TED TALKS #2 David Kelly: The Future of Design is Human-centered

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXndL3TNCmo

IDEOs' David Kelly talks about his opinion about design and its trend, moving towards users experience rather than the actual hardware itself.
He explains that design now-a-days is more focused on human centered design --design behaviours and personalities of the products which creates a more fun environment in the design world. This ultimately makes design broader by adding the emotions and personalities within the product designed.


For example: firms moving the designs into emotional experience through the objects which are shown in an internal video production groups to show a man machine relationships, here Kelly compares this to architects showing the houses to their clients.


Kelly further explains his point of human-centered through his short films of:
1. A Prada store in NY: with some of the new technologies embedded in the store such as:
-portable scan tags which scans all products to reveal pricing and further information about the item
-a  liquid changing crystals in the fitting rooms that changes from clear to opaque by a press of a button
- magic mirror where a plasma screen is built in the mirror to show off a multi-angled view of the wearer
making cubicals more human


2. the spyfish: (submarine tele-presence vehicle) a revolutionary underwater video camera through a battery powered device with the connectivity of a slender cable; devised by a company from London.
They are the eyes of the sea where the beholder does not need to get wet to experience the life of under the sea. It has said that "you completely loose yourself under water".
This interesting devise provides the complete immersive experience with the image, lighting and sounds of the deep ocean, and is capable to go under 500 feet. 


3.David also participated with Scott Adams on designing for the ultimate cubical. Experimenting with cubicals working with screen cubicals and cubicals where the walls where alive which was aimed to make the cubicals have more of a personality, having a more human feel to the new cubicals other than the stereotypical cubicals in the everyday offices. This design concluded with a built in fish tank, a punching stress-ball and a flower that dies when your not in the cubical and come back alive when your back.

4. the Aprotech: approached by Dr Martin Fischer who was interested in Kenya and the entrepreneurs. through his research, he began 19000 companies and increased the rate of employment in Kenya with 30000 new jobs It is a non-profit organization but has reached good sales for the products, creating 0.6% of GDP for Kenya. The approtech was a design of a manual deep pump well made with Kenya's natural resources, which enables people to grow crops in the off -peak seasons.


Through this TED talk, Kelly has shown the interesting designs that has shifted to a more human centered approach, providing a better insight in the design world.

TED TALKS: DON NORMAN

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/don_norman_on_design_and_emotion.html

I've been asked to watch an interesting video clip from TED talks on a designer--Don Norman, who explores the significance of beauty and fun, which is the new life for him. Norman discusses the 3 main features of emotional design that is needed to for a product to succeed within the design industry.

1. Visercal: (subconscious) co-adapted to biology into liking bright colours, in design you can express visercal in several ways through different type fonts. For example: the 1963 Jaguar, although falls apart all the time it is beautiful, sleek and in the museum of modern art or a water bottle, consumers buy these because it looks nice, they dont buy it for the water but for the look of the bottle which is later reused either as a vase or to refill water.

2. Behavioral: (the middle level also subconscious) it is all about feeling in control including usability and understanding such as driving a high powered cars or the global knives making you feel in control of the cutting or driving.

3. Reflective: the brain has no control of what you do and does not see the senses, its the inner voice in your head which chooses one emotion over the other, its about the image and not so much of the functionality. for example: some people would buy an expensive watch to show off their high stance, even though the watch does not function as apposed to the pure behavioural watch which is more functional than a 1000 dollar watch but its ugly.

Through the use of these factors, we are able to design a product that suits the demands of the consumer audience, being a key factor of the design process. Norman also explores that emotions such as being happy or fearful affects the way people approach problem solving. He continues by stating that designs that incorporate fun and beauty are more enjoyable to use may override the functionality side, however you would need a balance of the two to bring a product to its success in the global market.