STRiDA LT Bicycle Montage, 1985.
Designed by Mark Sanders (British, b. 1958).
Courtesy of the designer.
beautiful users
designing for people
Ellen Lupton
with contributions by
Thomas Carpentier
and Tiffany Lambert
Princeton ArchitecturAl Press
And
cooPer hewitt
smithsoniAn design museum
Smithsonian Design Museum
In association with
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
2 East Ninety-First Street
New York, New York 10128
www.cooperhewitt.org
6
Caroline Baumann
7
Acknowledgments
8
measuring man
Prologue
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
Beautiful Users, organized by
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
November 2014-April 2015
© 2014 Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
All rights reserved
Printed and bound in China
17 16 15 14 4 3 2 1 First edition
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
without written permission from the publisher, except in the
context of reviews.
foreword
contents
Published by
Princeton Architectural Press
37 East Seventh Street
New York, New York 10003
Visit our website at www.papress.com.
essAy
20
designing for people
Ellen Lupton
Project
32
the measure(s) of man
Thomas Carpentier
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of
copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent
editions.
Typefaces: Galaxie Polaris and Galaxie Copernicus, designed by
Chester Jenkins, 2004–13
Beautiful Users is made possible by major
support from the
Additional funding is provided by
Amita and Purnendu Chatterjee, the
August Heckscher Exhibition Fund, the
Ehrenkranz Fund, the Bill Moggridge
Memorial Fund, The Richard H. Driehaus
Foundation, Deborah Buck, May and
Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc.,
and IDEO.
Special thanks to: Meredith Baber, Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek
Brower, Janet Behning, Carina Cha, Andrea Chlad, Barbara Darko,
Benjamin English, Russell Fernandez, Will Foster, Jan Haux, Mia
Johnson, Diane Levinson, Jennifer Lippert, Katharine Myers, Jaime
Nelson, Jay Sacher, Rob Shaeffer, Sara Stemen, Marielle Suba,
Kaymar Thomas, Paul Wagner, Joseph Weston, and Janet Wong of
Princeton Architectural Press
—Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lupton, Ellen, author.
Beautiful users : designing for people / Ellen Lupton with
contributions by Thomas Carpentier and Tiffany Lambert. — First
edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Beautiful Users,
organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
ISBN 978-1-61689-291-3 (alk. paper)
1. Design—Human factors—Exhibitions. I. Cooper-Hewitt
Museum. II. Title.
NK1520.L865 2014
745.209’040747471—dc23
2014017045
46
handle
80
mobility
94
interface
110
revenge of the user
glossAry
128
users speak
Tiffany Lambert
140
index
cAse studies
Museum Editor: Pamela Horn
Editor: Megan Carey
Designer: Ellen Lupton
Beautiful Users is dedicated to Bill
Moggridge (1943–2012), a pioneer of
human-centered design. As director of
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
Museum, 2010–12, Moggridge inspired
us to reinvent our own design processes.
We will always remember this friend and
thinker for his warmth, humanity, and
inventive intellect.
Cooper Hewitt’s new director, Caroline
Baumann, has galvanized the museum’s
staff and board around a reinvigorated,
audience-centered vision in our renovated
facilities. Cara McCarty, Cooper Hewitt’s
curatorial director and an early advocate
for universal design, has been a guiding
light for Beautiful Users, supporting the
idea from its earliest inception. Dozens of
professionals at Cooper Hewitt, including
curators, conservators, editors, digital
media producers, educators, registrars,
development staff, and more, made this
book and exhibition possible. Special
thanks to Cooper Hewitt staff, including
Julie Barnes, Laurie Bohlk, Helynsia
Brown, Seb Chan, Michelle Cheng,
Kimberly Cisneros, Sarah Coffin, Lucy
Commoner, Caitlin Condell, Aaron Straup
Cope, Gail Davidson, Deborah Fitzgerald,
Sarah Freeman, Vasso Giannopoulos,
Jocelyn Groom, Annie Hall, Kimberly
Hawkins, Kevin Hervas, Pamela Horn,
Halima Johnson, Steve Langehough,
Antonia Moser, Kelly Mullaney, Jennifer
Northrop, Jessica Nunez, Matthew
O’Connor, Caroline Payson, James Reyes,
David Rios, Wendy Rogers, Katie Shelly,
Larry Silver, Cindy Trope, Micah Walter,
Mathew Weaver, and Paula Zamora.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed
the exhibition; special thanks to Ricardo
Scofidio, Andreas Buettner, Imani Day,
and Tyler Polich. Eddie Opara’s team
at Pentagram designed the exhibition
graphics; Kimberly Walker offered
guidance on the typographic format of
this book. Local Projects designed and
produced innovative digital experiences
for our visitors. We are grateful to our
colleagues at Princeton Architectural Press
for their careful attention to the craft of
publishing; special thanks to Megan Carey,
Paul Wagner, and Kevin Lippert. Tiffany
Lambert, a rising voice in design studies,
contributed vital content and endless
managerial energy to this project.
My mother, Mary Jane Lupton, is
the most beautiful user I know. By refusing
to hide who she is, she taught me that
disability is just a difference.
Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator of
Contemporary Design
Cooper Hewitt
SmitHSonian DeSign muSeum
acknowledgments
foreword
Caroline Baumann, Director
Cooper Hewitt
SmitHSonian DeSign muSeum
7
6 beautiful users
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum explores the world
of useful things. From textiles and wall coverings to architectural
drawings and digital devices, nearly every object housed in our
astonishing collections was created with a function—and a user—
in mind. In the mid-twentieth century, designers began applying
“human factors” (also called ergonomics) to products, services,
and interfaces in order to address the needs of human users.
Beautiful Users explores the ethos of “designing for people,” a
phrase devised by pioneering industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss
after World War II. Home to the Dreyfuss Archive, Cooper Hewitt
organized the first monographic exhibition of his career in 1997.
Beautiful Users presents a selection of Dreyfuss’s projects within
the broader evolution of user-centered design, a field that now
encompasses such frameworks as universal design, experience
design, interaction design, and open-source design.
Cooper Hewitt seeks to understand the diverse processes
involved in planning and making useful things. Design thinking
is a methodology that begins with an open-ended exploration
of users’ needs and continues through an iterative process of
ideation, sketching, and modeling. To illuminate the richness of
the design process, this book represents drawings and prototypes
as well as finished products, including historic and contemporary
material from the museum’s collections.
Beautiful Users is the first in a series of exhibitions taking place
in our first-floor Design Process galleries. These exhibitions aim
to introduce the public to the people and methods that define
design as an essential human activity. The galleries offer visitors a
range of experiences, from narrative displays about historical and
contemporary design to hands-on making, doing, and learning
activities. Beautiful Users is made possible by major support from
the Adobe Foundation. Additional funding is provided by Amita
and Purnendu Chatterjee, the August Heckscher Exhibition Fund,
the Ehrenkranz Fund, the Bill Moggridge Memorial Fund, the
Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Deborah Buck, May and Samuel
Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., and IDEO.
prologue
measuring man
Leonardo da Vinci’s famous image of an
ideal male body canonized the concept
of man as the measure of the built world.
11 measuring man
10 beautiful users
Bauentwurfslehre (Architects’ Data), 1938. Designed by Ernst
Neufert (German, 1900–86). Published by Bauwelt-Verlag (Germany);
first published in 1936. Offset lithograph.
Bauhaus architect Ernst Neufert sought
to standardize human tools and habitats
in relation to an ideal human form.
13 measuring man
12 beautiful users
Anatomy for Interior Designers, 1948. Authored by Francis de N.
Schroeder. Illustrations by Nino Repetto. Published by Whitney Library
of Design (USA). Offset lithograph.
Francis de N. Schroeder and Nino Repetto
created measured diagrams for interior
designers that depict people interacting
with one another in social spaces.
15 measuring man
14 beautiful users
Designing for People, 1955. Authored by Henry Dreyfuss (American,
1904–72). Drawn by Alvin R. Tilley (American, 1914–93), Henry
Dreyfuss & Associates (USA). Published by Whitney Library of Design
(USA). Offset lithograph. Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian
Design Museum, Henry Dreyfuss Archive, gift of Henry Dreyfuss,
1954–68. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Henry Dreyfuss and Alvin R. Tilley depicted
“Joe” and “Josephine” as typical American
users of products and spaces.
17 measuring man
16 beautiful users
Humanscale Body Measurements Selector, 1974. Authored by
Niels Diffrient (American, 1928–2013), Alvin R. Tilley (American,
1914–93), and Joan C. Bardagjy, Henry Dreyfuss & Associates (USA).
Graphic design by Valerie Pettis (American, b. 1946). Published
by MIT Press (USA). Offset lithograph on plastic with rotary wheel.
Photography: Matt Flynn.
Niels Diffrient’s Humanscale calculates
human form and motion on a continuum
of physical dimensions.
19 measuring man
18 beautiful users
The Enabler, 1977. Designed by Rolf Faste (American, 1943–2003).
Published in “New System Propels Design for the Handicapped,”
Industrial Design Magazine, July 1977, 51. Courtesy of Rolf A. Faste
Foundation for Design Creativity.
Rolf Faste’s diagram “The Enabler”
pinpoints potential areas of disability
as prompts for design innovation.
Who are these people that designers try so
hard to understand? uSerS have played
various roles in the design process. They
have been represented and addressed
as ideal or normative types, as people of
diverse sizes and abilities, as ConSumerS
to be observed, measured, and even
manipulated, and as dynamic partners
in the art of problem solving. Today, the
divide between designer and user, subject
and object, is breaking down as users
become a creative force in their own right.
The phrase “designing for people” is giving
way to “designing with people” as creative
teams seek more egalitarian relationships
with an increasingly well-informed public.
Isn’t all design centered around users?
No. In fact, the forces that drive product
development range from the short-term
economic interests of manufacturers to the
The Measure of Man Posters, 1969. Authored by
Henry Dreyfuss (American, 1904–72). Designed by
Alvin R. Tilley (American, 1914–93), Henry Dreyfuss
& Associates (USA). Published by Whitney Library of
Design (USA). Offset lithograph. Collection Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Henry Dreyfuss
Archive, gift of Henry Dreyfuss, 1954–68. Photography:
Matt Flynn.
expressive or theoretical intent of designers
to a community’s entrenched habits and
customs. Sometimes things look the way
they do because that’s the cheapest and
fastest way to make them, sometimes
because that’s how the designer or client
chose to express a personal vision or
creative impulse, sometimes because that’s
how things have always been.
Amid such competing motivations,
organizing the design process around users
is a vital vein of contemporary practice.
Compelled by this powerful ethical
outlook, uSer- CentereD DeSign strives
to enhance the lives of stakeholders and to
discover surprising solutions. Searching
for unmet human wants and needs opens
up the outcomes of the design process to
include experiences, systems, and services
as well as physical things.
designing for people
When designers create products, spaces, or media,
they inevitably ask along the way how human
beings will interact with their work. Indeed, many
designers believe that addressing human needs
is design’s fundamental mission. In the words of
Bill Moggridge, “Engineers start with technology
and look for a use for it; business people start
with a business proposition and then look for the
technology and the people. Designers start with
people, coming towards a solution from the point
of view of people.”1
eSSay
20 beautiful users
Ellen Lupton
Model 302 Telephone, 1937. Designed by
Henry Dreyfuss (American, 1904–72) for Bell
Telephone Company (USA). Manufactured by
Western Electric Manufacturing Company
(USA). Cast metal, enamel-coated steel, paper,
rubber-sheathed cord, electronic components.
Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
Museum, museum purchase from the Decorative
Arts Association Acquisition Fund, 1994-73-2.
Photography: Hiro Ihara.
Model 500 Telephone, 1953 (introduced in
1949). Designed by Henry Dreyfuss (American,
1904–72), Henry Dreyfuss & Associates (USA)
for Bell Laboratories (USA). Manufactured by
Western Electric Manufacturing Company
(USA). Molded plastic, metal, rubber, electronic
components. Collection Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum, 2009-50-1-a/c.
Photography: Ellen McDermott.
The evolution of the telephone in the
mid-twentieth century tells a story about
designers’ changing view of users. In the
1930s, Bell Labs asked Henry Dreyfuss
to create a new telephone set, to be used
across AT&T’s vast phone system. Dreyfuss
was a young man and an emerging voice in
the field of industrial design, a profession
that was taking flight alongside mass
marketing and mass advertising in the
burgeoning consumer economy. Designers
including Dreyfuss, Raymond Loewy, and
Walter Dorwin Teague were reinventing
the point of contact between people and
equipment, often by unifying mechanical
parts inside smooth, sculptural shells.2
Dreyfuss and Bell Labs unveiled their
Model 302 telephone in 1937.3 The object’s
curving sidewalls swoop upward from a
square base to cradle the graceful arc of the
handset. Indebted to Jean Heiberg’s 1931
phone for the Swedish company Ericsson,
the Model 302 is a functional artifact of
extraordinary beauty.
Elegant and useful as the Model 302
may have been, it had usability problems.
The triangular profile of the handset
caused the device to turn when cradled
against the shoulder—the design didn’t
account for people’s intuitive desire to
talk hands-free. Dreyfuss addressed this
issue with the Model 500, introduced in
1949. To create the next-generation device,
Dreyfuss’s design team and the engineers
at Bell Labs started by working on the
handset. They studied measurements
of over two thousand human faces to
determine the average space between the
mouth and the ear. They gave the Model
G handset a flattened, squared-off profile,
fondly calling it the “lumpy rectangle.”
Alvin R. Tilley, an engineer in the Dreyfuss
office, exclaimed that “a design that is
neither concave nor convex and without
sex is the darnedest thing!”4 The new
handset was smaller, lighter, and less likely
to turn in the hand, and it stayed in place
when cradled against the shoulder. The
designers derived this homelier but more
functional object from human habits and
anatomy rather than from an abstract play
of angles and curves.
The phone’s rotary dial is a complex
point of human contact. When first
introduced, the Model 500 took longer to
dial than the older model. John E. Karlin,
an industrial psychologist at Bell Labs,
moved the numbers and letters from inside
the finger holes to outside. The change
prevented the graphics from rubbing off
over time and kept them visible while the
dial turned. Karlin also placed a white dot
inside each finger hole to give users a visual
target.5 According to Dreyfuss, these simple
“aiming dots” reduced dialing time by
seven-tenths of a second.6
Bell Labs manufactured phones for
AT&T, a monopoly that delivered phone
service across the U.S. When a subscriber
signed up for phone service, the telephone
came with it, and the devices were standard
23 designing for people
22 beautiful users
Princess Telephone Advertisement, 1959.
Telephone designed by Henry Dreyfuss
& Associates (USA) and Bell Labs (USA).
Manufactured by Western Electric Manufacturing
Company (USA). Thermoplastic case, steel base,
electronic components.
issue, designed for durability and function
rather than consumer appeal. In order to
expand its business, AT&T encouraged
users to install multiple extensions or to
enhance their service for an added charge.
The decision in 1953 to produce phones
in a range of colors transformed the
telephone from a basic technology into an
alluring consumer product. Ad campaigns
encouraged women to see the phone as an
element of home decoration.7
What if new phone models could
target specific demographic groups? In
the 1950s, advertisers and manufacturers
discovered in teenagers a lucrative market
for consumer goods; and in 1959, the
Dreyfuss office introduced a glamorous
new icon of phone design: the Princess.
Its seductively anthropomorphic name
mirrored its youthful market. With its small
footprint, pretty colors, and light-up dial,
the Princess appealed to young women as
a bedside accessory. The design team had
observed users lying in bed with the base
of the Model 500 resting heavily on their
torso; the Princess’s lighter, more portable
design responded to this unanticipated use.
By endowing the Princess with a
standard Model G handset, the Dreyfuss
team introduced a dramatically new
product while minimizing manufacturing
costs. Dreyfuss called the existing handset
a “survival form”—a familiar element
incorporated into an updated product. The
designers moved the numbers and letters
back inside the finger holes, deeming
efficiency less important than saving space.
The light weight proved to be a liability,
however, as users commonly pulled the
phone off its table by the cord; later designs
feature a weighted base.
25 designing for people
24 beautiful users
Designing for People, 1955. Authored by Henry
Dreyfuss (American, 1904–72). Drawn by Alvin
R. Tilley (American, 1914–93), Henry Dreyfuss &
Associates (USA). Published by Whitney Library
of Design (USA). Offset lithograph. Collection
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum,
Henry Dreyfuss Archive, gift of Henry Dreyfuss,
1954–68. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Bauentwurfslehre (Architects’ Data), 1938
(opposite page, left). Designed by Ernst Neufert
(German, 1900–86). Published by BauweltVerlag (Germany); first published in 1936. Offset
lithograph.
Anatomy for Interior Designers, 1948
(opposite page, right). Authored by Francis de
N. Schroeder. Illustrations by Nino Repetto.
Published by Whitney Library of Design (USA).
Offset lithograph.
This trilogy of Dreyfuss phones—from
the classic Model 302 to the researchdriven Model 500 to the glamorous
Princess—shows the designer’s shift in
focus from shaping the sculptural integrity
of the object to studying the anatomy and
behavior of the typical user to targeting a
consumer demographics.
