Consumer Products
Advice for product innovation, design ,and development
How Does ‘Hick’s Law’ Apply to Product Design?
Regardless of what you're designing, the options you present to users should be simple and straightforward.
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7 Principles for Designing Great Digital-Physical Products
Adding a sensor or touchscreen to just about any product has become cheap and straightforward. But it doesn't always make things better for the user.
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Ingenious Engineering: Ballpoint Pens
The ballpoint pen eliminated the need for messy fountain pens and all the problems that came with them. This breakthrough invention forever changed the way we write.
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Applying the Pareto Principle to Product Development
The Pareto Principle is a great tool for project teams when they’re trying to decide where to focus their energy and efforts.
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Designing Consumer Robotics? Answer These Four Questions First
Convincing discerning consumers to buy a home robot isn't easy. To earn a spot in our homes and our lives, “home bots” (and those designing them) must answer four important questions.
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How To Maximize Battery Run Time in Mobile Electronic Devices
Design efforts to maximize battery run time typically focus on minimizing standby power, but an equal emphasis should be placed on designing for peak power.
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A Guide to Developing Better Product Requirements
Creating product requirements can seem like a straightforward task, but it has plenty of potential pitfalls.
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Design Lessons from 4 Early Wearables That Didn’t Quite Hit the Mark
These early attempts at wearable technology were innovative but flawed—and paved the way for the more advanced devices we have today.
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Our Product Engineers’ Best FEA Simulation Tips
As product engineers, we use FEA simulations to develop, test, and refine designs. These best practices allow us to move quickly while keeping simulation results accurate, honest, and affordable.
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How to Use High-Fidelity Prototyping for Soft Goods
You’ve vetted your MVP design through low and medium-fidelity prototypes. Now use high-fidelity prototypes to amplify your MVP into a truly compelling offering.
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On-Ramp To Electronic Product Design: Troubleshooting Bugs in Electrical Products
Successfully troubleshooting these problems prior to product launch is in everybody’s best interest, and can be the most rewarding part of a project for an engineer.
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What Taylor Swift Can Teach Product Designers About Experiential Brand Language
I just spent six months researching experiential brand language for a client. Here's what it is, how to create it, and examples of great EBLs from Apple, Airbnb, REI, and, as the title promises, Taylor Swift.
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How to Use Low- and Mid-Fidelity Prototyping for Soft Goods
It’s important to prototype and test soft materials at various stages in the product development process.
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When to Use Soft Goods in Product Design
To develop the best version of your product, have you considered leveraging softer materials?
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Why Multidisciplinary Teams Design Better Products
A multidisciplinary team has the edge in creating innovative, well-rounded solutions that meet the needs of all stakeholders.
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A Cost-Effective Approach for Authenticating Consumables
Authentication is not appropriate for every product, but there are many applications where it's necessary for the manufacturer, end user, or both. Authenticating your consumables need not break the bank.
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7 Ways To Design Better Products for Women
How do you design better products for women? Our female researchers, designers and engineers compiled seven principles for individuals and companies to consider.
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If You Could Redesign Anything, What Would It Be?
Not every product design is a home run. Here are 15 products we think could use some design help.
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Three Principles for More Human, Solution-Focused, Fair, and Inclusive Design
Designers have a responsibility to design a world that all want to live in. Here are three principles that can help us navigate the complexities of design decision-making and truly achieve design success.
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Empathic Design in Practice
What comes before and after you walk in your users' shoes? We distill empathic design into six principles for easy adoption.
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3 Product Design Best Practices to Follow
How to create a successful product – whether you're designing a product that's physical, digital, or somewhere in between.
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How to Stop Your Innovation From Inspiring a 'Black Mirror' Episode
Warning: I’m going to criticize and question something beloved by millions of people—stationary exercise bikes.
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Four Steps To the “Right” Color in Product Design
We developed a color selection methodology that applies user-first design thinking to finding the right color in product design.
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The Role of Human Factors in Product Design
A primer on what, how and when the discipline of human factors is used in the design and development of products.
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Ingenious Engineering: How Staples Are Made
It’s not easy keeping it together under pressure. Yet these little marvels do it every day tens of thousands of times over. Do you know how staples are made?
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Use ‘Jobs, Outcomes, and Constraints’ To Exploit the Pause Between Research and Ideation
The 'Jobs, Outcomes, and Constraints' method lets you move into ideation knowing that you're working from something more than a hunch.
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CES 2021: Home is where everything is
If your home is your castle, during the pandemic it’s also your office, classroom, coffee shop/restaurant/bar, gym, entertainment venue, spa, and, yeah, that place where you sleep.
