product design

design we love

I’m loving the design we love Board on Quora. This teaspoon in particular caught me eye.

Tagged as: product design

expert enough manifesto

I’m fond of the saying “expertise is relative”. We all know this is true at heart, otherwise there would only be one expert on anything. If you are trying to help someone on a particular topic, be it algebra, how to design a product, biomechanics, or how transcendalist literature relates to product design, you just need [...]

Tagged as: expertise, product design

how to design a product

I’m running out the door but I wanted to toss this up to the readership, as I feel you are uniquely qualified to add to it. Someone posted the following question on Quora: What is the process for developing and readying a product for manufacturing? I jumped on it, and answered. I’ve copied my answer below; [...]

Tagged as: process, product design, quora

good design

Every design, no matter how small, has an impact on humanity. Good design, once all has been accounted for, is net positive.

Tagged as: minimalism, perfect product design, product design

restlessly producing

What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought on by a parade of ever-fancier toys? To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming? -xkcd

Tagged as: minimalism, product design

sustainable links

In the past two years in my role as a sustainability advocate, I have written repeatedly on the topic of sustainability in product design. Much of the writing has occurred on this site (check out the sustainability category), but I have also written on the topic elsewhere. Whether you are already sustainably inclined or [...]

Tagged as: product design, sustainable product design

flow in product design (with music to get you there)

Flow: a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience As designers and engineers, we are at our best in flow. Once we have fully [...]

Tagged as: product design, productivity

rubber material tradeoffs

Going through a rubber design guide I snagged from MN Rubber a while back, I saw this nifty chart. A great way of communicating information. Manufacturers looking to create a design guide (in addition to engineers for more obvious reasons) should definitely check out this. The GE injection molding design guide doesn’t suck either.

Tagged as: product design, rubber

on Quirky

About a year ago I wrote about Quirky. I had a few criticisms (with some lauding sprinkled in), primarily that they were just a generic design firm with a sales funnel that took advantage of people’s ideas while giving them only token involvement. Well apparently Quirky has a TV show. The TV show itself isn’t [...]

Tagged as: product design, quirky

engineering sets the pace

This is in regards to continuous deployment of software projects, but it’s enough to make you drool if you imagine being able to do this with physical products… engineering sets the pace. We get shit done, we get it done fast, it goes into production within 15 minutes of pushing it to master (feels like [...]

Tagged as: agile, product design

beware clever designs

If you think something is clever and sophisticated, beware; it is probably self-indulgence. -Donald Norman

Tagged as: Donald Norman, product design

aristotle on brainstorming

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -Aristotle

Tagged as: brainstorming, product design

why design > marketing

The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself. -Leo Burnett

Tagged as: product design

FEA insights

Bob Ketelhohn (a colleague of mine) put together a pretty swell writeup over at Farm on FEA. Some of my favorite nuggets: FEA is a prototype reducing tool. It does not eliminate the need for real prototypes. Trust your gut. If it looks wrong, it probably is. Comparative analysis is your best friend. Mesh density [...]

Tagged as: Finite Element Analysis (FEA), product design

gaussian and mean curvature

So I’ve been doing some fancy surfacing lately and spent a few minutes digging into the math behind the surface tools. The math itself is a little esoteric, but I also came across a really nice, digestible description of gaussian and mean curvature. These are the types of curvature (along with maximum curvature) that CAD packages like [...]

Tagged as: CAD, curvature, Pro Engineer, product design, SolidWorks

tips for recyclable designs

A colleague of mine recently took a plastic design class at UMass Lowell, and was kind enough to let me flip through the notes. There is a lot of really great stuff in there, not least of which are some thoughts on what a product designer should consider when designing for recyclability. Just because something [...]

Tagged as: product design, recycle, recycling

robust CAD models

I’ve been thinking lately about what makes a robust CAD database. I considered writing down a checklist, but as projects differ I find the checklist to be overkill or incomplete, both of which render it useless. Instead I asked myself: What principles are always true when building a CAD model? Take note of my use [...]

Tagged as: CAD, Pro Engineer, product design, SolidWorks, Unigraphics

metal injection molding (MIM) notes

There was a forum question over at Core77 about metal injection molding, and it just so happened I had an exhaustive set of notes on the process. I’ve since gotten enough follow up questions that I thought it would be worth re-posting here. We had a guy from Precision Made Products present to us [...]

