Comments on: The future of Industrial Design http://kaiza.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/the-future-of-industrial-design/ TINAT Is Not A Title Sat, 09 May 2009 02:42:57 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Michael http://kaiza.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/the-future-of-industrial-design/#comment-14 Michael Tue, 27 May 2008 08:33:20 +0000 http://kaiza.wordpress.com/?p=11#comment-14 About bloody time you posted! Interesting ideas! I have to say that cheap and nasty products are great when you are time poor. I would have loved to do more DIY stuff... but who has the time and equipment to do it these days? About bloody time you posted!

Interesting ideas! I have to say that cheap and nasty products are great when you are time poor. I would have loved to do more DIY stuff… but who has the time and equipment to do it these days?

]]> By: hecker http://kaiza.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/the-future-of-industrial-design/#comment-11 hecker Fri, 16 May 2008 14:38:20 +0000 http://kaiza.wordpress.com/?p=11#comment-11 I found your post via my standing Google search for items involving Clayton Christensen and disruptive innovation. I think you raise very good points here regarding the potential impact of low-cost easy-to-use fabrication technologies. The open source software movement is a potential model for how this will play out, since here again we have a similar combination of factors, including a move to products as "instantiated information", ease of distributing and collaborating on designs, and so on. UI and overall user experience design is proving to be a critical element in the open source space, since most open source developers are mediocre designers at best; I anticipate good ID people playing the same role in the area of DIY fabrication. Another point you did not mention, but which I think is critical, is that most if not all future products will not just be "instantiated information", they will also be "information-aware" in the sense of having an inherent software and communications component (made possible by low-cost ubiquitous computing and networking components). Thus open source software development will converge with open source design and manufacturing, and the role of the designer will become even more critical IMO. I found your post via my standing Google search for items involving Clayton Christensen and disruptive innovation. I think you raise very good points here regarding the potential impact of low-cost easy-to-use fabrication technologies. The open source software movement is a potential model for how this will play out, since here again we have a similar combination of factors, including a move to products as “instantiated information”, ease of distributing and collaborating on designs, and so on. UI and overall user experience design is proving to be a critical element in the open source space, since most open source developers are mediocre designers at best; I anticipate good ID people playing the same role in the area of DIY fabrication.

Another point you did not mention, but which I think is critical, is that most if not all future products will not just be “instantiated information”, they will also be “information-aware” in the sense of having an inherent software and communications component (made possible by low-cost ubiquitous computing and networking components). Thus open source software development will converge with open source design and manufacturing, and the role of the designer will become even more critical IMO.

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