How to Design Better 'Things'

Sylvie Barak

November 25, 2014

2 Min Read
How to Design Better 'Things'

The Internet of Things is really full of very crappy things. At least according to Ammunition design studio founder Robert Brunner.

Noting that we now live in an era of "confusion and ill-conceived stuff," Brunner, speaking at Gigaom Roadmap, said that by adding connectivity to everything and its mother, we aren't necessarily doing ourselves any favors, with many 'things' just fine in their unconnected state.

That said, connected things do have their time and their place, according to Brunner, it just requires -- shock horror -- a thought process to decide what would be better connected and why.

Brunner outlined five guiding principles for companies and designers seeking to make connected products.

  • "Seek purity of purpose." Not every device or thing needs to access your email or post to Twitter/Facebook for you. It should do what it was originally designed to do, but all the better for being connected, explained Brunner.

  • "Make it a better thing - not just a different thing." Yes, yes, we hear it ad nauseam every single day -- that buzz words to end all buzzwords -- "differentiation." But who cares if your connected device doesn't truly make the user's life better?

  • "Don't ask your audience to do too much." If it requires you to learn a new skill set, behavior, or to open your toolbox, it's too much of a pain. And ain't nobody got time for that.

  • "Make information actionable." It's all well and good giving people data, but if they don't really know what they're supposed to do with that data, your device is pretty lame. Sorry, not sorry.

  • And speaking of data, last but not least, "build a relationship between design and data: they need each other." Real-time analytics and analysis is becoming ever more important, and, well, cool.

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Brunner practices what he preaches, too. His firm is behind the design of the now Apple-owned Beats headphone brand, as well as Polaroid's new GoPro competitor, the Cube, and Adobe's Ink and Slide stylus.

What's the crappiest "thing" you've yet to see? Do share ... we love reveling in the failure of others!

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