Dreyfuss used the terms Human
faCtorS and Human engineering
to name his philosophy of “fitting the
machine to the man rather than the man to
the machine.” He promoted this principle
in his 1955 book, Designing for People,
an anecdotal guide directed at general
readers.8 Human factors, also called
ergonomiCS, combine knowledge of
bodily dimensions with an understanding
of psychology. Designing for People also
introduced Tilley’s famous drawings of
a typical American couple, dubbed “Joe”
and “Josephine.” To create the drawings,
Tilley studied data employed by the U.S.
military (for men) and the fashion industry
(for women). His drawings were later
published as lifesize wall charts in the
Dreyfuss office’s publication The Measure
of Man.9 Tilley determined a range of
percentiles from 1 to 100; The Measure of
Man wall charts represent the mean (50th
percentile). Drawings depicting low and
high percentiles appear in the portfolio of
prints accompanying the full-scale charts.
The Measure of Man, which enabled
designers to create products that fit average
bodies with a greater degree of comfort,
built on the international standards
movement that took shape in the 1910s.
The standards movement was concerned
with improving efficiency in design and
manufacturing more than with enhancing
comfort. Measuring human movement
and anatomy (antHropometriCS) was
a key component of Taylorization, which
employed time-and-motion studies to
maximize the productivity of factory
workers. The human worker became a
moving part within the machinery of
modern industry.10
German architect Ernst Neufert was
a student at the Bauhaus and collaborated
with Walter Gropius on the design of the
Bauhaus buildings in Dessau in 1925.
Embracing the era’s fascination with global
standards for design and manufacturing,
Neufert sought to coordinate standard
measurements for objects, rooms, and
buildings with the dimensions of typical
bodies. Neufert’s book, Bauentwurfslehre
(Architects’ Data), first appeared in
Germany in 1936; it is still used by
architects and designers around the
world today, and it has been published in
countless editions and translations.11
Initially, Neufert employed the
classical proportions of the Golden
Section to diagram the ideal human body.
As design historian Nader Vossoughian
has pointed out, Neufert later adjusted
his data on human dimensions to
reflect a standardized unit he called the
“octametric brick.” This brick was the basis
of a universal grid that could generate
dimensions for any part of a building,
from construction materials to furniture
and appliances. Over time, Neufert’s
publications helped establish standard
dimensions for a wide range of products,
fixtures, and building components.
Ultimately, he sought to make the body
conform to industrial norms rather than
deriving such norms from the body.12
Treating the body as an industrial
component broke with the classical notion
that “man is the measure,” memorialized
in Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic cosmological
diagram of a man’s body inscribed in a
circle and square. Da Vinci visualized a
passage by the ancient Roman architect
Vitruvius (Ten Books of Architecture), who
wrote that buildings and cities should be
fashioned in units that relate to the scale of
the body, yielding environments well suited
to human habitation and locomotion.13
A more playful humanism permeates
Francis de N. Schroeder’s 1948 guide,
Anatomy for Interior Designers, based on
measurements gathered from existing
architectural standards and insurance
statistics. Nino Repetto’s whimsical yet
informative illustrations depict people
engaged in a range of social situations,
from passing each other in a hallway
to flirting in a cocktail lounge. This
influential book presented a gentle view of
people interacting with architecture.14
Niels Diffrient worked in the office of
Henry Dreyfuss from 1955 through 1980,
leading the design of such legendary
products as the Princess phone and
the Polaroid Sx-70 camera.15 Together
with Tilley and research assistant Joan
Bardagjy, Diffrient coauthored the
Humanscale series of rotary selectors,
beginning in 1974. A wheel grommeted
inside each of these printed plastic guides
coordinates a figure’s height with various
other dimensions, such as shoulder
width, head width, and thigh length. The
small circles in the Humanscale diagrams
represent “pivot points,” simplifications
of the motions in bone joints. Diffrient’s
selectors were a triumph of user-centered
design in their own right, collapsing
massive printed volumes filled with dense
linear charts into light, interactive, easy-touse tools.
Whereas the earlier drawings of Joe
and Josephine emphasize the dimensional
mean, the Humanscale selectors document
a diverse continuum. The drawings
depict bodies in the 50th percentile of
16
11
15
7
19
22
temporary, but all are exacerbated by poor
design decisions.
The Museum of Modern Art’s 1988
project Designs for Independent Living
was one of the first museum exhibitions
dedicated to universal design. As curator
Cara McCarty pointed out, people are
“disabled” by obstacles in the environment;
once those obstacles are removed,
disability falls away. McCarty wrote, “It is
imperative to involve the user in the design
process, for the objective is to develop aids
that will make maximum use of a person’s
abilities....In the past, the tendency was
to focus on what a person could not do,
and products required assistance for use,
encouraging dependency.”16 Ten years later,
under the leadership of director Dianne
Pilgrim, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum opened its exhibition Unlimited
by Design, which promoted the commercial
viability of universal design strategies.17
Universal design wants to empower
individuals to work, live, and travel
as independently as possible. Welldesigned objects humanize the experience
of assistive devices, enhancing the
environment not only for people with
impairments but for other users as well.
When mobility aids and medical products
are beautiful and convenient, people are
more likely to use them and thus enjoy
improved health and independence. The
6
27
32
26
9
930
CG
900
17
45°
30°
26°
21°
490
80
140
157
standing height; this is midpoint in a
range encompassing 95 percent of U.S.
females and males. The diagrams also
present dimensions for the bottom (2.5)
and top (97.5) percentiles. These extremes
are indicated with numbers, not drawings;
excluded altogether are those falling
outside the 95 percent range. The greatest
variations in human size occur within the
population of outliers at the edges of the
anthropometric scale.
The authors of Humanscale
acknowledged that the diagrams account
for variations in height but not weight:
in their “fleshy areas,” populations
feature broader individual differences
than they exhibit in their height. The
limb dimensions are averages; actual
measurements vary from individual to
individual. The goal in creating a standard
system of measure—even an inclusive one
like Humanscale—constantly comes up
against human particularity.
The Humanscale project responded to
the univerSal DeSign movement. In the
late 1960s and early 1970s, the newly vocal
disability community compelled designers,
builders, manufacturers, and lawmakers
to accommodate the needs of a greater
diversity of bodies. Humans face physical
limitations throughout their lives, from
childhood through the aging process. Some
disabilities are permanent and others are
stigma of an unsightly walking aid or the
annoyance of an impenetrable pillbox
discourages users from benefiting from
these products.
Design historian Bess Williamson has
critiqued the urge to assimilate products
for people with disabilities into the
consumer mainstream: “In its commercial
success, universal design found an irony:
seamlessly integrating features related to
disability into mass-market products could
amount to hiding or ignoring actual people
with disabilities.”18 By promoting products
such as canes or bathroom grab bars as
lifestyle accessories that work for everyone,
companies contribute to society’s desire to
make disability disappear.
Some recent designs for prosthetics
openly celebrate the visibility of
mechanically augmented bodies. From a
hi-tech digital limb engineered at Johns
Hopkins University to a 3D-printed
hand designed by Richard van As, these
wonders of ingenuity proudly flaunt their
technological identity. Indeed, the uncanny
effect of lifelike prosthetics can be more
unsettling to observers than a frank display
of disability.
Mary Jane Lupton is a writer born with
a deformed right hand. As she was coming
of age in the 1950s, her family urged her
to conceal her misshapen limb inside a
naturalistic but rigid cosmetic prosthesis.
The artificial hand’s sole function was
holding a purse or a cigarette. Realizing
that the prosthetic “helped” only the people
who didn’t want to see her deformity, she
eventually abandoned it altogether.
Thomas Carpentier has imagined
new products and spaces for such extreme
users as a bodybuilder, an amputee, a pair
27°
1350
Humanscale Body Measurements Selector,
1974. Authored by Niels Diffrient (American,
1928–2013), Alvin R. Tilley (American,
1914–93), and Joan C. Bardagjy, Henry Dreyfuss
& Associates (USA). Graphic design by Valerie
Pettis (American, b. 1946). Published by MIT
Press (USA). Offset lithograph on plastic with
rotary wheel. Photography: Matt Flynn.
°
31
31°
39
1570
27 designing for people
26 beautiful users
6
1680
9
7
80
The Measure(s) of Man, 2011. Designed by
Thomas Carpentier (French, b. 1986). Degree
project, École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris.
Courtesy of the designer.
of conjoined twins, and Borg Queen, a
character from Star Trek who has a living,
biological head and a mechanical body.
As people embrace technology’s ability to
enhance life, assistive devices will celebrate
the aesthetics of the cyborg rather than
assimilating bodies to norms.
By focusing on points of friction
between people and devices, the
Dreyfuss office pioneered the field of
interfaCe DeSign. Early practitioners
of ergonomics started in the 1940s using
the word interface to describe the plane
of connection between humans and
machines.19 Dials, buttons, and levers invite
29 designing for people
28 beautiful users
GRiD Compass Laptop Computer Prototype,
1981. Designed by Bill Moggridge (English,
1943–2012). Manufactured by GRiD Systems
Corporation (USA). Die-cast magnesium,
injection-molded plastic. Collection Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of
Bill Moggridge, 2010-22-1. Photography: Matt
Flynn.
Designing Interactions, 2007 (opposite page).
Authored by Bill Moggridge (English, 1943–
2012). Published by MIT Press (USA). Offset
lithograph. Photography: Matt Flynn.
users to operate complex, hidden systems.
Some controls are direct and physical,
such as the steering wheel of a car, whereas
others rely on graphic representations,
such as the “buttons” on a touch screen.
Controls model how a device works, and
they limit how people affect its actions.20
Dreyfuss’s Honeywell Round,
introduced in 1953 after ten years of
development, remains the most widely
used thermostat on the planet. A
thermostat is pure interface: it is a switch
for turning a system on and off, and it is
a display that communicates the system’s
current and future state. Users operate
the Honeywell Round with a simple
twist of the dial, and they can intuitively
compare the set temperature and the
room temperature. The Honeywell Round
replaced clunky boxes that users often
mounted crookedly on the wall. Dreyfuss
reinvented the lowly thermostat—produced
with little consideration for users—by
subjecting it to his process of designing
for people.
Improving users’ experience with
hardware and software has become a
crucial field of design practice. Interface
design, pioneered by Dreyfuss in the
1940s and 1950s, has expanded to become
interaCtion DeSign. As products
ranging from medical devices to remote
controls become staggeringly complex,
designers are addressing more than the
point of contact between people and
devices. They are seeking, in the words of
designer Brenda Laurel, ways “for humans
and computers to construct actions
together.”21 Interaction designers explore
dynamic exchanges between users and
systems. Both the human and the interface
are actors sharing the stage in a dramatic
narrative.
The Nest Learning Thermostat
exemplifies the software-integrated
products of today. Although many
homes are equipped with energy-saving,
programmable thermostats, countless
users—perplexed by the interface—fail to
implement all the features of such devices.
The simple, round Nest uses sensors,
software, smartphone apps, and touch-andturn interaction to respond to users and
encourage device programming.
One of the great pioneers of interaction
design was Bill Moggridge. In 1979, GRiD
Systems Corporation commissioned
Moggridge, an industrial designer, to create
what became the first laptop computer. The
GRiD Compass has a screen that flips up to
reveal a keyboard. Priced at approximately
$8,000 a unit, the GRiD was reserved for
elite business, government, and military
applications and for NASA space missions.
As Moggridge began using the GRiD
himself, he realized that the relationships
among the user, the software, and the
physical object were more compelling than
the physical device. Moggridge cofounded
IDEO, a design firm known for developing
technology-integrated products and for
disseminating the DeSign tHinking
methodology.22
Today, interaction design fits within
the broader field of experienCe DeSign.
To shape an experience is to script a
series of narratives around a person’s
encounters with a product or service.23
Negative experiences, too, can inspire
concepts for new products. Entrepreneur
Andy Katz-Mayfield (cofounder of the
eyeglass company Warby Parker) was
dismayed one day at the high price and
low value of a drugstore razor—in his
frustration, he recognized the potential to
transform an everyday product category.
Users find little joy in the hyperstyled,
blister-packed plastic razors sold in
drugstores. In response, the Harry’s design
team reinvented not only the physical
product but also the system for packaging,
distributing, and marketing it. Harry’s sells
its attractive, pleasant-to-use razors directly
to customers via the company’s website,
creating an enhanced experience at a
reasonable price.
An object’s capacity to support action
is called an afforDanCe. The dial of a
thermostat affords turning, whereas the
pages of a book afford flipping, fanning,
folding, tearing, and marking. From open
doors and climbable steps to looming
objects and the sudden drop-off of a
cliff, some features of the environment
are recognizable to nearly any creature
as sources of danger or opportunity.
An affordance can trigger an intuitive
response—the crotch of a tree offers birds
a safe, stable site to build a nest, whereas a
flat surface raised to a certain height offers
humans a convenient place to sit. An object
doesn’t need arms or legs to become a
chair.24
Some affordances can be learned
(and unlearned) culturally. The rotary
phone dial that appeared self-evident to
generations of users bewilders people
weaned on buttons and keypads. Humans
and other creatures interact with features
of their environment in a continuous
31 designing for people
30 beautiful users
August Smart Lock Concept Drawing, 2013
(opposite page). Designed by Yves Béhar (Swiss,
b. 1967), fuseproject (USA). Courtesy of the
designer.
OpenStructures (OS) Diagram: Preferred and
Non-Preferred Assembly Techniques, 2009
(right). Designed by Thomas Lommée (Belgian,
b. 1979). Courtesy of the designer.
exchange. A person becomes a user in
relation to those features of an object
that invite action (handle, dial, switch,
armrest). Likewise, these affordances come
into being in response to the stream of
action. Affordances exist as relationships
between creatures and their environment.
A crack in a wall becomes a doorway when
it reaches sufficient size in relation to a
creature that might pass through it. A
saucer is designed to rest beneath a cup;
it becomes a lid when someone sets it
on top, changing its intended function.
Affordances are not absolute or objective
features of the environment but exist in
relationship to agents. As people age,
affordances that once invited action or
mobility become obstacles and limitations.
Objects and their affordances belong
to larger systems. In order to fully function,
a wheelchair needs ramps, elevators, and
paved roads. Pills need bottles, bikes need
racks, and locks need keys—as well as
locksmiths, key-cutting machines, and
doormats for hiding spares. The August
Smart Lock replaces the traditional key
with a smartphone app. The user attaches
an electronic device to an ordinary
deadbolt; the device recognizes the owner’s
smartphone as well as the phones of users
who have been granted “keys” to the lock.
The owner of the lock can revoke a key
at any time as well as create keys that
automatically expire. At once a physical
product and a digital service, August aims
to streamline a routine annoyance without
compromising the user’s security.
For some people, a lock is not a symbol
of safety and closure but a provocation
to break and enter. Whether seeking
intellectual adventure or political or
economic advantage, HaCkerS unravel
secret codes and expose hidden gears.
Interface design grew out of the need
for understandable controls on systems
that defy understanding; open-SourCe
DeSign lays bare the mechanisms behind
the curtain of the interface.
The hacker—dressed in the gentler
guise of maker—is conquering the
realm of products. The term maker went
mainstream when Dale Dougherty,
publisher of a successful series of
software guides, launched the magazine
Make in 2005.25 The Maker’s Bill of Rights
includes such slogans as “screws not
glues,” asserting the user’s desire to take
things apart and reassemble them in new
ways.26 Make triggered a groundswell of
maker faires, maker lounges, and roving
maker mobiles. Banished from this Doit-yourSelf culture is the passive user,
whose needs exist to be mapped out or
manufactured.
An amateur zeal drives much opensource design. Turning your robotic
vacuum cleaner into a cat mobile (Roomba
hacking) or converting a Lack side table
into a standing desk (IKEA hacking)
doesn’t solve existential problems, but
it does empower people to understand
technology, constraints, and problem
solving. Although most IKEA hacks yield
awkward results, skilled designers such
as Andreas Bhend have created graceful
new products at a low cost, sharing the
instructions with the public.
The design briColeur views IKEA’s
warehouse as a kit of parts rather than a
menu of finished goods. OpenStructures
(OS), founded by Thomas Lommée, is
a system of interlocking components
that can be freely downloaded and
3D-printed by any designer. Jesse Howard’s
Transparent Tools combine OS parts with
standard wheel assemblies, repurposed
motors, and glass and plastic containers.
These open-source objects subvert
the industrial designer’s traditional
task—exemplified by the work of Henry
Dreyfuss—of masking technology with an
opaque interface.
Who is the user of the future?
Affordable 3D printing promises a new era
of personal design and manufacturing.
As this promise unfolds, professional
designers will create libraries of forms
and tools for combining and recombining
elements. As products seek out an audience
of one, designers may become therapists
and soothsayers who lead makers through
the process of uncovering their needs and
motivations.
What lies beyond usability? In
Designing Interactions (2007), Moggridge
mapped out a hierarchy of human factors
research that puts the dimensions of
human anatomy (anthropometrics) at
the very bottom of a sequence that moves
upward and outward in complexity and
reach. Anthropometrics is followed by
physiology (how the body works), cognitive
psychology (how the mind works), and
cultural anthropology (understanding the
human condition). Occupying the top of
the human factors hierarchy is ecology,
devoted to the interdependence of all living
things. Thinking past the user, Moggridge
recognized that the lens of individual
need is too narrow for the future of design
thinking. He saw the limits of usercentered design even while becoming one
of the field’s leading theorists.
