Evaluation of Design of Tiktok Watchband
What is good design and what is the right way to evaluate it? “Typically, products to be developed, concept products, prototypes or brand new products are evaluated in extensive and costly tests with typical consumers in different test settings” (Carbon and Leder, 2007, p.33). However, Apple inc., the acknowledged market leader in quality of product design, thinks different, and have always relied on their executive opinion rather than that of any focus-groups or potential customers, because “this type of evaluation technique leads to biased responses which do not necessarily reflect the typical everyday experiences with product designs” (Carbon and Leder, 2007, p.33).
So I am going to try and write this paper according to my own experience of using the product, which design I intend to evaluate, because what seems beautiful to one person, might not appeal at all to the other. And let us not forget that good design is not just something beautiful, it is much more that that. It is the perception of an object, and to evaluate it correctly one must use it in their daily life, because first impressions can be deceiving. A good example of this is a story that happened to Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple inc. and a graduate of Northumbria University. Once “they were traveling in France and went into a kitchen supply store. Ive picked up a knife he admired, but then put it down in disappointment. Jobs did the same. ‘We both noticed a tiny bit of glue between the handle and the blade,’ Ive recalled. They talked about how the knife’s good design had been ruined by the way it was manufactured” (Isaacson, 2011, p.226). Being a big fan of Apple inc. I strongly agree with the philosophy of Dieter Rams, German industrial designer, whose works have been inspiring Jony Ive all the time since he started creating Apple products, and I will try to evaluate the design of the chosen object with the help of his ten principles of good design.
So I am going to try and write this paper according to my own experience of using the product, which design I intend to evaluate, because what seems beautiful to one person, might not appeal at all to the other. And let us not forget that good design is not just something beautiful, it is much more that that. It is the perception of an object, and to evaluate it correctly one must use it in their daily life, because first impressions can be deceiving. A good example of this is a story that happened to Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple inc. and a graduate of Northumbria University. Once “they were traveling in France and went into a kitchen supply store. Ive picked up a knife he admired, but then put it down in disappointment. Jobs did the same. ‘We both noticed a tiny bit of glue between the handle and the blade,’ Ive recalled. They talked about how the knife’s good design had been ruined by the way it was manufactured” (Isaacson, 2011, p.226). Being a big fan of Apple inc. I strongly agree with the philosophy of Dieter Rams, German industrial designer, whose works have been inspiring Jony Ive all the time since he started creating Apple products, and I will try to evaluate the design of the chosen object with the help of his ten principles of good design.
References: Isaacson, W. (2011) Steve Jobs, London : Little, Brown Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design, [https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/about/good-design] Carbon, C and Leder, H., “Design evaluation.” Marketing Review St. Gallen, 2007, Vol.24(2), pp.33-37