. In the U.S., the looming federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are increasing the sense of urgency and driving some pretty creative thinking from materials suppliers—particularly within the steel industry. If you’re not familiar with the FGPC project, the ACP process or the FSV initiative, you may want to read this article to catch up on some of the latest developments in the AHSS sector: http://www.americanmachinist.com/304/Issue/Article/False/86185/Issue.
  
  
• Three Ways to Manage a Recall: Product development can play a key role in preventing a situation that leads to a product recall. It can also contribute significantly to a recall campaign. While the recall of a food product obviously differs from the recall of a product in almost any other category, ingredient-driven recalls appear to be close cousins of materials-driven recalls. This piece contains recall strategy suggestions relevant to the food industry that could have value for you: http://www.foodproductdesign.com/articles/2010/08/the-top-three-ways-to-manage-a-recall.aspx.
  
  

  

• ”OMG! This class is crazy awesome!”: The latest project undertaken by Project H involves building and executing a curriculum for a small high school in a rather poverty-stricken town in rural North Carolina. In the early going, students enrolled in the course have shown just a touch of enthusiasm for it. The rest of us, it seems, are witnessing a case study for how to sort through the layers of bureaucracy in the U.S. public education system in order to leverage design practices to help improve the student experience. Alice Rawsthorn reports: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/arts/23iht-design23.html?_r=1.
  
  
• A Design Challenge for St. Louis: If you’ve ever driven I-70 westbound through St. Louis, you may have paused a moment to admire the majesty of Eero Saarinen’s “Gateway to the West.” You may also have noticed that the grounds surrounding the arch are a bit underwhelming. Soon—if the funding comes through as expected—one of five firms will re-imagine that space to better compliment the great arch. Based on this New York Times piece, this urban re-design project will be quite interesting to follow: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/us/21arch.html?src=mv.
  
  
• What's Happening This Week(s):
  
  • Aug. 24: APDF Webinar | How to Better Measure Project Health and Performance (ONLINE)
  • Aug. 26: Presentations | Developments in Design Strategy (LA)
  • Sept. 3: Deadline to Submit for Design of the Decade (ONLINE)
  • Sept. 16: Symposium | Industrial Design for Medical Devices (Cleveland)
  • Sept. 17: Back2Design Meeting (Indianapolis)
  • Sept. 30: PDMA Georgia Summit (Atlanta)

  
  For more info, visit the Events Page at http://www.idsa.org/events. To include your upcoming event, please e-mail it to designBytes@idsa.org.
  
  Want to advertise in designBytes? Please e-mail Beth Harrington.