We are moving towards a more holistic
view of design and its impact on the
larger person, community, and world.
—Bill Moggridge
Augmented, Extended Body
increased abilities, superman/
cyborg
Perfect Body
standard, model, archetype,
myth
Reduced, Atrophied Body
diminished abilities, disabled
Interpreting Body
phobias, atrophied or
extended sense
perceptions
Deformed Body
nonstandard proportions,
oversize
Moving Body
uses, impacts, lifestyle
Modern society seeks to rationalize, classify, and
standardize goods and services of every kind.
Architecture cannot escape from this agenda:
spaces, programs, uses, dimensions, individuals,
values, and thinking tend to conform to standards
rather than explore the possible. Human bodies,
as the basis of this larger system, are also subject
to standardization. Do ergonomiCS and linear
spaces generate sameness?
The manual Bauentwurfslehre (Architects’ Data),
first published by Ernst Neufert in 1936, is the
Bible of architectural standards, adopted globally
by generations of students and practitioners.
Although the book has been updated over the
decades, Architects’ Data continues to carry
modernism’s founding dream of universality. By
its account, architecture is always and everywhere
experienced through the same tool: the human
body. No single normative body can express
the range of architectural experiences derived
from humankind’s countless cultural, personal,
physiological, and morphological variations.
The body is not standard. It can be tall, short,
fat, thin, wizened, deformed, or twisted. This
project imagines architectural forms and spaces for
extraordinary bodies.
the measure(s) of man: architects’ data add-on
Transformed Body
nature, value, definition,
identity research
projeCt
All images in this project designed by Thomas Carpentier
(French, b. 1986) for his degree project at the École Spéciale
d’Architecture (Paris, 2011).
Bodi(es), Dimension(s)
Thomas Carpentier
Le Corbusier’s Modulor, a modernist model of architectural
proportions, employs the human body as a standard
measure. In reality, this model does not express the range
of human singularities.
35 the measure(s) of man
12
20
25
17
4
1920
1790
38
31°31°
68
27°
6
34 beautiful users
18
7
1530
134
°
41
circulation
≥
150
40
52
67
50
36
10
R5
20
R5
22°
1060
CG
1020
19
45°
Oscar is one of the fastest men on Earth despite his physical
difference, but his athletic prostheses are designed only for
running, not for walking or even turning. When he uses them,
a stairway serves as a running track. Its angle is flattened,
and the stairs’ edges are rounded off.
47
203
30°
46
91
162
179
550
24° 23°
11
Boule de remorquage
BouleTowing
de remorquage
ball
Caténaire Caténaire
Catenary
8
9
92
23
22
11
51°
51°
Coffrage
Coffrage
Casing
51°
41
51°
9
13
9
20
15
13
20
15
41
11
31°31°
14
11
11
6
31°31°
6
135
23
22
16
6
14
16
6
22
36
36
21
QUEEN BORG
HOMO CYBORG
75CM
22Kgs
22
20
3
QUEEN BORG
HOMO CYBORG
75CM
22Kgs
21
4
143
220
224
Plateau
Platform
Plateau
Guide
Guide
Guide
Bras articulé
Bras
articulé
Articulated
arm
154
Boitier dérivateur
Boitier
dérivateur
Shunt
box
Pince de retenue
Pince de retenue
Holding pliers
27
Arnold is a body builder with prominent shoulders. The
entrance to his house offers an extra-wide opening at
shoulder height. The resulting door requires a custom
frame with extended hinges.
80
Borg Queen (opposite) has only a head and chest. The
rest of her body is an accessory for simulating a human
appearance. At home, an electric rail allows her to glide
from room to room. She no longer has contact with the
ground, only with the ceiling.
1
Etude face
Ech.:
1/10
1
Etude face
Ech.:
1/10
2
Etude côté
Ech.:
1/10
2
Etude côté
Ech.:
1/10
100
15
37 the measure(s) of man
36 beautiful users
1
20
60
40
80
15
Coupe BB'
Ech.:
1/20
bedroom
90
53
Niveau
circulation
David’s
movement:
(N0+90)
level David
N0 + 90cm
90
100
44°
2
Niveau
circulation
“normal”
movement:
dit normal
N0
level N
Coupe CC'
Ech.:
1/20
0
Elevation
47
47
16
16
1
Ech.:
1/10
+100
100
15
100
+80
15
1
20
60
80
40
20
60
40
80
+60
Coupe BB'
Ech.:
1/20
+40
David is a legless dancer. He and his wife don’t live at the
same altitude: he moves along the floor, whereas she is
one meter higher. By raising David’s level, this furniture
installation creates a continuous landscape in which their
bodies can interact and mingle without difference.
+2
0
3
Axonométries
Ech.:
sans
0
156
16
18
47
11°
37°
41°
°
15
156
47
°
39 the measure(s) of man
38 beautiful users
Coupe Longitudinale
1/16
Water tap
19
Ech.:
33
15
1
11°
37°
41°
16
Coupe Longitudinale
1/16
101
Ech.:
bathroom
1
Front jet
Back
Jet arrière
jet
8
33
17
40
59
40
17
17
36
47
25
8
15
33
59
2
Ech.:
36
54
1/16
Coupe Longitudinale
1/16
81
A'
C'
Ech.:
80
88
130
21
67
80
70
54
54
70
A
C
41
100
B
B'
70
2
Coupe Longitudinale
25
47
15
17
54
1
Changing levels could be uncomfortable for David. To
limit level changes, why not bring all the furnishings and
sanitary fixtures to the same level? The result is a new
architectural landscape that moves up and down from a
zero level.
Plan de l'espace de David
Ech.:
1/20
Hermaphroditus has both male and female genitalia.
A high bidet allows him/her to clean the female organs
while standing in a male position, thus respecting his/
her double identity. The sanitary unit stands in the middle
of the living room in the tradition of Louis XIV, who gave
his gentilhommes the privilege of witnessing the king’s
affairs. The most intimate space becomes public.
41 the measure(s) of man
40 beautiful users
windows and light
Miroir
Mirror
Miroir
Hinge
Mirror
Charnière
Miroir
Mirror
30
15°
15
°
°
53
°
53°
30°
Mirror
Miroir
1°
10
Orlan is a French artist who inhabits her skin by
transforming it with surgeries and procedures. Similarly,
the walls of this structure are a series of transparent
fabric layers that allow Orlan to recompose the building
into new spaces, extending and modifying them for her
own uses.
Genie lives inside an oil lamp. The only opening that
admits light to the inside is the hole for the flame.
Bulging mirrors in the rooms inside the lamp allow light
to permeate the house.
43 the measure(s) of man
42 beautiful users
Module 2 2
Module
157
11°11°11°11°
Miroir
Mirror
290
53
76
Dracula would like to sit comfortably while having a drink.
This double-molded armchair supports his victim’s body
while he enjoys a taste.
Narcissus is in love with his own reflection. Seated in this
“confidant armchair,” based on a classic French furniture
type, he can have a conversation with someone else
without moving his eyes from his own face.
164
1
living room
Module
1
Module
45 the measure(s) of man
44 beautiful users
Arnold
Conjoined
David
Borg Queen
Ned
A recomposed family with multiple singularities should be
able to dine together at the same table. Here, each chair
has been specially designed for a specific user, resulting
in variations on an initial model.
dining room and kitchen
Monk
Alice has followed the white rabbit and entered a space
opposite her own multiphase reality: the housewife’s
Wonderland. The kitchen shown here is the product of one
of the world’s most “thinking standard” companies, and it
was designed with its web tool. It is the counterpoint of
this research on nonstandards.
CaSe StuDieS
46 beautiful users
Nine Ways to Use a Pitcher, 2013. Designed
by Leon Ransmeier (American, b. 1979).
Manufactured by GlassLab, Corning Museum of
Glass (USA). Handblown glass. Courtesy of the
designer. Photography: Ransmeier, Inc.
handle
The word handle is both a noun and a verb.
As a physical thing, a handle invites human grasp.
It is a point of connection between people and
products. From the molded grip of a bicycle to the
delicate loop of a teacup, handles are examples of
what cognitive psychologists call afforDanCeS:
features of the environment that trigger or invite
specific behaviors or actions. A thoughtfully
designed handle feels right in the hand; a poorly
designed one provokes pain and discomfort.
The verb to handle means to feel, touch, or
manipulate with the hands. The objects on the
following pages explore handling as an active, lived
exchange between creatures and things. In each
of these projects, designers have invited uSerS to
touch, grasp, hold, push, squeeze, or otherwise
implement an object in order to achieve goals of
their own.
49 handle
48 beautiful users
Nine Ways to Use a Pitcher Prototypes, 2013. Designed by Leon
Ransmeier (American, b. 1979). Cardboard. Courtesy of the designer.
Photography: Ransmeier, Inc.
Each handle configuration in this series of pitchers
affords a different set of behaviors from users. By starting
with an archetypal, nearly generic vessel, Ransmeier
focuses our attention on the elementary language of
the handle and its communication with the human body.
Ransmeier started by making prototypes in cardboard
that established the basic shape and performance of each
vessel. Over a period of several days in July 2012, he
worked with artisans from GlassLab, a mobile hot-glass
studio operated by the Corning Museum of Glass, to
translate his initial prototypes into glass. He returned to
the museum’s glass-blowing studio in Corning, New York,
the following year to create the full set of pitchers.
51 handle
50 beautiful users
Nine Ways to Use a Pitcher, 2013. Designed by Leon Ransmeier
(American, b. 1979). Manufactured by GlassLab, Corning Museum of
Glass (USA). Handblown glass. Courtesy of the designer. Photography:
Ransmeier, Inc.
Whereas the cardboard handles in the prototypes are
conducive to ribbonlike forms, the final handles are round.
Ransmeier explains that glass “really likes to be round. It’s
a radial material, it’s always spinning, and it’s always being
turned. And so because of that, the round cane handles
feel a bit more natural, and they feel like they fit in your
hand a little bit more nicely as well.”
53 handle
52 beautiful users
Good Grips Kitchen Tools, Prototypes, and Drawing, ca. 1990. Designed by Smart
Design (USA). Design directors: Davin Stowell, Daniel Formosa. Team members: Tucker
Viemeister, Stephen Russak, Stephen Allendorf, Michael Calahan, Jürgen Laub, Stephen
Wahl. Manufactured by OXO (USA). Stainless steel, Santoprene (thermoplastic rubber),
carved foam, plastic, wood, plaster, polypropylene, graphite on pre-printed white wove
paper. Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 1992-52-1/10, 25;
2011-50-1/9, 11/20; 2011-50-24. Photography (drawing): Matt Flynn.
The OXO brand of kitchen tools was born when retired
kitchenware designer Sam Farber began working with his
wife, Betsey Farber, to create clay models of implements
with thick, easy-to-grasp handles. Betsey suffered
from arthritis, which made it painful to use an everyday
vegetable peeler. Sam then partnered with Smart Design
to develop the OXO Good Grips line.
The design team created dozens of handle prototypes
out of materials including wood, rubber, plastic, and
foam. The designers laid them out on a table to test and
explore. Among the wooden and plastic prototypes was
a standard rubber bicycle handle, which team members
kept picking up and handling. That rubber handle became
a key inspiration for the final product line. The OXO brand
now encompasses a broad range of products, including
medical devices and tools for small children, and the
chubby, black rubber handle has become an icon of
comfort and ease of use. OXO embraces a core principle
of universal design: that improving access for disabled
users improves the experience of those of ordinary ability.
55 handle
54 beautiful users
elements. The plunger enables users to apply greater
effective force. The product accommodates fourteen
different grip styles, and the oval-shaped barrel resists
spinning when grasped. The looped needle cover is easy
to remove; its flared shape minimizes recoil and thus
helps prevent accidental sticks. The product’s perceived
ease and comfort reinforces its proven functionality.
One of the very last times I touched my grandmother, 2003.
By Elinor Carucci (American, born Israel, 1971). Photograph. Courtesy
of the artist/INSTITUTE (USA).
Cimzia Home Injection Experience Prototypes, 2010. Designed by
Smart Design (USA). Manufactured by UCB Pharmaceuticals (Belgium).
Polycarbonate plastic. Courtesy of the designers.
Cimzia is a medication for people suffering from
rheumatoid arthritis. RA patients are sensitive to sharp
objects and have 25 to 30 percent of the hand and
finger strength of healthy people. Smart Design created
numerous prototypes to improve the patient experience
and encourage compliance. The three-finger flange
and soft, large thumb pad reduce contact with pointy
Photographer Elinor Carucci has chronicled the life of her
family through intimate images of the varied textures of
human lives and bodies.
57 handle
56 beautiful users
Iomai Needle-Free Vaccine Delivery Prototypes, 2006.
Designed by IDEO (USA). Bistable spring steel, medical-grade
sandpaper, woven adhesive tape, laminate graphics, plastic sheet,
3D-printed ABS plastic fasteners. Courtesy of the designers.
In 2006 delivering vaccines to patients required a
skilled technician and a sterile needle. Iomai, a company
that specialized in transcutaneous immunization,
commissioned IDEO to develop a user-centered needlefree vaccine-delivery system. Testing determined that
forty microns of skin—equivalent to the thickness of a
plastic bag—must be removed to prepare skin for the
vaccine. IDEO produced hundreds of prototypes to test
ways that users could disrupt their skin and accurately
place the patch over the prepared area. After many
rounds of prototyping and user testing, IDEO created a
design that uses sandpaper to remove the top layer of
skin, a bistable button to provide both visible and audible
feedback, and ink to leave behind guides for the patch
placement. The final design is a production-ready model
for a device that could revolutionize vaccine delivery. The
patch has a stable shelf life and can be shipped through
the mail and self-applied by users; it is designed for ease
of manufacture with standard materials and processes.
The product thus addresses such urgent human needs
as pandemic vaccination and large-scale vaccination in
emerging economies. Iomai completed its IPO in 2006
and was funded under a contract with the Department of
Health and Human Services directed toward its pandemic
flu program. Iomai was acquired by Intercell in August
2008.
59 handle
58 beautiful users
Sabi THRIVE Pill Organizers and Accessories, 2011. Designed by
Yves Béhar (Swiss, b. 1967), fuseproject (USA). Manufactured by Sabi
(USA). Plastic (ABS, TPE, PET, PP, and others). Courtesy of Sabi.
Sabi THRIVE products encourage compliance by making
pill use a more positive experience. In the words of Sabi
founder Assaf Wand, “These stealthy, whimsical products
take the shame out of pill use.” The designers’ process
drawings explore various directions for integrating pill
use into daily life, including containers for organizing
pills, dispensing pills, and carrying pills and water
together. The FOLIO pill carrier looks like a personal
notebook, providing privacy, convenience, and a tailored
appearance. The SPLIT Pill Cutter has no metal blade,
which means it doesn’t have to be sold behind the counter
in drugstores; a soft surface inside the cutter allows the
plastic blade to cut through hard pills with ordinary palm
pressure and provides the user with haptic feedback.
Sabi seeks direct feedback from users. The company
learned that many people were using the CARAFE for
dietary supplements, requiring a bigger storage cap;
users wanted to put the larger cap in the dishwasher, and
they wanted to be able to sip from the water container
without removing the cap. Sabi incorporated these user
suggestions into the CARAFE grande.
61 handle
60 beautiful users
Sabi HOLD Bathroom Prototypes, 2014. Designed by MAP (UK),
founded by Edward Barber (British, b. 1969) and Jay Osgerby (British,
b. 1969). Polyurethane model board, sintered nylon. Manufactured for
Sabi (USA). Courtesy of Sabi.
The Sabi HOLD is a no-stigma approach to helping people
get in and out of the bath or shower. The easy-to-install
fixture also functions as a towel holder, which integrates
it into the bathroom decor. The prototypes reveal how
the designers explored a variety of handle shapes before
arriving at HOLD’s serene circular form. The final product
is comfortable to grasp and intuitive to use while avoiding
reference to conventional grab bars. Seventy percent
of bathroom falls occur getting in and out of the bath or
shower. Grab bars have become an important feature
of fall-prevention programs. Studies show that users
typically employ grab bars to steady their balance as they
get in and out of the bath, rather than to pull the body up
or lower it down.
63 handle
62 beautiful users
4
Harry’s Shaving Drawings and Prototypes, 2013. Designed by
Stuart Harvey Lee (British, b. 1965) and Jochen Schaepers (German,
b. 1968), Prime Studio (USA). Manufactured for Harry’s (USA)
by Zhuhai Technique Plastic Container Factory Co., Ltd. (China)
and FeinTechnik GmbH Eisfeld (Germany). Painted polymer, ABS,
polycarbonate, TPR, stainless steel, chrome-plated zinc alloy, chromeplated aluminum alloy, brass. Courtesy of Harry’s.
3
5
1
2
7
6
1 Concept sketches
2 Internal components
3 First appearance model
4 First factory prototype
5 Surface-finish exploration
6 Cartridge connection optimization
7 Some rejected colors
8 Final Harry’s Truman assortment
Andy Katz-Mayfield was tired of paying high prices for
shaving products that didn’t appeal to him as a user.