Tagged as: Injection Molding, manufacturing, metal injection molding, product design

zen and the art of product development II

On Friday I exposed you to a passage from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that artfully laid out the ambiguity inherent in product development. Well here’s another, no explanation required: “The result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer [...]

Tagged as: perfect product design, product design, zen, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

zen and the art of product development

Long-time readers will know of my affinity for Thoreau and how his thoughts can be applied to perfect product design. Well I just read the following passage in a similar-minded book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (free link | affiliate link). I’d been thinking about optimizing/restructuring product development process and this passage seemed [...]

Tagged as: perfect product design, product design, thoreau, zen, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

injection molding side actions: in depth

If you don’t know what a side action is, that cool. Check out these two brief videos on how side actions work. You also would do well to check out what Protomold (parent company of First Cut) has to say about side actions here and here. Recently I had occasion to dive into mold-making techniques [...]

Tagged as: cam, Injection Molding, plastics, product design, side action

five phases of “done-ness”

Everyone keeps some sort of task list, be it mental or written, and those of us in product design are no different. What is different are the phases of “done-ness”. Whereas a honey-do list might include an item like “fix the toilet” which is binary (i.e. it’s either done or not done), I find that items [...]

Tagged as: product design, productivity

apple dual anodization

ismashphone reports the apple is filing a patent on dual anodization (links mine): A metal surface treated to have two anodized layers or regions may be used in electronic devices. The surface treatment may include performing a first anodization process to create a first anodized layer, removing the first anodized layer at select locations, and [...]

Tagged as: anodizing, apple, hard anodizing, product design

Escher curves

Escher curves happen early in the development process. You’ve been there. Either you or a designer sketches some loose orthographic views of a concept; everything looks like it makes sense and things will fit so you bring into CAD. Only then do the Escher curves begin to show themselves. Escher curves are what happens when [...]

Tagged as: concept development, industrial design, interdisciplinary, product design

how Quirky could fail

Quirky bills itself as a place for “social product development” , and at first I loved them. “Surely”, i thought “this will usher in an era where citizens take a front-and-center role in designing the products they consume. From here on out beautiful, usable, functional products will be the norm, and superfluous junk is gonzo”. [...]

Tagged as: product design, startups, venture capital

video: mechanisms, courtesy of Ralph Steiner

I’ve mentioned some great mechanism resources before, as well as supplying the 507 mechanical movements pdf. But while they really are great resources (and they are… I use them all the time!), there is something to be said for video. I submit for your consideration, the work of Ralph Steiner

Tagged as: 507 mechanisms, mechanism design, mechanisms and devices, product design

touch screens: capacitative or resistive?

A few years ago I did some design work on a piece of lab equipment that required a touch screen. Early on we had a vendor come in to help us spec the appropriate screen for the application. He touched on a lot of stuff, but one of the main ones was the difference between [...]

Tagged as: product design, touch screen, usability

Thumbnail image for how side actions work: two brief videos

how side actions work: two brief videos

When I first heard the term “side action”, I got what it was… but couldn’t quite envision how the tool worked. I was told that: A side action is something that allows you to create a feature with a pull direction that is at an angle to the primary pull direction. In hindsight that seems [...]

Tagged as: cam, Injection Molding, plastics, product design, side action

Thumbnail image for urethane castings: 3 things to ask before you hit ‘send’

urethane castings: 3 things to ask before you hit ‘send’

A while back I shared some things you should know about urethane castings. I focused mainly on when you should use them, and not so much on some of the actual design considerations. So here you go… design considerations. The overarching theme is that rapid prototyping houses like to do things a certain way. Sometimes though, [...]

Tagged as: example, product design, prototyping, urethane casting guide

Thoreau on perfect product design

My brother-in-law got me a copy of Thoreau’s Walden for Christmas (Thanks Phil!). I’m only halfway through, but the pages are dripping with inspiration for good product design. Check that. Perfect product design. For example, Thoreau proposes that: “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone.” [...]

Tagged as: perfect product design, product design, thoreau, Walden