He and his partner, Jeff Raider, set out to build a brand
dedicated to customer experience and predicated on
high-quality, thoughtfully designed products delivered at
fair prices. They worked with branding agency Partners
& Spade and industrial designers Stuart Harvey Lee and
Jochen Schaepers of Prime Studio. Lee and Schaepers
designed dozens of prototypes in order to create a handle
both classic and ergonomic. The drawings and prototypes
shown here tested and explored various shapes, finishes,
materials, and colors while studying the angle of
connection between the product and the user’s skin.
8
65 handle
64 beautiful users
Harry’s Shaving Packaging (Winston Set), 2013. Packaging
designed by Stuart Harvey Lee (British, b. 1965) and Jochen
Schaepers (German, b. 1968), Prime Studio (USA). Branding and
graphics designed by Partners & Spade (USA). Manufactured for
Harry’s (USA) by Zhuhai Technique Plastic Container Factory Co., Ltd.
(China) and FeinTechnik GmbH Eisfeld (Germany). ABS, engineered
paper. Courtesy of Harry’s.
Left to right, top to bottom: Schaepers and Lee sort
through a box of shaving products purchased from local
drugstores—the razors are packaged in hard-to-open
plastic bubbles and styled with swoopy curves and
aerodynamic fins. “Nobody likes this stuff,” says Lee.
Harry’s handles are produced by Zhuhai Technique Plastic
Container Factory Co., Ltd. (China). The blades are made
by FeinTechnik GmbH Eisfeld (Germany). In 2014, Harry’s
purchased the German manufacturer, a move designed to
make Harry’s more competitive with giants like Gillette.
Harry’s distributes its products primarily through direct
sales on its website (harrys.com). The packaging, made
from engineered paper and minimal plastic components,
is the user’s first point of contact with the physical
product. A complete set, which includes a handle, three
blades, and Harry’s signature shave cream, costs from
$15 to $25.
67 handle
66 beautiful users
astray and matched sets make room for new arrivals. As
a household evolves, so too does the mixed company of
forks, knives, and spoons that inhabit the kitchen drawer.
The Boyms’ intentionally mismatched flatware pattern
Hybrid emulates the social life of everyday things.
Goth Flatware, Prototypes, and Digital Drawings, 2007. Designed
by Constantin Boym (Russian, b. 1955) and Laurene Leon Boym
(American, b. 1964), Boym Studio (USA). Manufactured by Gourmet
Settings (Canada). 3D-printed plastic, stainless steel. Courtesy of the
designers. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Hybrid Flatware and Prototypes, 2007. Designed by Constantin
Boym (Russian, b. 1955) and Laurene Leon Boym (American, b.
1964), Boym Studio (USA). Manufactured by Gourmet Settings
(Canada). Foam, foamcore, cardboard, stainless steel. Courtesy of
the designers. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Constantin Boym and Laurene Leon Boym seek out new
ideas by exploring popular culture and everyday life. In
their design process, the Boyms often use existing things
as models and inspiration. The series of flatware patterns
they created for Gourmet Settings ask questions about
function, play, narrative, and iconography. How do users
actually live with their flatware? Over time, pieces go
Forks and knives play bit parts in many Hollywood horror
films. Intrigued with the dark side of kitchen tools, the
Boyms created Goth, whose sharp points and accentuated
angles make reference to a neo-Gothic aesthetic that has
been popular in fashion, art, and music since Victorian
times. The flatware pattern thus brings an undercurrent of
narrative and drama to the dining experience.
GS Army Flatware, Source Material, and Prototypes, 2007.
Designed by Constantin Boym (Russian, born 1955) and Laurene
Leon Boym (American, b. 1964), Boym Studio (USA). Manufactured by
Gourmet Settings (Canada). Plastic, cardboard, foamcore, 3D-printed
plastic, stamped metal, stainless steel. Courtesy of the designers.
Photography: Matt Flynn.
The details of GS Army are inspired by cheap flatware
purchased in an army surplus store. The designers were
attracted to these simple, utilitarian pieces stamped out
of thin metal. GS Army’s raised lip thus makes subtle
reference to military mess kits while providing an elegant,
tactile frame around the handle of each piece.
69 handle
Initially, the pieces in Colonial Ghost were designed to
hang from a rack. (Flatware from Laurene Leon Boym’s
childhood kitchen inspired the idea.) Although the Boyms
later abandoned the rack, they kept the cutout shapes—
each form is a “ghost” of an archetypal American flatware
style. The cutouts reduce the weight of the pieces and
create visual and tactile interest.
Colonial Ghost Flatware, Source Material, and Prototypes, 2007.
Designed by Constantin Boym (Russian, b. 1955) and Laurene Leon
Boym (American, b. 1964), Boym Studio (USA). Manufactured by
Gourmet Settings (Canada). Plastic, cardboard, foamcore, 3D-printed
plastic, stamped metal, stainless steel. Courtesy of the designers.
Photography: Matt Flynn.
68 beautiful users
71 handle
70 beautiful users
Cutouts: Designs for Eva Flatware, 2012. Designed by Eva Zeisel
(American, born Hungary, 1906–2011) with Olivia Barry (American,
born Canada, 1974). Cut paper, graphite. Collection Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of the Estate of Eva Zeisel, 20148-38/41, 2014-8-43/57, and 2014-8-60. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Born in Hungary in 1906, Eva Zeisel endured two world
wars and the Soviet revolution. She spent sixteen months
in a Russian prison and escaped Nazi persecution
before immigrating to the U.S. in 1938. Best known for
her ceramics, Zeisel called herself a modernist with a
little m. She rejected doctrinaire geometries in favor of
fluid forms and counterforms. Throughout her career,
Zeisel employed cut paper in her design process. These
cutouts enabled her to refine and emphasize the curving
silhouettes that are the hallmark of her work. Her Eva
flatware, created for the retailer Crate and Barrel, is
among her last designs. Olivia Barry, Zeisel’s design
assistant, produced these cut-paper designs with Zeisel’s
guidance.
Eva Flatware, 2012. Designed by Eva Zeisel (American, born
Hungary, 1906–2011) with Olivia Barry (American, born Canada,
1974). Manufactured by Yamazaki Tableware, Inc. (Japan) for Crate
and Barrel (USA). Forged stainless steel. Collection Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of Crate and Barrel, 2014-8-1/5.
Photography: Ellen McDermott.
A model maker produced three-dimensional prototypes
based on Zeisel and Barry’s paper cutouts. The
prototypes were the basis of digital drawings Barry
created for manufacturing.
73 handle
Eva Flatware Prototypes, 2012. Designed by Eva Zeisel (American,
born Hungary, 1906–2011) with Olivia Barry (American, born Canada,
1974). Made by Olivia Barry (2014-8-3/9,11); Yamazaki Tableware,
Inc. (2014-8-10,12,13). Carved and painted balsa wood. Collection
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of the Estate of Eva
Zeisel, 2014-8-3/6,8/13. Photography: Ellen McDermott.
72 beautiful users
75 handle
74 beautiful users
3
Power
Coil
Nerve
2
1
4
Modular Design
Placing the controller in the
palm lets the prosthesis
work for both full and partial
amputations.
Carbon-Fiber Harness
Molded to the body,
the shell is strong but
lightweight.
Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) Scientific Illustration, 2010.
Illustration by Bryan Christie (American, b. 1973). Text by Josh
Fischman, from “Merging Man and Machine: The Bionic Age,”
National Geographic, January 2010. Prosthesis designed by Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (USA) and Hunter Defense
Technologies (USA). Courtesy of Bryan Christie Design and Josh
Fischman/National Geographic Creative.
Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) v.1.0, 2009, and MPL Concept
Prototype, 2009. Designed by Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Lab and Hunter Defense Technologies (USA). Aluminum, steel,
printed circuit boards, select polymers (MPL v.1.0); 3-D printed rapid
prototype material (concept prototype). Courtesy of JHU Applied
Physics Lab.
Nerves running from the spinal cord (1) will
send the brain’s commands to electrode arrays
implanted in the residual nerves (2). A computer
chip on each array sends data wirelessly to
a receiver on the skin (3). The receiver wires
the data to another chip (4) that decodes the
command and wires it to the limb controller in
the palm (5), which sets the motors in motion.
Lithium Battery
Removable for
daily recharging.
Shoulder
Rotators
Humeral
Rotator
5
Wrist
Rotator
Elbow
Rotator
Weight Nine pounds, like
the average adult arm, the
bionic limb can curl about
45 pounds.
A human hand has twenty-eight moving, articulated
joints. The Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) comes close,
with twenty-six joints. These mechanical joints are
operated by just seventeen motors, which keeps the
fingers lightweight. Some of the joints move in concert
with or in response to other joints or in response to
external pressure/stimulus. The limb can be controlled
remotely for completing human-hostile tasks such as
bomb extraction. Amputees can control the device from
sensors placed against the skin of their remaining limb;
the sensors pick up electrical signals (myoelectricity)
from the muscles that signal the desire to move the arm
and hand. People suffering from paralysis or ALS can
control the limb with their brains. These users have no
motor function and can’t produce myoelectric signals. An
“invasive array” of ninety-six tiny electrodes and multiples
thereof can plug directly into a user’s brain, tracking the
ionic charge and discharge of neurons and allowing the
user to control the position and orientation of the MPL
hand as well as to shape multiple grasps. When the user’s
brain commands the hand to move forward, the hand
Sensory Data Fingertip
nodes have the potential to
detect pressure, vibration, and
temperature. The data is sent
wirelessly to the electrode
arrays, then back through the
nerves to the brain.
takes the arm and elbow with it. Over time, the user’s
brain activity correlates with movements; the system and
the brain learn to work together so that the appropriate
brain impulses yield the desired motions.
77 handle
76 beautiful users
Richard van As, a South African woodworker, lost four
fingers in a shop accident in 2011. Frustrated to learn
that functional prosthetic fingers could cost more
than $10,000 each, he sought to design an affordable
prosthetic hand with functioning fingers. Using a
MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer (donated by
MakerBot), he was able to prototype his device and create
multiple iterations quickly and at low cost. How does the
Robohand work? Cables attached to the base structure
cause the prosthetic fingers to curl when the user’s wrist
folds and contracts, enabling the fingers to grasp objects.
Seeing the humanitarian potential of his invention, van
As began to develop prosthetic hands for other users.
Liam, a six-year-old boy born with no fingers on his right
hand, received his first Robohand in 2013. 3D printing
technology is enabling Liam’s family to replace the hand
affordably as he grows. The files for Robohand are posted
online on Thingiverse, allowing users around the world to
produce and modify their own devices (thingiverse.com/
robohand/designs).
Robohand Prosthetic Hand, 2013. Designed by Richard van As
(South African). 3D-printed PLA, stainless-steel parts. Courtesy of
the designer.
Figure 3: Makerware Software Change Dimensions Menu
79 handle
78 beautiful users
BamBam Prosthetic Limb Prototypes, 2012. Designed by Nicholas
Richardson (American, b. 1984). Bamboo, canvas, plastic bottle, cotton
laces, metal components. Courtesy of the designer.
Nicholas Richardson designed his first prosthetic device
after breaking his thumb in a skiing accident in fourth
grade. He and his father hot-glued a Bic pen to a piece of
salvaged plastic packaging; the device slipped over his
index finger, allowing him to write. For his senior thesis
at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Richardson
designed a prosthetic arm. He learned that 80 percent of
all people with amputations live in developing countries,
where even used or outmoded prosthetics are expensive
and scarce—and usually don’t fit the people who need
them. Furthermore, they have to be custom-fitted and
refitted over the course of the patient’s life. Richardson
decided to create an adjustable device that would be
helpful to people with upper-body amputations living in
agricultural communities. He experimented with recycled
bottles and 3D printing before hitting on bamboo, a
material that is strong, light, cheap, and easy to grow
locally. Bamboo can be bent or shaped with basic
tools, such as a machete, a rudimentary steamer, and
sandpaper. Instead of trying to make a perfect hand that
can do everything, he designed an adjustable “locking
cuff” that connects to various tools, including a rake,
a broom, and a shovel. A canvas sleeve, reinforced
with bamboo ribs, secures the prosthetic to the user’s
stump. An artist in Providence, Rhode Island, has been
testing the device. She reports that BamBam is more
comfortable than traditional medical gear. Richardson is
now seeking funding to develop his system further.
CaSe StuDieS
80 beautiful users
LFC Case Story: Panna Lal Sahu. Courtesy
of GRIT.
mobility
Human-CentereD DeSign addresses the needs
of global populations and people with diverse
abilities. The freedom to move around one’s home
and community is key to achieving personal and
economic independence. Bicycles, wheelchairs,
and canes can transform uSerS’ lives and
livelihoods. Each conveyance, however, exists
within a broader system. Standard wheelchairs
require smooth roads, ramps, and elevators; they
can’t function on the rough terrain that users face
in many towns and landscapes around the world.
Bicycles can be difficult to park, store, or carry
indoors, creating problems for daily commuters.
Some people avoid using canes and walkers that
look like medical equipment; good design can
make assistive devices more appealing to users
by combining beauty and function. Advocates
of univerSal DeSign demand an improved
experience and broader access for as many users
as possible.
83 mobility
82 beautiful users
the chain-and-sprocket drive train of a standard bicycle
with two extended push levers to allow the user to move
up to 80 percent faster on flat ground and to produce
51 percent higher torque on rough terrain. Users shift
gears by moving their handhold along the length of the
levers. The levers can be removed and stored on the
frame of the chair, allowing it to be used comfortably
Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) Prime Prototype, 2012. Invented
by Amos Winter, Mario Bollini, Tish Scolnik, Benjamin Judge, Harrison
O’Hanley, Daniel Frey (MIT). Designed by Jake Childs and Jung Tak,
Continuum LLC (USA). Aluminum, 3D-printed plastic. Courtesy of
Continuum LLC.
Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC), 2013. Invented by Amos Winter,
Mario Bollini, Tish Scolnik, Benjamin Judge, Harrison O’Hanley, Daniel
Frey (MIT). Designed by Amos Winter, Mario Bollini, Benjamin Judge,
Harrison O’Hanley (GRIT). Manufactured for GRIT (USA) by Pinnacle
Industries (India). Mild steel, bicycle components. Courtesy of GRIT.
The Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) is designed to be
manufacturable, repairable, and rideable throughout
the world. Twenty million people around the globe need
wheelchairs but don’t have access to the ramps and
paved roads required by traditional push-rim chairs. The
LFC allows for off-road travel and uses human power
more efficiently than standard wheelchairs. It combines
indoors. The LFC was invented by Amos Winter and his
students at the MIT Mobility Lab; the team later founded
GRIT (Global Research Innovation and Technology).
The LFC shown here was produced at GRIT’s contract
manufacturer in India. It is currently being distributed
throughout India and other developing countries. The
design firm Continuum LLC improved the aesthetics of
Winter’s invention and developed the LFC Prime (above).
Building on the original’s core gear-and-lever technology,
the LFC Prime is a concept model for a high-performance
wheelchair. GRIT is working with wheelchair users in the
United States and building on this concept to develop a
fully functional product, expected to be on the market in
late 2014.
85 mobility
LFC Case Stories: Panna Lal Sahu and Ravi. Courtesy of GRIT.
Living in Jaipur, India, Panna Lal Sahu was run over by a
car, which damaged his spinal cord. After a year confined
to a bed, he received a standard folding wheelchair, but
he was unable to go outside without someone pushing the
chair. In January 2011, he got an LFC. Panna Lal reports,
“After my accident, I was bedridden for more than a year.
I lost my job and used to be upset most of the time. After
I got the LFC, I started going out on my own and started
feeling better. Now I ride my LFC five kilometers a day. I
meet and interact with people, which makes me feel good.
I am inspired and want to start working again.”
Before Ravi got his LFC in March 2013 at age fifteen, his
mobility was limited to his house. Living in Delhi, India,
he could never go outside by himself. His parents got him
crutches, but he was unable to use them. Now Ravi goes
out unaccompanied and engages with the children in
the neighborhood. Every day he spends four to six hours
outside his home. His parents say that he understands
and perceives things better now and is able to talk to
others easily. He is happier and more confident. His hands
have become stronger and his appetite has improved.
Ravi reports, “It is a lot of fun to ride the LFC. I go around
on my own, and I really like it. I go farther distances
with my brother, and we play a lot. I go to shops and buy
chocolates.”
87 mobility
STRiDA LT Bicycle and Logo Sketch, 1985–2009. Designed by Mark
Sanders (British, b. 1958). Manufactured by Ming Cycle (Taiwan).
Aluminum, plastic. Courtesy of Ming Cycle.
After studying and working in mechanical engineering,
Mark Sanders sought to create a product that brings
aesthetics and humanity to innovative engineering. In
1985, he designed the STRiDA bicycle for his industrial
design thesis project at the Royal College of Art, in
London. The STRiDA can be folded in less than ten
seconds and is easy to move in its folded state—like a
“rolling umbrella.” The striking triangular profile enables
users with a wide range of heights, from taller than six
foot four inches down to five foot three inches or shorter,
to ride the same model of bicycle. Sanders established
MAS Design Products to manufacture the STRiDA. He
later sold the design to Ming Cycle in Taiwan, which now
distributes the bike worldwide.
89 mobility
88 beautiful users
Adjustable,
ergonomic
cardboard
seat
Weight:
Less than
27 lbs
(12 kg)
Parts made
from recycled
plastic
bottles
Frame, wheels,
handlebars, and
seat made from
cardboard
Maximum load:
275 lbs
(125 kg)
Suitable for riders
with heights
5–6.2 ft
(155–190cm)
Flat-proof rubber tires
Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni has used the principles of
origami—which builds strength into paper by folding
it—to create a strong, durable bicycle from cardboard.
The finished bike, which is sealed with glue and varnish,
holds up to 500 pounds. After building an initial working
prototype that looked like a “package on wheels,” Gafni
went on to produce a version that looks more like a
typical bicycle. The resulting bike could retail for about
$60; Gafni and his business partner Nimrod Elmish are
developing plans for further reducing the cost, including
on-bike advertising and green manufacturing subsidies.
Izhar Cardboard Bike, 2013. Designed by Izhar
Gafni (Israeli, b. 1962). Manufactured by I.G.
Cardboard Technologies (Israel). Cardboard, glue,
varnish, recycled rubber. Courtesy of the designer.
Waterproof and
fireproof
91 mobility
90 beautiful users
No Country for Old Men: Together Canes, 2012. Designed and
produced by Francesca Lanzavecchia (Italian, b. 1984) and Hunn
Wai (British, b. 1980), Lanzavecchia + Wai (Italy). Maple, lacquered
MDF. Courtesy of the designers. Photography: Davide Farabegoli
(this spread and the following spread).
Many people avoid using canes and walkers because
they look like medical equipment. These prototypes are
designed to be elements of domestic life, supporting
rich social and mental activities while encouraging safe
mobility. The T-Cane helps users serve tea and snacks.
The U-Cane holds books, magazines, and supplies for
knitting and crafting. The I-Cane doubles as an iPad stand.
93 mobility
92 beautiful users
CaSe StuDieS
94 beautiful users
Design for Acratherm Gauge, 1943. Designed
by Henry Dreyfuss (American, 1904–72), Henry
Dreyfuss & Associates (USA). Rendered by
Roland Stickney (American, 1892–1975). Brush
and gouache on illustration board. Collection
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum,
gift of Honeywell Inc., 1997-10-6. Photography:
Matt Flynn.
interface
Many contemporary products feature integrated
hardware and software. An interfaCe is a mix of
inputs and outputs, signals and gestures, that allow
humans and devices to communicate via sight,
sound, touch, and even smell. As smart products
begin to emulate human behavior, some people
respond to them with emotions of attachment,
trust, or empathy.
Henry Dreyfuss’s Honeywell Round
thermostat, which replaced earlier box-shaped
models, operates with a simple turn of the outer
ring. Recent products like the Nest Learning
Thermostat and the August Smart Lock combine
advanced digital technology with simple forms to
merge seamlessly with daily activity. Such products
belong to the broader fields of interaCtion DeSign
and experienCe DeSign, which consider the full
narrative of a uSer’s engagement with a product or
offering.
97 interface
96 beautiful users
T86 Round Thermostat, 1953 (opposite page). Designed by Henry
Dreyfuss (American, 1904–72), Henry Dreyfuss & Associates
(USA). Manufactured by Honeywell Inc. (USA). Metal, molded
plastic. Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum,
gift of Honeywell Inc., 1994-37-1. Photography: Hiro Ihara.
Designs for Regulator, 1949. Designed by Henry Dreyfuss (American,
1904–72), Henry Dreyfuss & Associates (USA). Rendered by Roland
Stickney (American, 1892–1975). Brush, gouache, and ink on illustration
board. Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of
Honeywell Inc., 1997-10-15, 1997-10-18. Photography: Matt Flynn.
Henry Dreyfuss began designing the Honeywell Round
Thermostat in 1943. He observed that rectangular
thermostats often sit crooked on the wall; a round
device would be easier to install properly. The numerous
drawings leading up to the completed product reveal
Dreyfuss’s attention to user interaction; some designs
incorporate a clock face. The Honeywell Round, released
in 1953, is remarkably simple. Temperature adjusts with
a twist of the dial. Some models allow users to intuitively
compare the set temperature and the room temperature.
The product also invited customization: users could
remove the protective cover and paint the device to
match the room. The Honeywell Round remains one of the
world’s most commonly used thermostats.
99 interface
Nest Learning Thermostat, Second Generation, 2012. Designed by
Tony Fadell (American, b. 1969). Manufactured by Nest (USA). Glass,
metal, electronic components. Courtesy of Nest Labs, Inc.
Two Preparatory Drawings for Nest Learning Thermostat: Proposed Design
for Minimizing Motion Sensor Window and Cross Section of Wire to Board
Connector, 2011. Designed by John Benjamin Filson (American, b. 1977) for
Nest Labs, Inc. (USA). Pen and black ink on cream paper (2014-9-8). Pen and
orange, green, red, and black ink, and graphite on cream paper (2014-9-5).
Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of Nest Labs,
Inc., 2014-9-8, 2014-9-5. Photography: Matt Flynn.
98 beautiful users
The Nest Learning Thermostat brings advanced
interaction design to a basic home device. The rotating
interface recalls the classic design of Henry Dreyfuss’s
Honeywell Round. Turning the outer ring raises or lowers
the temperature. The illuminated screen responds to
motion in the room; the sensors signal Nest to adjust
the temperature when people enter or leave the room.
Pushing the ring activates a menu of additional options,
from programming the device to switching from heating
to cooling. Smartphone apps allow users to program the
thermostat remotely and to track energy use over time.
The preparatory drawings reveal the task of integrating
complex components into a unit that sits seamlessly
against the wall.
Preparatory Drawing for Nest Learning Thermostat: Proposed
Design for Integration of Back Plate into Head Unit (detail),
2011. Designed by Eric Daniels (American, born Germany, 1974)
for Nest Labs, Inc. (USA). Pen and blue ink on white lined paper.
Collection Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of
Nest Labs, Inc., 2014-9-2. Photography: Matt Flynn.
101 interface
100 beautiful users
August Smart Lock Concept and Interface Drawings, 2013.
Designed by Yves Béhar (Swiss, b. 1967), fuseproject (USA).
Courtesy of the designer.
The August Smart Lock is an app-enabled device that fits
over an existing single-cylinder dead bolt. The app allows
the system owner to distribute virtual keys to guests,
family members, service people, and others. The system
owner can create keys with automatic expiration dates
and disable keys at any time. The August Smart Lock
recognizes key holders when their smartphone is in range
of the lock. Whereas physical keys can be duplicated and
distributed without the owner’s knowledge, an August
lock allows the owner to track who has access to a
property and when someone has entered or departed.
Users can still employ physical keys when needed. The
sketch above, by designer Yves Béhar, shows early
concept development for the product, diagramming the
idea of a system that connects a physical product with
apps and data. The sketch also includes ideas for the
product’s name and raises questions about potential
problems and opportunities (sustainability and stickiness,
commoditization of hardware, supply-chain complexity).
As the design process moved forward, the interface
became as important as the physical device.
The storyboard above shows how users will interact with
the product on their smartphone. In the scenario shown
here, the homeowner has multiple August locks, including
his front and back doors, and on his gun closet. He is
giving electronic keys to a circle of guests—from out-oftown visitors to dog walkers—and he can grant each a
different level of access.
102 beautiful users
August Smart Lock, 2013. Designed by Yves Béhar (Swiss, b. 1967),
fuseproject (USA). Manufactured by August (USA). Metal, glass,
electronic components. Courtesy of the designer.
The design team produced numerous prototypes of the
August Smart Lock as well as the colors and patterns
employed in the product and app interfaces.
103 interface
105 interface
104 beautiful users
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e
pp
an
tra
the
DOCKED
First cleaning
Advanced Features
Anticipation
Infatuation
Excitement
Fascination
Faith
Admiration
Hope
Trust
Vigilance
Nurture
Observation
Pride
Surprise
Disillusionment
Inquisitiveness
Apprehension
Delight
Disappointment
Respect
Frustration
Compassion
MOVING
PICKED UP
OUT OF BOX
SCHEDULE
RESET
Neato smiles when encountering
a person.
or
Advanced Features
Routine use
Contentment
Collaboration
Detachment
Communication
Tolerance
Resignation
Users will engage with a robotic
vacuum cleaner with different
parts of their body depending on
the distance and situation: hands,
feet, eyes, and ears.
ISSUE:
roll misfeed
roll depleted
610
fe
e
low battery
unit trapped
lost (can’t locate base)
t
ENCOUNTER:
sees person
4-6
fee
t
strip detect
bump
dirt detect
2 -4
feet
0-2 feet
When Smart Design set out to create the Neato Robotics
Automatic Vacuum Cleaner, the firm began with research,
observation, and analysis. How do people interact with
existing robotic vacuums, such as the popular Roomba?
Carla Diana and Smart’s design team visited the homes
of Roomba users. The team learned that users express
both amazement and disgust at the debris collected
by the machine. Users want to activate the machine
with their foot instead of bending over, and they want
to avoid touching dirt. People often handle their robots
gently, like a pet. Additional research revealed that users
often give their robots names, seeing them as a bit more
than machines. They forgive the device’s occasional
clumsiness as quirks of individuality. A user’s first contact
ry
po
irt
gd
tyin
p
em
Out of the box
ce
an
se
ca
cle
with the machine (opening the package and learning to
operate the device) can be an exciting point of discovery;
but as the product is put to use, the relationship grows
more distant. Before long, users expect their robot to
serve as a dependable, familiar support to daily living. An
interface can be designed to adapt over time in dialogue
with the user.
b
e
att
rm
rfo
pe
Neato Robotics Automatic Vacuum Cleaner Interface Research
and Prototype, 2013. Designed by Smart Design (USA).
Manufactured by Neato (USA). Acrylic, polycarbonate, electrical
components (prototype); plastic, electrical components (finished
product). Courtesy of the designers.
dy
om
on
se
e
ba butt
ov
the the
it m
g
up
ing
g
ing ushin
tch
g ctin sett
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107 interface
106 beautiful users
Neato Robotics Automatic Vacuum Cleaner Interface Prototype,
2013. Designed by Smart Design (USA). Acrylic, polycarbonate,
electrical components (prototype); plastic, electrical components
(finished product). Manufactured by Neato (USA). Courtesy of the
designers.
People want their robots to communicate clearly. To
create the interface for the Neato Vacuum Cleaner,
Smart’s design team devised a vocabulary of icons,
sounds, and text to signal the various states of Neato’s
operation, ranging from wake-up and sleep tones to
utilitarian warnings and alerts. To avoid fatiguing users,
the interface employs full tones and melodies sparingly.
Neato makes a unique sound when it encounters a person
or gets trapped or lost from the base unit; each sound
implies a subtle emotion or attitude. Early prototypes
for Neato feature large-scale LED graphics that glow
through the plastic skin, an innovative display concept
that informed the current version of the product and
serves as a vision for future designs.
109 interface
108 beautiful users
Design for Body Scan, 2014. Interactive media concept, design,
and production by Local Projects. Commissioned by Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum. Digital renderings. Courtesy of the
designers.
People experience design in relation to their own bodies.
The things and spaces we use are extensions of our
proportions, perceptions, abilities, and limitations.
Designed by Local Projects, this interactive experience
invites visitors to see their silhouette in relation to images
sampled from Cooper Hewitt’s historic collection. Since the
Renaissance, designers have conceived of cities, buildings,
and even letterforms in relation to idealized human
proportions. In the twentieth century, Henry Dreyfuss,
Niels Diffrient, and others embraced the diversity of
human scale and launched a new approach to “designing
for people.”
D
Godtfred K. Christiansen
US Pat. 3597875 / Aug. 10, 1971
Artur Fischer
US Pat. 3464147 / Sep. 19, 1966
uplo
Joel Glickman & M. Doepner
US Pat. 5061219 / Dec. 11, 1990
®
Krin
Lego
®
l
®
Logs ertoy
n
l
eToo oob
o
k
c
m
n
n
o
i
i
L
T
Z
Z
Walter Heubl
US Pat. 3603025 / Sep. 30, 1968
Godtfred K. Christiansen
US Pat. 3005282 / Jul. 28, 1958
John Lloyd Wright
US Pat. 1351086 / Jan.8, 1920
®
kles
®
Charles H. Pajeau
US Pat. 1113371 / Jul. 8, 1914
CaSe StuDieS
110 beautiful users
®
nik
tech ex®
r
e
h
Fisc
K’N
®
®
Steven Rogers & P. Hildebrandt
US Pat. 6840699 / Nov. 1, 2002*
Michael J. Grey
US Pat. 5897417 / Dec. 11, 1996*
uck-00f01m
uck-00f03m
uck-00f04m
plo
uck-00f06m
uck-00f07m
uck-00f08m
®
uck-00f09m
Fis
che
(Fischertechnik to
Fischertechnik)
rte
chn
ik
®
uck-01f06m
uck-01f00m
uck-01f03m
uck-01f04m
uck-01f05m
uck-01f07m
uck-01f08m
uck-01f09m
G
G ear
Ge ears! s!
ars
!
®
uck-02f00m
uck-02f01m
uck-02f03m
uck-02f04m
uck-02f05m
uck-02f06m
uck-02f07m
uck-02f08m
uck-02f09m
K’N
ex
(K’Nex to K’Nex)
uck-03f00m
uck-03f04m
uck-03f01m
uck-03f05m
uck-03f08m
uck-03f06m
®
uck-03f09m
uck-03f07m
Kri
nk
(Krinkles to Krinkles)
uck-04f00m
uck-04f01m
uck-04f05m
uck-04f03m
uck-04f08m
uck-04f06m
Leg
o
(Lego to Lego)
uck-05f03m
uck-05f04m
uck-05f06m
uck-05f07m
uck-05f08m
Lin
uck-06f01m
uck-06f03m
uck-06f04m
uck-06f05m
col
uck-06f07m
uck-06f08m
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uck-07f05m
og
s
®
Tin
ker
t
oy
uck-07f08m
®
uck-07f09m
uck-07f06m
Zo
me
(ZomeTool to
ZomeTool)
uck-08f01m
nL
uck-06f09m
(Tinkertoy to
Tinkertoy)
uck-07f00m
®
uck-05f09m
(Lincoln Logs to
Lincoln Logs)
uck-06f00m
®
uck-04f09m
uck-04f07m
(Lego to Duplo
already supported
by manufacturer)
uck-05f01m
les
In a world of complex hi-tech products, some
uSers seek to expose the covert workings of
manufactured things. open-SourCe DeSign
builds on the open-source software movement,
which invites multiple authors to write and
test code. Personal 3D printing technologies
are moving design and manufacturing into the
hands of users, allowing makerS to create (and
share) digital files for producing physical objects.
HaCking, associated with penetrating the secrets
of software, has extended its conquest to the
world of physical things. Users are taking apart
and reassembling consumer products, treating
the world of manufactured goods as a kit of parts
to be reworked and rewritten.
uck-08f03m
uck-08f04m
uck-08f05m
uck-08f06m
uck-08f07m
Too
l
®
uck-08f09m
uck-08f00m
(Zoob to Zoob)
uck-09f01m
uck-09f03m
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uck-09f05m
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uck-09f07m
Zo
ob
®
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The Free Universal Construction Kit is licensed under and subject to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the Kit, and to remix and/or adapt the Kit; in doing so, you must attribute the Kit to “F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab”. Please note
that extensions to the Kit require the same or similar license. You may not use the Kit for commercial purposes. For inquiries, please contact info@adapterz.org.
Lego®, Duplo®, Fischertechnik®, Gears! Gears! Gears!®, K’Nex®, Krinkles®, Bristle Blocks®, Lincoln Logs®, Tinkertoys®, Zome®, ZomeTool® and Zoob®
are trademarks of their respective owners. The Free Universal Construction Kit is not associated or affiliated with, or endorsed, sponsored, certified or approved by, any of
the foregoing owners or their respective products. The Kit is represented, for legal purposes, by Adapterz, LLC.
Two construction playsets nominally supported by the Kit are still
*protected
(as of March 2012) by active patents: Zoob (patented 1996)
and ZomeTool (patented 2002). For the Zoob and Zome systems,
please note that we have delayed the release of adapter
models until December 2016 and November 2022, respectively.
Free Universal Construction Kit Poster (detail), 2012. Designed
by Golan Levin (American, b. 1972) and Shawn Sims (American,
b. 1986). Released by Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab and
Synaptic Lab (USA). Courtesy of the designers.
revenge of the user
Du
(Lego to Duplo
already supported
by manufacturer)
(Duplo to Duplo)
113 revenge of the user
112 beautiful users
Free Universal Construction Kit, 2012. Designed by Golan
Levin (American, b. 1972) and Shawn Sims American, b. 1986).
Released by Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab and Synaptic Lab
(USA). 3D-printed connectors, various construction toys. Courtesy
of the designers.
Confronting questions about intellectual property,
open-source culture, and reverse engineering, the Free
Universal Construction Kit consists of nearly eighty
two-way adapter bricks that enable connections among
ten popular children’s construction toys. Users can
download the files from various sharing sites and print
them on a MakerBot or other personal manufacturing
device. The Kit demonstrates “reverse engineering as
a civic activity: a creative process in which anyone can
develop the necessary pieces to bridge the limitations
presented by mass-produced commercial artifacts.” The
designers scanned existing toy components with an optical
comparator that is accurate down to one ten-thousandth of
an inch (0.0001 inches, or 2.54 microns), allowing them to
create precise fits between components. Golan Levin and
Shawn Sims conceived the Kit and released it through
the Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab and Synaptic
Lab collectives. It was developed with support from the
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie
Mellon University and is represented, for legal purposes,
by Adapterz, LLC.
115 revenge of the user
114 beautiful users
C.
F.
G.
I.
B.
H.
A.
J.
L.
E.
D.
H.
K.
A. Rear Panel - Laser Cut
OpenStrucutres Compatible
thingiverse.com/thing:29923
B. Rear Wheel Support - CNC Milled
OpenStructures Compatible
thingiverse.com/thing:25979
C. Front Wheel Support - CNC Milled
Openstructures Compatible
thingiverse.com/thing:25798
D. Switch Cover - 3D Printed
OpenStructures Compatible
thingiverse.com/thing:25081
Jesse Howard designs his open-source Transparent Tools
from standard wheel assemblies, repurposed motors,
3D-printed parts, and glass and plastic containers so that
users can, in principle, make their own. The 3D-printed
parts are designed for OpenStructures (OS), a library
of universal, modular elements founded by designer
Thomas Lommée. OS promotes open-source building
and manufacturing; anyone can contribute parts to the
system. The canister for Howard’s Improvised Vacuum
comes from a plastic thermos; the motor was salvaged
from a broken vacuum. The instructions for building the
vacuum include web addresses and part numbers, inviting
users to become makers.
E. Chamber Divider - CNC Milled
12mm Multiplex
thingiverse.com/thing:25805
F. Hose Adaptor - 3D Printed
OpenStructures Compatible
thingiverse.com/thing:25802
G. Plastic Thermos Cover
Improvised solution
160mm diameter
H. Plastic Thermos End Caps
Improvised solution
I. AC Motor
Recouperated
from Bosch BSG62023 or similar
J. Toggle Switch
Standard Component
rs-online.com / item# 251-9253
K. Wheels and Axle
Standard Component
L. 35mm Swivel Wheel
Standard Component
Transparent Tool: Improvised Vacuum with Tube and Brush, 2012.
Designed and produced by Jesse Howard (American, b. 1978). Plastic,
wood, 3D-printed components, electrical components. Courtesy of
the designer.
Improvised
Vacuum
117 revenge of the user
116 beautiful users
FROSTA Z
Redesign by
Andreas Bhend
2x
8x
242.862.05
2x
5x
2
24x
3
24x
5
1
24x
}
+
Frosta Z Coat Rack, 2012. Designed and produced by Andreas Bhend
(German, b. 1989). Two IKEA Frosta stools (birch plywood, hardware).
Courtesy of the designer.
+
5
82 cm
137 cm
152 cm
5x
109 cm
3
126 cm
163 cm
7.5
1x
IKEA hackers repurpose existing components into
new and surprising objects, approaching the Swedish
furniture giant’s repertoire of goods as an open catalog of
parts and pieces. IKEA’s manufacturing strategy already
mobilizes the labor of users, exploiting flat-pack design
solutions to reduce the cost of assembling, shipping, and
storing finished products. Andreas Bhend designed this
coat rack with parts from IKEA’s Frosta stool. (Frosta is
a four-legged version of Alvar Aalto’s classic Stool 60,
1933, which has three legs). Bhend publishes his IKEAbased instructions online to encourage other users to
implement his hacks and invent their own.
4
8 cm
119 revenge of the user
118 beautiful users
Design for Roomba Cam, 2014. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
(USA). Digital renderings. Courtesy of the designers.
Subverting the Roomba’s role as an obliging domestic
robot, Diller Scofidio + Renfro have repurposed the
popular household gadget to operate as an autonomous
surveillance agent. Augmented with video recording
capabilities, two Roomba spies patrol the Cooper
Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s premises after
visitor hours. Video documentation captures chance
encounters with other roaming devices and museum
staff. Building on Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s larger body of
work investigating the role of surveillance technologies in
architecture, the Roomba Cam provides commentary on
our utopian visions of household automation.
121 revenge of the user
120 beautiful users
protest
conception
solar energy
guerrilla gardening
hackathon
latrine
Gangnam style
search-and-rescue team
sustainable energy
break dancing
global warming
With icons ranging from “global warming” and “sustainable
energy” to “break dancing” and “Gangnam style,” the Noun
Project enables anything to be communicated visually. It
accepts submissions from users, and its various licensing
agreements allow icons to be used for free with proper
attribution or, alternatively, without attribution for a
small fee. The revenue is then shared with the designer.
FuckingCity; Gangnam Style, by Arjun Mahanti. This page,
tattoo in Pretoria, South Africa. Courtesy of the Noun Project.
Founded in 2011 by Edward Boatman, Sofya Polyakov, and
Scott Thomas, the Noun Project is an online platform that
uses crowdsourcing to build a pictorial language everyone
can understand. Building on the belief that simple graphics
enable communication among diverse global communities,
thenounproject.com has become a vast dictionary of
graphic icons. These are not your grandpa’s toilet signs.
The Noun Project. Founded 2011 (USA). Opposite page: Abduction,
by OCHA Visual Information Unit; Protest, Guerrilla Gardening,
Hackathon, Latrine, Search-and-Rescue Team, and Sustainable
Energy, by Iconathon; Break Dancing, by Marcel LeShell Cornett;
Conception and Global Warming, by Luis Prado; Solar Energy, by Trento
abduction
The platform supports creative producers by offering
a channel for sharing and profiting from their work. The
Noun Project icons are widely used in editorial design,
interface design, signage, posters, and information
graphics. They build on a long tradition of pictograms
created for public education.
123 revenge of the user
122 beautiful users
MaKey MaKey, 2012. Designed by Jay Silver (American, b. 1979) and
Eric Rosenbaum (American, b. 1979). Manufactured by JoyLabz (USA).
Circuit board, laptop, the everyday world (the design is only complete
when combined with a user-supplied physical object and an everyday
computer program or webpage). Courtesy of the designers.
MaKey MaKey allows users to connect a simple circuit
board with any conductive object—including PlayDoh,
metal kitchen utensils, fresh fruit, and graphite pencil
drawings. When a human being grounds the current and
completes the circuit, these everyday objects take the
place of a mouse, arrow keys, or any key on a keyboard.
Conceived by two researchers at MIT Media Lab, MaKey
MaKey enables people with minimal technical skill to
experiment with physical computing and to see the whole
world as a construction kit. It allows users to change an
object’s given function and make it do something else.
Working with any software on any computer, MaKey
MaKey shows users that technology is a flexible thing
that anyone can shape and control.
125 revenge of the user
124 beautiful users
STRVCT Shoes, 2012–13. Designed by Mary Huang (Chinese,
b. 1986) and Jenna Fizel (American, b. 1986), Continuum Fashion
(USA). 3D-printed nylon with patent-leather insole and synthetic
rubber coating. Courtesy of the designers.
CONSTRVCT Software and Printed Fabric, 2013. Designed by
Mary Huang (Chinese, b. 1986) and Jenna Fizel (American, b. 1986),
Continuum Fashion (USA). Software, digitally printed cotton jersey.
Courtesy of the designers.
CONSTRVCT is a digital platform for making and
sharing fashion designs. Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel
set out to create a set of 3D tools that users can easily
access online. Combining techniques from architecture,
animation, and industrial design, the software maps a 3D
model of a garment onto fabric to be cut and sewn. The
user selects an image or repeating pattern that maps
onto the fabric; the resulting print serves as both sewing
pattern and printed textile. Digital textile printing is
relatively eco-friendly, because most of the dye locks into
the fabric and so does not enter into wastewater. To use
CONSTRVCT’s complete set of e-commerce features,
visit continuumfashion.com and create a user account.
The STRVCT collection of fantasy-inspired 3D-printed
shoes explores the potential of 3D printing to
create designed objects custom-fitted to the user’s
measurements. 3D-printed nylon can produce forms
that are delicate in appearance, light in weight, and
remarkably strong. Built from a network of triangulated
segments, the transparent pump recalls Cinderella’s
glass slipper—a magical, materials-defying object that
only she could wear. The Daphne series (above) refers
to a lovely nymph who, according to Greek mythology,
turned into a laurel tree in order to escape the predatory
advances of the god Apollo. The shoes’ patent-leather
inner sole and synthetic rubber coating on the bottom
surface make them wearable.
127 revenge of the user
126 beautiful users
Aros Window Air Conditioner, 2014. Designed by Quirky (USA).
Invented by Dr. Garthen Leslie (American, b. 1951). Manufactured by
Quirky and GE (USA). ABS plastic, powder-coated steel, waterproof
PVC-backed woven nylon fabric, internal components. Courtesy of
Quirky.
The Aros Window Air Conditioner is an app-enabled
appliance developed by Quirky and GE. The concept
originated with Dr. Garthen Leslie, a former Department
of Energy executive who believed that window air
conditioners could be controlled more efficiently. The
unit is operated with Wink, a proprietary app that
communicates with Quirky’s growing family of Wi-Fi-
connected gadgets and appliances, including a smart
power cord that builds on Quirky’s signature line of Pivot
Power Flexible Surge Protectors, invented by Jake Zien.
Quirky designs and produces odd and innovative products
by inviting the public to submit and evaluate ideas.
Members of the Quirky community vote on the concepts
submitted by inventors. At meetings held online and
in person in Quirky’s New York City office, community
members help improve other inventors’ ideas. Quirky’s
designers, engineers, and marketing experts make these
crowd-generated ideas real through an intensive cycle
of design and prototyping. Every member of the public
who contributes to the process receives a royalty when
a product is produced. Quirky’s process is remarkable
not only for its crowdsourcing methodology but also for
the speed with which it brings products to market. Each
week, the company receives about two thousand ideas
and greenlights three or four for further development;
each week, around three new Quirky products are ready
for sale, through its website and through retailers such as
Target, Home Depot, Amazon, and Bed Bath & Beyond.
company A
designs the joints
customer F
put everything together
designer B
designs a component
mister E
designs the connections
architect C
designs the frame
miss D
designs another component
The figure of the user has evolved
since the late nineteenth century, when
the industrial revolution began bringing
design into countless modern households,
enabling mass production to abet mass
consumption. The social movements
prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s sprang
up in part to critique the standardization
of commodity culture, whereas the 1990s
saw rising interest in CuStomization and a
preoccupation with individual expression,
fostering new types of creative agency.
The reforms and uprisings of the
past century laid the groundwork for
design’s current frameworks of public
partiCipation, including HaCking, open
systems, and networks. Historical markers
like these confront the ways we continue
to revise and construct the category of the
user, who remains a critical component in
the endlessly shifting parameters of design.
Regardless of the varying objectives
and circumstances that frame
contemporary design practices, there is
renewed concern today for collaboration
and collective action around shared
OpenStructures (OS) Diagram, 2009. Designed
by Thomas Lommée (Belgian, b. 1979). Courtesy
of the designer.
ideas that facilitate design experiences.
Focusing on the trajectory of the user in
design discourse, the following glossary
looks at how people have engaged in the
design process and what languages have
served to describe this process. It compiles
a selection of common terms, each with its
own history and meaning, in order to map
the critical terrain of design’s vocabulary.
Design terminology leaves a time
stamp on a continually developing field.
The words designers use illuminate the
intentions and results of their practice.
Exploring the roots of this vocabulary
can serve as a starting point or reference
tool for users and designers to formulate,
challenge, enhance, and compare their
respective views and assumptions,
prompting new ways to conceive the
relationships among objects and humans.
Designers—despite the shifting beats of
history—can mediate broader cultural
and social experiences, going well beyond
considerations of aesthetics to explore
and transform systems of power, feedback,
and communication.
users speak
People spark objects to life. uSerS, no longer
hidden in plain sight, are increasingly dynamic
agents, taking on new roles as contributors and
producers themselves. As indicated by the rising
interest in self-publishing, 3D printing, and
personal manufacturing, users have transformed
from passive recipients into proactive makers.
gloSSary
Tiffany Lambert
Affordance Environmental psychologist
James J. Gibson coined this term to name
features of the environment that present
living creatures with opportunities for action.
He wrote in 1979, “The verb to afford is in the
dictionary, but the noun afforDanCe is not. I
have made it up. I mean by it something that
refers to both the animal and the environment
in a way that no existing term does” (127).
afforDanCeS occur when creatures transform
sense data into conditions for potential
action. A rigid horizontal surface afforDS
support, becoming a ground or floor to walk
on. The value of an afforDanCe is always
relative to the creature perceiving it. A surface
capable of supporting a water bug is quite
different from a surface that could support
131 users speak
130 beautiful users
Adhocracy The term was coined in 1970 by
Alvin Toffler in his best-selling book Future
Shock. An adaptable and flexible alternative
to bureaucratic organization, aDHoCraCy
responds to change quickly by embracing
spontaneity and stays open to new ideas in a
world of technological upheaval. Applied to
design, the word refers to design processes
that are open to a broader common, rather
than conducted according to the top-down
methods typical of star designers. aDHoCraCy
embraces people and networks and deletes
the signature, challenging established
hierarchies between designers and uSerS.
The exhibition Adhocracy, held at the
inaugural Istanbul Design Biennial (2012)
and subsequently shown at the New Museum
in New York (2013), was organized by former
Domus magazine editor Joseph Grima; the
project celebrated “imperfection as evidence
of an emerging force of identity, individuality,
and nonlinearity in design.” By definition,
aDHoCraCy is malleable and therefore well
suited to confront complex problems of the
turbulent environments that design so often
seeks to address. The intended outcome is
generally rapid innovation.
an elephant. According to Harry Heft, some
afforDanCeS are learned rather than innate
(a telephone can be dialed or a keyboard
can be typed). Understanding afforDanCeS
is central to the design of interfaCeS,
interaCtionS, and experienCeS.
Anthropometry Measuring various attributes
of the human body has its roots in statistical
science. In 1891, Sir Francis Galton—a cousin
of Charles Darwin and the researcher who
gave eugenics its name—opened a laboratory
in London where “visitors could be measured
for height, weight, span, breath power,
quickness of blow, seeing, hearing, and colour
sense,” among other physical attributes.
Designers would later adopt antHropometry
to better understand the uSerS of their objects
and better fit them to the human body
while increasing the efficiency of the design
and production processes. The early study of
antHropometry would seed the later fields
of ergonomiCS and Human faCtorS.
Authorship Early views of design
autHorSHip cast designers in the mold of
independent creators. We rarely acknowledge
the many individuals who helped develop
the numerous products created by George
Nelson’s office or the teams that contributed
to the collaborative agenda of Ray and
Charles Eames. Critiques of autHorSHip
include Roland Barthes’s 1967 essay “The
Death of the Author,” which sought to unseat
the creator as the sole legislator of a work’s
significance. Barthes argues that the reader
has replaced the author as a site for producing
meaning. Adam Richardson’s 1993 essay
“The Death of the Designer” builds on
Barthes’s ideas, offering a critique of product
semantics, or the ways in which visible
features of products communicate meaning to
uSerS. Today, CrowDSourCing, Co-DeSign,
and multidisciplinary design teams represent
new processes of autHorSHip.
Bricolage, Bricoleur The French word
translates as “Do-it-yourSelf” in English;
its contemporary meaning was introduced in
1927. Earlier definitions hint at creating from
scratch, as in “to fix something ingeniously”
(1849). In The Savage Mind (1962), Claude
Lévi-Strauss defines briColage as reusing
readily available materials to solve new
problems. Lévi-Strauss was contrasting the
briColeur with the engineer at a time when
designers and architects were looking for
alternatives to modernism’s focus on function
in order to favor freedom and improvisation.
Writing about the term in Candide Journal for
Architectural Knowledge in 2011, critic Irénée
Scalbert notes: “Being at once designer,
builder, and uSer, the briColeur is central to
the process of making things” and is a person
who “rebuilds his set of tools and materials
by using the debris of previous events, the
odds and ends left behind by other ventures.”
Similar ideas are found in photographer
Richard Wentworth’s ongoing series Making
Do and Getting By, which inspired IDEO’s
Jane Fulton Suri to document provisional,
intuitive interventions by everyday people in
her influential book Thoughtless Acts? (2005).
Co-Creation, Co-Design With strong ties to
management and organizational theories, this
method of cooperative production counts on
designers and marketers to devise solutions
based on uSer input. Design consulting
agencies including Frog Design and Smart
Design regularly employ this method of
working through problems by combining the
expert knowledge of trained designers and
researchers with the local knowledge of end
uSerS. Although the term Co-DeSign invokes
utopian, grassroots ambitions, it has become
associated with the fusion of business and
design. Fast Company’s website Co.Design
adopted the term in June 2010 to highlight
the intersection of “business + innovation +
design.”
Consumer Celebrated during the surge
of mass production and the birth of the
industrial design profession during the 1920s,
the term ConSumer now carries a negative
connotation linked to overconsumption
and passivity. Cultural critic Raymond
Williams traced the historical rise in the use
and purchase of goods in the etymology of
the word. His book Keywords: A Vocabulary
of Culture and Society states, “In almost all
its early English uses, ConSume had an
unfavourable sense; it meant to destroy, to
use up, to waste, to exhaust. It was from the
middle eighteenth century that ConSumer
began to emerge in a neutral sense in
descriptions of bourgeois political economy,
and it was really only in the mid-twentieth
century that the word passed from specialized
use to popular use.”
Crowd Funding, Crowdsourcing Explored
in 2006 by Jeff Howe, an editor at Wired
magazine, CrowDSourCing invites a large
network of volunteers to take part in or
complete a task. The underlying principle that
innovation comes from unexpected places
predates Howe’s article, however, as many
European governments from the sixteenth
century onward offered prizes through an
open call for the best solutions to various feats
(usually in engineering). Wikipedia, Amazon
uSer reviews, Ebay, Twitter, and Facebook
couldn’t exist without the contributions of
crowds of people. The notion, which usually
involves some mutual benefit, evolved into the
related idea of CrowD funDing, with websites
such as Kickstarter.
Customer The word CuStomer has been
used since the fifteenth century to describe
a person with a regular relationship to a
store or supplier, whereas a ConSumer has a
more abstract relationship to a marketplace.
CuStomer declined in popularity as
ConSumer ascended. In part to combat
Customization In use since 1934, the verb
to customize means to make something to a
particular uSer’s specifications. Prior to the
Industrial Revolution, CuStomization was the
norm (although it was not named as such).
Mass production turned out standardized,
low-cost products in high volume, which at
the time yielded positive associations with
efficiency, hygiene, and modernity. In the
1960s and 1970s, radical designers created
modular product systems that could be
personalized and adjusted by the end uSer.
CuStomization peaked in the early 2000s
with services such as NikeID, which allows
people to select various colors and materials
for their sneakers. Today, greater access to
production tools, such as 3D printers, is taking
CuStomization to another level, shifting the
economies of scale by returning the methods
of production to the designer or uSer.
Although early forms of 3D printing have been
used by industry since the late 1980s (also
called “additive manufacturing technologies,”
which build prototypes from layers of
material), these techniques were until recently
too expensive for individuals to access for
personal use.
Democratization Design discourse has begun
adopting the term DemoCratization to refer
to objects or systems that appear to bring
people more choices and broader access.
Experts on democratic theory, however, agree
that a true democracy appoints appropriate
decision makers rather than giving equal
133 users speak
132 beautiful users
ConSumerS’ ennui of passive consumption,
the final decades of the twentieth century saw
a sharp rise in uSer partiCipation, promoted
by newly established corporate consultancies
such as IDEO. uSer input became standard
practice in conjunction with the rise of
design management, which brought together
researchers, psychologists, anthropologists,
designers, and uSer participants.
weight to everyone’s singular decisions. Often,
when uSerS are invited to partake in the
design process, the choices available are set
by designers and manufacturers. The rhetoric
surrounding terms like DemoCratization
and partiCipation implies that their
application inherently benefits the common
good. Writing in 1970, Carole Pateman, a
British political theorist and feminist, gave
this impression: “During the last few years of
the 1960s, the word ‘partiCipation’ became
part of the popular vocabulary....It is rather
ironical that the idea of partiCipation
should have become so popular, for among
political theorists and political sociologists
the widely accepted theory of democracy
(so widely accepted that one might call it
the orthodox doctrine) is one in which the
concept of participation has only the most
minimal role.” Supporters of partiCipation
note that although the status of the elite
practitioner may be eroding, millions of
previously unheard voices are rising, their
abilities enhanced by new tools and new
expertise. Scholars on uSerS, partiCipation,
and architecture—including Jeremy Till,
Markus Miessen, and Kenny Cupers—argue
that this friction between optimism and
critical questioning forms an overly simplistic
dialectic of inclusive/exclusive, democratic/
authoritarian, and bottom-up/top-down.
Design Thinking This process of inquiry
begins with a period of open-ended problem
definition; the goal is to focus on the potential
needs and desires of uSerS rather than on
predetermined outcomes. Often working in
interdisciplinary teams, proponents of DeSign
tHinking generate multiple solutions and
then create, test, and revise prototypes in an
iterative process. Interest in uncovering the
methods behind the design process flowered
in the 1960s and is commonly traced to
architecture schools in England. “If the steps
in a designer’s processes could be identified,
examined, and understood, they could be
improved or corrected,” writes design historian
Peter Downton. The first Conference on
Design Methods took place in 1962 in London.
The Design Research Society (still active) in
England and the Design Methods Group in the
U.S. were both founded in 1962. Building on a
range of commonly applied design practices,
DeSign tHinking coalesced into a clearly
defined methodology—particularly valued as
a strategy in corporations and widely taught
in design education—with guidance from the
founders of IDEO, including Bill Moggridge,
Tim Brown, and David and Tom Kelley.
Do-It-Yourself The term Do-it-yourSelf,
or DIY, refers to self-produced design or
construction. DIY has origins in the late
1800s, when “Mr. Fixit” became popular, and
later became linked to gardening and homeimprovement publications. Stewart Brand’s
Whole Earth Catalog (1968–72), an icon of the
1960s counterculture, celebrated “access to
tools,” from early computers and electronics
to pickaxes, gardening manuals, chainsaws,
and tents. Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione
(loosely translated as “self-made”) project
of 1974 embraced the anti-authoritarian
spirit of the era’s student movements. Mari’s
pamphlet, still widely available today at used
bookshops and online, contains plans and
images for nineteen pieces of furniture, easily
assembled with simple boards and nails. The
Do-it-yourSelf instructions were mailed to
anyone who paid the postage. When the project
was reissued in 2010 by Finnish furniture
company Artek, Mari described his original
intent: “It’s an easy thing to say but we cannot
expect everyone to understand complicated
production technologies nor to own specialized
sets of tools. An idea came to me. If someone
actually tried to build, they probably would
learn. Design is only design if it communicates
knowledge.” Today’s maker movement
continues this DIY tradition.
Ergonomics Also referred to as Human
engineering or Human faCtorS,
ergonomiCS aims to tailor the world
to better accommodate people. British
engineers coined the word during WWII,
when they undertook to improve the cockpit
environment. While major advances in
ergonomiCS were born out of military
research, the concept has its origins in early
twentieth-century industrial theory, which
focused on forcing people to fit machines
instead of designing machines to fit people,
seen in the time-and-motion studies and
industrial-efficiency techniques of Frederick
Winslow Taylor and Frank and Lillian
Gilbreth (known as scientific management).
In the 1950s and 1960s, ergonomiCS
expanded to everything from books and
spaceships to kitchen appliances and office
machines. Usability became a selling point.
English critic Stephen Bayley wrote in
his 1985 publication Natural Design: The
Search for Comfort and Efficiency, “Educated
consumers are not ashamed to complain
when they cannot understand or operate new
appliances.”
Experience Design, Experience Economy
Focusing on the uSer’s sensual, cognitive,
and emotional engagement with a product
over time, experienCe DeSign addresses the
associations and behaviors people develop
in response to a product or service. Design
tasks include building brand recognition. The
experienCe eConomy is a business concept
described by James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph
Pine II in their 1999 book The Experience
Economy, which argues that “goods and
services are no longer enough”; businesses
must trigger positive memories and
emotions. In digital interaCtion DeSign, the
atmospheric and emotional qualities of using
software and websites can foster meaningful
engagement, motivated by the informational
needs of uSerS.
Human-Centered Design IDEO, a firm that
has long advocated for the broad application
of DeSign tHinking to diverse areas of
problem solving, has asserted the use of the
term Human-CentereD DeSign (HCD) in
place of uSer-CentereD DeSign. Looking
beyond the uSer as a subject configured
in relation to products or services, HCD
considers people’s broader needs, wants, and
behaviors, balancing these considerations
with the concerns of all stakeholders. HCD
identifies problems across the spectrum of
human experience and then seeks solutions
in innumerable forms, including products,
processes, protocols, services, environments,
and social institutions.
Human Engineering, Human Factors
See ergonomiCS.
Interaction Design Looking beyond the
controls for operating a device to broader
actions and relationships, interaCtion
DeSign includes screen-based experiences
135 users speak
134 beautiful users
Hacking With roots in the domain of software
security, HaCking has extended to the
realm of objects. Using existing products for
unintended functions, HaCkerS take things
apart or add on new components. HaCkerS
often seek to subvert ConSumeriSm; HaCking
often approaches the world of manufactured
things as a set of materials and components.
Roomba HaCkS exploit the sophisticated
electronics of the popular robotic vacuum
cleaner; IKEA HaCkS construct new products
from the furniture giant’s vast kit of parts. In
his influential text The Practice of Everyday Life
(1984), cultural theorist Michel de Certeau
examines the ways people individualize mass
culture through reappropriation. By shifting
the emphasis from the producer or the object
itself onto the uSer, de Certeau identifies a
crack in the modernist vision of top-down
planning.
(such as websites and apps), interactive
products (physical objects with integrated
software), and services (engagement between
a company and CuStomerS involving physical
spaces, products, software, and more). The
practice of interaCtion DeSign draws
upon human computer interaction (HCI),
computer science, software engineering,
cognitive psychology, sociology, and
anthropology. Designer Anthony Dunne
has noted that a handful of computer
scientists and HaCkerS began to develop an
understanding of interactivity in the early
1990s as “a partnership between people and
machines acted out on the computer screen,”
a partnership made viable in the marketplace
by Steve Jobs and the founders of Apple
Computer (23).
Interface Design The term interfaCe
appeared in scientific writing in the 1880s
to name the surface where two bodies meet;
proponents of ergonomiCS began using the
word in reference to human-machine controls
in the 1940s. In his 1988 book The Design
of Everyday Things, cognitive psychologist
Donald A. Norman lays out guidelines for
uSer-CentereD interfaCe DeSign. To fulfill
its humane purpose, an interfaCe should
require minimal instruction and explanation,
relying as much as possible on intuitive
mappings of a uSer’s action and that action’s
impact on the system. Feedback should
clearly confirm the action, and the interfaCe
should represent the current state of the
system. In short, the designer must “make
sure that (1) the uSer can figure out what to
do, and (2) the uSer can tell what is going on.”
Maker Today’s maker combines hands-on
craftsmanship with tinkering, invention,
and technology-enhanced manufacturing.
Richard Sennett asserts in The Craftsman
that “making is thinking” (ix). With roots
in the Arts and Crafts movement, the
concept of the maker as an emancipated
producer resurfaced in the Do-it-yourSelf
counterculture of the 1960s and in the
celebration of personal computing and
open-SourCe code. More recently, Maker
Faires have cropped up in the United States,
Africa, London, and beyond to gather “tech
enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers,
hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors,
artists, students, and commercial exhibitors.”
At the heart of maker culture is the idea of
returning the methods of production to uSerS
by sharing design knowledge and promoting
access to methods of manufacturing.
among these engagements is the extent of
the participant’s involvement, the ethics of
that involvement, and the autHorSHip of
the work at hand. partiCipatory DeSign
belongs to a larger trajectory that has been
called “relational aesthetics,” referring to
artistic practices that engage audiences in
open-ended processes. As John M. Carroll
has written, partiCipatory DeSign practices
can be implemented in myriad ways, all
“predicated on the concept that the people
who will ultimately use a designed artifact are
entitled to have a voice in determining how it
is designed.”
Open-Source Design The practice of creating
products using information that is generally
free, available online, and openly modifiable
is called open-SourCe DeSign. This practice
builds on the movement begun by computer
programmers around the early 1970s to
promote free access to and distribution of
software, rejecting centralized control over
creative work in favor of transparency. In
1999, an engineer from MIT formed the
Open Design Foundation, inspiring many
individuals and businesses to follow suit. The
open-SourCe ideology raises questions about
intellectual-property rights. How can creators
benefit from the outcome of their work or
protect the integrity of a concept? Advocates
of open-SourCe DeSign argue that free
access to tools and data enhances the quality
of design knowledge overall. This outlook
has also led to the formation of sharing
economies that thrive on the exchange of
tools, knowledge, and services.
Prosumer Coined in 1980 by futurist Alvin
Toffler in his book The Third Wave, the word
proSumer merges several word combinations:
producer and consumer, proactive and
consumer, and professional and consumer.
Although Toffler did not use the term until
1980, he described the phenomenon of an
active, partiCipatory ConSumer as early
as 1970, as did Marshall McLuhan and
Barrington Nevitt in their 1972 publication
Take Today: The Executive as Dropout, which
illustrates the “changeover, from matching
to making, from acquisition to involvement.”
As a marketing term, proSumer refers to
tech gadgets that fall between professional
grade and ConSumer grade. Do-it-yourSelf
activities often involve consuming specialized
supplies and services—most crafters and
makers don’t function completely off the grid
but rely on a range of ConSumer goods.
Participation, Participatory Design Many
designers today actively seek to involve
key stakeholders (end uSerS, designers,
CuStomerS, clients, and so on) in the design
process. partiCipatory DeSign has become
a blanket term used to describe almost
any engagement with uSerS. What differs
Tinkering From the 1590s, the word
tinkering had a negative connotation,
suggesting aimless work or keeping busy in a
useless way. Today it refers to open-ended and
self-motivated experimentation. tinkering
doesn’t necessarily pursue an end goal but
instead finds value in the process of discovery.
Often associated with uSerS working
independently, tinkering has strong ties to
Universal Design Accommodating the
needs of people with disabilities improves
the experienCe of average uSerS as well.
univerSal DeSign strives to make products,
environments, and media accessible to all
uSerS, including those with physical, sensory,
and cognitive differences. From birth through
the aging process, disability changes over
the course of a lifetime. Pioneering activists
in the accessible design movement include
Rolf A. Faste, who coauthored the study
Access to the Built Environment in 1979. The
1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
establishes rules for accessible design in
public places. In practice, it is not possible to
meet the needs of all uSerS at all times, given
the enormous diversity of human ability.
However, by considering the needs of diverse
uSerS, designers greatly expand access to
products, places, and information.
User Philosopher and sociologist Henri
Lefebvre (among others) has argued that the
term uSer dehumanizes people, reducing
them to functional objects by discounting
their agency. Others use the term citizen
interchangeably with uSer to imply the
individual’s potential instrumentality. First
employed in the 1610s to refer to the status,
rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a
person, citizen is prevalent in literature related
to uSerS, specifically in that of planning and
architecture. The Museum of Modern Art’s
1944 exhibition Design for Use featured works
that underlined “the relationship between
function, technology, and form as shown in
some typical products.” László Moholy-Nagy
was one of several design minds invited to
brainstorm for this exhibition with curator
Serge Chermayeff. In notes from the first
internal meeting, Moholy-Nagy wrote that the
project’s goal was to “make the uSer realize
[the] importance of design.” (He went on to
137 users speak
136 beautiful users
DeSign tHinking and brainstorming sessions
used to foster innovation and generate ideas.
found what became the Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago, the first school in the
U.S. to offer a PhD in design.) The uSer was
becoming an increasingly central concept in
the discourse of design.
User-Centered Design A design process
organized around the end uSer’s needs and
limitations, uSer-CentereD DeSign studies
the uSer as a subject (age, demographic, etc.)
in order to inform decisions about product
development, often engaging psychologists,
anthropologists, and other social scientists.
Rather than start the design process with a
product concept or new technology in need
of an application, uSer-CentereD DeSign
begins by exploring uSerS needs and wants.
This methodology seeks to improve people’s
lives and experienCeS while also seeking
opportunities to benefit the client.
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Prosumer
139 notes
138 beautiful users
Economy: Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage, Goods and
Services Are No Longer Enough. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1999.
McLuhan, Marshall, and Barrington Nevitt. Take Today: The
Executive as Dropout. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1972.
Toffler, Alvin. The Third Wave. New York: Morrow, 1980.
Tinkering
Ammer, Christine. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 463.
Universal Design
Steinfeld, Edward, Steven Schroeder, James Duncan,
Rolf Faste, Deborah Chollett, Marilyn Bishop, Peter Wirth,
and Paul Cardell. Access to the Built Environment: A Review
of Literature. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development, 1979. https://archive.org/details/
accesstothebuilt003372mbp.
Lidwell, William, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. Universal
Principles of Design. Gloucester, MA: Rockport Publishers, 2003.
Williamson, Beth. “Getting a Grip: Disability in American
Industrial Design in the Late Twentieth Century.” Winterthur
Portfolio 46, no. 4 (Winter 2012): 213–36.
User
Cupers, Kenny. Use Matters: An Alternative History of
Architecture. London: Routledge, 2013.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell,
1991.
Mulcahy, Monica. “Designing the User/ Using the Design.” Social
Studies of Science 31 (2002): 5–37.
Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Design for Use.
Curatorial Exhibition File, Exh. # 258b.
Woolgar, Steve. “Configuring the User: The Case of Usability
Trials.” A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology, and
Domination. London: Routledge, 1991.
User-Centered Design
Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. New York:
Basic Books, 1988.
Plowman, Tim. “Ethnography and Critical Design Practice.”
Design Research. Edited by Brenda Laurel. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2003. 30–38.
Ulrich, Karl T., and Steven D. Eppinger. Product Design and
Development. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Notes | Essay | Designing for People
1. Bill Moggridge, “What Is Design?” Lecture, Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum, 2011.
2. Arthur Pulos, American Design Ethic: A History of Industrial
Design to 1940 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983).
3. Russell Flinchum, Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer: The
Man in the Brown Suit (New York: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum, Smithsonian Institution and Rizzoli, 1997).
4. Flinchum, 102.
5. Margalit Fox, “John E. Karlin, Who Led the Way to All-Digit
Dialing, Dies at 94,” NYTimes.com, February 8, 2013, http://www.
nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/john-e-karlin-who-led-theway-to-all-digit-dialing-dies-at-94.html?smid=pl-share.
6. Flinchum, 100.
7. Ellen Lupton, Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from
Home to Office (New York: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum and Princeton Architectural Press, 1993).
8. Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People (New York: Viking, 1955).
9. Henry Dreyfuss, The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design
(New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1966).
10. Mary McLeod, “‘Architecture or Revolution’: Taylorism,
Technocracy and Social Change,” Art Journal 43, no. 2 (1983):
132–47.
11. Ernst Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre (Berlin: Bauwelt-Verlag,
1938).
12. Nader Vossoughian, “Standardization Reconsidered:
Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936),”
Grey Room 54 (Winter 2014): 34–55.
13. Toby Lester, Da Vinci’s Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How
Leonardo Created the World in His Image (New York: Free Press,
2012).
14. Francis de N. Schroeder, Anatomy for Interior Designers
(New York: Whitney Publications, 1948). Repetto’s drawings also
appear in J. Gordon Lippincott, Design for Business (Chicago: Paul
Theobald, 1947).
15. Niels Diffrient with Brian Lutz, Confessions of a Generalist
(Danbury, CT: Generalist Ink, 2012).
16. Cara McCarty, Designs for Independent Living (New York:
Museum of Modern Art, 1988), exhibition brochure.
17. Bruce Hannah, Unlimited by Design, 1998, exhibition at
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/exhibitions/unlimited-design.
18. Bess Williamson, “Getting a Grip: Disability in American
Industrial Design of the Late Twentieth Century,” Winterthur
Portfolio 46, no.4 (2013): 235.
19. John Harwood, The Interface: IBM and the Transformation
of Corporate Design, 1945–1976 (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2011).
20. Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (New York:
Basic Books, 1988).
21. Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theater, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2014), 2.
22. Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2007).
23. B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience
Economy: Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage, Goods and
Services Are No Longer Enough (Boston: Harvard Business School
Press, 1999).
24. Harry Heft, “Affordances and the Body: An Intentional Analysis
of Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Visual Perception,” Journal for
the Theory of Social Behavior 19, no. 1 (1989): 1–30.
25. Avinash Rajagopal, Hacking Design (New York: Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum, 2013).
26. Mister Jalopy, “The Maker’s Bill of Rights,” Make 4 (October 28,
2005). http://archive.makezine.com/04/ownyourown/.
Calahan, Michael, 52, 53
Candide Journal for Architectural Knowledge, 131
Carnegie Mellon University, 113
Carpentier, Thomas, 27, 32–45
Carroll, John M., 135
Carucci, Elinor, 55
Certeau, Michel de, 134
Chermayeff, Serge, 136
Childs, Jake, 83
Christie, Bryan, 75
Cimzia Home Injection Experience, 54
co-creation, 131
co-design, 130, 131
Colonial Ghost Flatware, 68
Conference on Design Methods, 133
CONSTRVCT, 124, 125
consumer, 21–23, 131, 134, 135
Continuum Fashion, 124–125
Cooper-Hewitt, 26
Corbusier, Le, 33
Cornett, Marcel LeShell, 120–121
Corning Museum of Glass, 46–51
Craftsman, The, 134
Crate and Barrel, 70
crowd funding, 131
crowdsourcing, 130, 131
Cupers, Kenny, 132
customer, 131, 134, 135
customization, 129, 132
cyborg, 27
Daniels, Eric, 98
Darwin, Charles, 130
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 8–9, 25
democratization, 132
Design for Use, 136
Designing for People, 14–15, 24
Designing Interactions, 28–29
Design Methods Group, 133
Design of Everyday Things, The, 134
Design Research Society, 133
design thinking, 29, 132, 134, 136
Diana, Carla, 104–106
Diffrient, Niels, 16–17, 25–26, 108
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 118–119
DIY, 133
do-it-yourself, 30, 131, 133, 135
Domus, 130
Dougherty, Dale, 30
Downton, Peter, 133
Dracula, 42
Dreyfuss, Henry, 14–15, 20–24, 28, 31, 94,
95–98, 108
Dunne, Anthony, 134
Eames, Charles and Ray, 130
Ebay, 131
École Spéciale d’Architecture, 27, 33
Elmish, Nimrod, 88
Enabler, The, 18–19
ergonomics, 24, 33, 130, 133, 134
Ericsson, 22
Eva Flatware, 71–73
experience design, 29, 95, 130, 133, 136
Experience Economy, The, 133
Facebook, 131
Fadell, Tony, 99
Farber, Betsey, 52
Farber, Sam, 52
Fast Company, 131
Faste, Rolf, 18, 19
Faste, Rolf A., 136
FeinTechnik GmbH Eisfeld, 62–65
Filson, John Benjamin, 98
Fischman, Josh, 75
Fizel, Jenna, 124–25
Formosa, Daniel, 52–53
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, 113
Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab, 111–13
Free Universal Construction Kit, 111–13
Frey, Daniel, 82, 85
Frog Design, 131
Frosta Z Coat Rack, 116–17
FuckingCit, Trento, 120–21
fuseproject, 30–31, 58–59, 100–103
Judge, Benjamin, 82, 85
Karlin, John E., 23
Katz-Mayfield, Andy, 29, 62
Kelley, David and Tom, 133
Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society,
131
Kickstarter, 131
Gafni, Izhar, 88–89
Galton, Sir Francis, 130
GE, 126–27
Gibson, James J., 130
Gilbreth, Frank and Lillian, 133
Gilmore, James H., 133
GlassLab, 46–51
Good Grips, 53
Goth Flatware, 67
Gourmet Settings, 66–69
GRiD Compass Laptop Computer, 28–29
GRiD Systems Corporation, 28–29
Grima, Joseph, 130
GRIT (Global Research Innovation and
Technology), 80–85
Gropius, Walter, 24
GS Army Flatware, 69
Lanzavecchia, Francesca, 90–93
Lanzavecchia + Wai, 90–93
Laub, Jürgen, 52, 53
Laurel, Brenda, 28
Lee, Stuart Harvey, 62–65
Lefebvre, Henri, 136
Leslie, Dr. Garthen, 126, 127
Leveraged Freedom Chair, 80–85
Levin, Golan, 111–13
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 131
LLC, Continuum, 83
Local Projects, 108–109
Loewy, Raymond, 22
Lommée, Thomas, 31, 114, 128–29
Louis XIV, 39
Lupton, Mary Jane, 27
hacking, 30, 111, 116, 129, 134
Harry’s Shaving, 29, 62–65
HCD, 134
Heft, Harry, 130
Heiberg, Jean, 22
Henry Dreyfuss & Associates, 14–17, 20–22,
24, 26–27, 94–97
Hermaphroditus, 39
Honeywell Round, 28, 95, 98
Howard, Jesse, 31, 114–115
Howe, Jeff, 131
Huang, Mary, 124–125
human-centered design, 81, 134
human engineering, 24, 133
human factors, 24, 31, 130–133
Humanscale, 16, 17, 25–26
Hunter Defense Technologies, 74–75
Hybrid Flatware, 66–69
Iconathon, 120–21
IDEO, 56–57, 131–134
I.G. Cardboard Technologies, 88–89
II, B. Joseph Pine, 133
IKEA, 30, 116–17, 134
Illinois Institute of Technology, 136
Improvised Vacuum, 114–15
interaction design, 28–29, 95, 130, 133–134
interface design, 27, 94–109, 130, 134
Iomai Needle-Free Vaccine Delivery, 56–57
Istanbul Design Biennial, 130
Izhar Cardboard Bike, 88–89
Jobs, Steve, 134
Joe and Josephine, 14–15, 24–25
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab,
27, 74–75
JoyLabz, 122–123
Mahanti, Arjun, 120–121
Make, 30
maker, 30, 111, 133–135
MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer, 76
Maker Faire, 135
Maker’s Bill of Rights, 30
MaKey MaKey, 122–123
Making Do and Getting By, 131
MAP, 60–61
Mari, Enzo, 133
MAS Design Products, 86
McCarty, Cara, 26
McLuhan, Marshall, 135
Measure of Man, The, 21
Miessen, Markus, 132
Ming Cycle, 86–87
MIT, 82, 85, 135
MIT Media Lab, 122
Model 302 Telephone, 22–24
Model 500 Telephone, 22–24
Model G handset, 23
Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL), 74–75
Modulor, 33
Moggridge, Bill, 21, 28–31, 133
Moholy-Nagy, László, 136
Mr. Fixit, 133
Museum of Modern Art, 26, 136
Narcissus, 43
National Design Museum, 26
National Geographic, 75
Neato Robotics Automatic Vacuum Cleaner,
105, 107
Nest Labs, Inc., 98–99
Nest Learning Thermostat, 28, 95, 98–99
Neufert, Ernst, 10–11, 24–25, 33
Nevitt, Barrington, 135
New Museum, 130
NikeID, 132
No Country for Old Men: Together Canes, 90–93
Norman, Donald A., 134
Noun Project, 120, 121
OCHA Visual Information Unit, 120–121
octametric brick, 25
O’Hanley, Harrison, 82, 85
Open Design Foundation, 135
open-source design, 30–31, 111, 135
OpenStructures (OS), 31, 114, 128–129
Orlan, 40
Osgerby, Jay, 60–61
OXO, 52–53
participatory design, 129, 132, 135
Partners & Spade, 62–65
Pateman, Carole, 132
personal manufacturing, 129
Pettis, Valerie, 16–17
Pilgrim, Dianne, 26
Pivot Power Flexible Surge Protectors, 126
Polaroid sx-70 camera, 25
Polyakov, Sofya, 120
Practice of Everyday Life, The, 134
Prado, Luis, 120–121
Prime Studio, 62–65
Princess phone, 25
Princess Telephone, 23
product semantics, 130
prosumer, 135
Quirky, 126–127
Raider, Jeff, 62
Ransmeier, Leon, 46–51
Ravi, 85
relational aesthetics, 135
Repetto, Nino, 12–13, 24–25
rheumatoid arthritis, 54
Richardson, Adam, 130
Richardson, Nicholas, 78–79
rincess, 24
Robohand Prosthetic Hand, 77
Rolf A. Faste Foundation for Design Creativity,
18–19
Roomba, 30, 104, 134
Roomba Cam, 118–119
Rosenbaum, Eric, 122–123
Royal College of Art, 86
Russak, Stephen, 52–53
Sabi HOLD, 60–61
Sabi THRIVE, 58–59
Sahu, Panna Lal, 80–81, 84–85
Sanders, Mark, 2, 86–87
Savage Mind, The, 131
Scalbert, Irénée, 131
Schaeper, Jochen, 62–65
Schroeder, Francis de N., 12–13, 24–25
scientific management, 133
Scolnik, Tish, 82–85
Search for Comfort and Efficiency, The, 133
Sennett, Richard, 134
Silver, Jay, 122–123
Sims, Shawn, 111–113
Smart Design, 53–54, 105–107, 131
Stickney, Roland, 94–97
Stowell, Davin, 52–53
STRiDA LT Bicycle, 2, 86–87
STRVCT Shoes, 125
Suri, Jane Fulton, 131
survival form, 23
Synaptic Lab, 111–113
T
Take Today: The Executive as Dropout, 135
Tak, Jung, 83
Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 133
Taylorization, 24
Teague, Walter Dorwin, 22
Thingiverse, 77
Third Wave, The, 135
Thomas, Scott, 120
Thoughtless Acts?, 131
Tilley, Alvin R., 14–17, 20, 21, 23–26
Till, Jeremy, 132
tinkering, 134, 135
Toffler, Alvin, 130, 135
Transparent Tool, 31, 114, 115
Twitter, 131
index
BamBam Prosthetic Limb, 78–79
Barber, Edward, 60–61
Bardagjy, Joan, 25
Bardagjy, Joan C., 16–17, 26
Barry, Olivia, 71, 73
Barthes’, Roland, 130
Bauentwurfslehre, see Architects’ Data
Bauhaus, 11, 24
Béhar, Yves, 30–31, 58–59, 100–103
Bell Labs, 22, 23
Bell Telephone Company, 22
Bhend, Andreas, 31, 116–117
Bill Moggridge, 28–29
Boatman, Edward, 120
Bollini, Mario, 82, 85
Borg Queen, 34, 35
Boym, Constantin, 66–69
Boym, Laurene Leon, 66–69
Boym Studio, 66–69
Brand, Stewart, 133
bricolage, bricoleur, 31, 131
Brown, Tim, 133
141
140 beautiful users
Access to the Built Environment, 136
Acratherm Gauge, 94–95, 97
Adapterz, LLC, 113
additive manufacturing, 132
adhocracy, 130
affordance, 29–30, 47, 130
Alice, 45
Allendorf, Stephen, 52, 53
Amazon, 131
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 136
Anatomy for Interior Designers, 12–13, 24
anthropometrics, 24, 31
anthropometry, 130
Apple Computer, 134
Architects’ Data, 10–11, 24, 33
Aros Window Air Conditioner, 126–127
Artek, 133
Arts and Crafts, 134
As, Richard van, 27, 77
AT&T, 22, 23
August Smart Lock, 30–31, 95, 100–103
authorship, 130, 135
Autoprogettazione, 133
UCB Pharmaceuticals, 54
universal design, 26–27, 81, 136
user-centered design, 21, 134, 136
Viemeister, Tucker, 52–53
Vitruvius, 25
Vossoughian, Nader, 25
Wahl, Stephen, 52–53
Wai, Hunn, 90–93
Wand, Assaf, 58
Warby Parker, 29
Wentworth, Richard, 131
Western Electric Manufacturing Company, 22
Whole Earth Catalog, 133
Wikipedia, 131
Williamson, Bess, 27
Williams, Raymond, 131
Wink, 126
Winter, Amos, 82–85
Wired, 131
Yamazaki Tableware, 72
Zeisel, Eva, 71, 73
Zhuhai Technique Plastic Container Factory Co.,
62–65
Zien, Jake, 126
Page 88, water drop icon by
Edward Boatman, Noun Project
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Board of Trustees
15
6
1710
15
11
Michael R. Francis, Vice President
Chief Global Brand Officer,
DreamWorks Animation
Marilyn F. Friedman
Philanthropist/Design and Decorative
Arts Historian
Alice Gottesman
Philanthropist
Eric A. Green, Treasurer
Investment Banking
Paul Herzan, Chairman Emeritus
Philanthropist
John R. Hoke III
Vice President Design, Nike, Inc.
Jon C. Iwata
Senior Vice President, Marketing and
Communications, IBM Corporation
Madeleine Rudin Johnson
Executive Vice President, Rudin Management
Francine S. Kittredge
Former Managing Director, Neuberger Berman
33
°
27°
38
13
43
Caroline Baumann, Director
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
4°
Richard Kurin, Under Secretary for History, Art
and Culture
29
Richard Meier
Principal, Richard Meier & Partners Architects
Enid W. Morse, Vice Chairman
Philanthropist
930
CG
900
Henry R. Muñoz III
Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO,
Kell Muñoz Architects, Inc.
17
Karen A. Phillips
Landscape Architect, Member of the New York
City Planning Commission
Abraham N. Reichental
President and Chief Executive Officer,
3D Systems, Inc.
45°
30°
26°
21°
David Rockwell
Founder & CEO, Rockwell Group
Lisa S. Roberts, Vice President
Designer/Philanthropist
490
80
140
Alberto Eiber, M.D.
President, Eiber Radiology
Margery Masinter
Philanthropist/Design and Decorative Arts
Historian
G. Wayne Clough, Secretary
25
30
9
Beth Comstock, President
Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing
Officer, General Electric
Nancy Marks, Vice Chairman
Nancy Marks Interiors/Philanthropist
1330
Ex Officio
Smithsonian Institution
°
9
3
41
Amita Chatterjee
Philanthropist
31
Ruth Ann Stewart
Clinical Professor of Public Policy,
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public
Service, New York University
Esme Usdan
Interior Designer/Philanthropist
Todd Waterbury
Executive Creative Director and Senior Vice
President, Target Corporation
40
Agnes C. Bourne, Vice President
Interior and Furniture Designer
Barbara A. Mandel, Chairman
Philanthropist
Kenneth B. Miller
Chairman Emeritus, Honorary
Judy Francis Zankel, Secretary
Freelance Illustrator/Philanthropist
9
80
8
Andy Berndt
Vice President, Google and Founder of
Google Creative Lab
John Maeda
Design Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield
& Byers
Joan K. Davidson
Honorary
6
Scott Belsky
Vice President of Products & Community
and Head of Behance at Adobe
David Lubars
Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of BBDO
North America and a Director of
BBDO Worldwide
Kathleen B. Allaire
Chairman Emeritus, Honorary
The Measure(s) of Man, 2011. Designed by Thomas Carpentier
(French, b. 1986). Degree Project, École Spéciale d’Architecture,
Paris. Courtesy of the designer.
Carl Bass
President and CEO of Autodesk
Harvey M. Krueger, Chairman Emeritus
Vice Chairman, Barclays Capital
Honorary Trustees
19
22
Kurt Andersen
Novelist and Host, Studio 360,
Public Radio International
Claudia Kotchka
Former Vice President, Design Innovation and
Strategy, Procter & Gamble
8
Elizabeth Ainslie
Principal, Elizabeth Ainslie Interiors
7
6
36
31°31°
14
11
21
22
16
6