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Design for Manufacturing: 7 Things Every Designer Should Know
Designers and engineers share responsibility for design for manufacturing (DFM), or designing products for optimized manufacturing ease and cost.
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Homework with Amy Lee
While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.
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Homework with Corin Frost
While we're all working in our homes, we thought it would be fun to check in with our team members to see how they're doing and what their new offices and co-workers look like.
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How to write 'How Might We' questions for product strategy
Translating research into actions is often more art than science. We have found “how might we” questions to be useful tools. Here's how to write one.
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How to Make Way For Radical Innovation
Before starting on an innovation strategy, decide which type you're chasing: Incremental, disruptive, or radical innovation. Each requires a unique approach.
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CES never fails to entertain
The Consumer Electronics Show always starts the new year off with a bang. It packs roughly 170,000 extra people from around the world into Las Vegas for a seizure-inducing week of stimulation.
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Advanced Design goes to school
Advanced Design is a nonprofit design organization founded in 2016. This group began as a small design sketching workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a handful of students who wanted to further develop their foundational skill set. These students, eager to bring the contagious energy of their workshops to the larger design community, wanted more.
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CES 2020: Day two cool stuff
Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.
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CES 2020: Day two
Our team spent the second day of CES at Tech West, home base for health, wellness, home, wearable and fitness technology. It's also the hub for Eureka Park, where the scrappy startups vie for attention of venture capitalists and potential partners.
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CES 2020: Day one cool stuff
We roamed the massive Las Vegas Convention Center the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. Here are some additional fun things we saw.
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How ‘Forecasting and Backcasting’ Enable Disruptive Innovation
Forecasting and backcasting provide a framework for disruptive innovation by establishing a solid structure to support big, strategic thinking.
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CES 2020: Day one
We have a team roaming the massive Las Vegas Convention Center today at the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. We'll be adding to this blog post throughout the day as we find cool stuff to share.
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Dave’s 2019 Year in Review
As 2019 winds to a close it’s time to make my annual appraisal of some of the more noteworthy products and events shaping world of design and Innovation. And the last year certainly saw its fair share of significant steps and missteps. So, let’s wade in with a few things I’ll remember that helped define 2019 for me.
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Making something awesome
I’d like to take the time and opportunity to reflect on our experiences at the Madison Mini Maker Faire and talk about each of the wonderful projects our team at Delve has been able to put together to share with the public, while hopefully inspiring young minds to be open and grow.
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Service design hits and misses
As I started to think about writing this blog, I realized that it might come off more as an Andy Rooney rant than “Oprah’s favorite things” this year. It feels like there have been more misses than hits.
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The Mega Megatrends Post: Your Guide to the Ten Consumer Megatrends Reshaping Product Design
How will you decide today what to design for 2030? Strategists look to megatrends to predict consumer behavior and futureproof strategy.
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13 Biggest Innovations of 2019 To Influence Product Design
Robots unleashed; the emergence of hearables; sustainable plastics and processes — we weigh in the biggest innovations of 2019 to influence product design.
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Cybertruck, schmeibertruck…
I, for one, am pretty excited that Elon Musk is bringing his 1980s sci-fi movie dreams to life.
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How Anthropomorphic Form Shapes Product Design
Humans are drawn to anthropomorphic form in product design. Here's how industrial and interaction designers can use this as a tool.
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Designing Military-Grade Products: The What, Why, and How
With the growing demand for rugged design across sectors, product developers need help figuring out when to accommodate military specifications.
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How to Use Mapping to Determine the Design of Your Controls
Good mapping makes products easier and more intuitive to use. Done well, it can create a powerful connection between a product and its users.
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Hearts in San Francisco
We moved into our new office on 11th Street in May 2018 and although the “new car smell” may have faded, we are still enamored and eager to share it with visitors and clients. The studio has grown with the addition of Ryan Braunstein, Shiz Kobara, and Tyler Toy, a very talented triad who have infused the team with their energy and enthusiasm.
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2018 Year in Review: Service Design
Here’s my list of “a few-of-the-mostly-best innovations from the last year or so.”
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Why is the Roomba so expensive? Why are the knock-offs so cheap?
What happens when all the engineers from Delve's three offices gather in Madison? We buy stuff and tear it apart to understand how it is made. Our product of choice? The robotic vacuum.
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Reducing Medical Device Risk with Usability Testing: The Why, the How, and the Who
Medical devices are commonly recalled due to usability issues that can be prevented with proper usability testing during the development lifecycle.
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What Does 'Hierarchy of Needs' Mean To Product Designers?
How can product designers apply Maslow's theory of human motivation to their work? A design won't succeed if it doesn't meet users' most basic needs.
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What's “indecent” at CES?
Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking of course, that a product exhibited at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) could be used to cause severe bodily harm with a weapon to another human.
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What’s a ‘Nudge’ in Product Design?
Nudge is a concept rooted in behavioral science that describes how minor changes in product design can markedly affect individual behavior.
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2018 Year in Review
The beginning of a new year is a great time for reflection – and what better to reflect on than the last year in design and innovation?
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13 Biggest Product Design Innovations of 2018
E-bikes, solutions for ocean-borne plastic, real-life Babel fish, 3-D printing metal, robot overlords, and more — we weigh in on 2018's biggest innovations.
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Design That Clicks: The Art and Science of Tactile Feedback
A click is a universally recognized cue that an action is complete. Seeing is believing, but feeling is knowing. Here's how to get the right sound and feel.
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Five Global Megatrends Reshaping Product Design
Doing user research now won't help you design for 2028. Trend analysis will. Design strategists turn to it to predict consumers' future behavior.
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Green eggs and electric ham
As far as I can remember cycling has always been a part of my life in some form or another.
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Is this on brand?
The San Francisco team has been enthusiastically involved in the design of our new space
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Beantown here we come!
So – first a quick humorous story. I had dinner a while ago with my parents and they were asking about what’s new at work. I shared, with some excitement, that we’d decided to open an office in Boston.
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Pushing each other along
Though we work in the service industry for larger corporations on a day-to-day basis, some of my favorite opportunities come in the form of community work.
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Front ends, air flow, boats and aesthetics
So I promised our marketing department I’d do a blog on our recent adoption of a telemedicine benefit for our employees.
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How Might We Improve Pizza Delivery? With Creative Matrix
Creative Matrix is a brainstorming method that helps structure the necessary "in-between" work between research and ideation. We demonstrated the technique.
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Engineering in the fun
Engineering in the fun takes a willingness to say "yes" to a user-centered vision and mastering the mechanics.
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The foreign language of sewing
One of the special skill sets I love being able to utilize at Design Concepts and for projects at home is sewing.
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Degrees of Sealing: Designing Rugged, Waterproof Enclosures for Electronic Devices
Demand is growing for waterproof, rugged consumer and commercial electronic devices. Ingress Protection (IP), NEMA, and MIL-SPEC are the three main rating systems that indicate a product's level of sealing.
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Our SF design office is moving! What a long, strange trip it’s been
Being a professional who has managed complex projects while simultaneously raising a family and attending graduate school, I felt I was more than prepared for my latest project – finding a new home for our San Francisco team.
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What does equity design mean?
Our world is in flux. We are all aware of this. As designers, it’s helpful to step back and consider our role in shaping our rapidly emerging future.
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Sensors for the Win! How Auto Industry Tech Drives Superior Olympic Athletes
The increasing sophistication, diversity, and affordability of sensor technology for autonomous cars has rippled into the sports world. Did we see the results in PyeongChang?
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Fab Factory: The cutting edge of cutlery
Who needs eating utensils when you have perfectly working hands to rip and tear at the food on your plate and stuff it into your mouth?
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User-centered design is on the menu
What does it take to run a restaurant?
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Human-centered design ... but even more human.
Now more than ever, society is hungry for simplicity and human connection.
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Delve's new office design: spreading the peanut butter
Operation Butter is now complete.
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Ingenious Engineering: Dippin' Dots
Putting the freeze on cream and sugar is what it’s all about at Dippin’ Dots.
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Change is hard, especially when someone moves your cheese
Operation Butter, our code-name for building and moving to our new offices in downtown Madison, began with an announcement from our owners about a year and a half ago.
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Industrial Design’s Past, Present, & Future: The Evolution of a Profession
Vice President of Design Mathieu Turpault reflects on major changes in industrial design in the last 25 years and predicts where it's headed.
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Poetry in motion
A huge part of a designer’s job is to translate abstract qualities into defining physical attributes and product feature sets.
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Is your company in control of its user experience?
I recently had an experience that left me thinking about the way in which technology and social media have eroded and blurred the boundaries surrounding our interactions with a company’s products and services.
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Just one touch and I knew ...
I have this distinct memory from my childhood: I’m lying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows, cozied up in yellow and orange-ish shag carpet. Dust floats lazily through a sunbeam that peeks through the heavy velour curtains. A clock ticks steadily but softly from the other side of the room. My right hand is rotating the large machined aluminum tuning knob on my grandfather’s hi-fi tuner – back and forth, back and forth.
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Understanding and using emerging aesthetic design trends
While there are many different types of trends you can and should reference throughout the new product design and development process including macro, consumer and industry, aesthetic design trends may be some of the harder nuts to crack.
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The Good Enough Design of the Nintendo Switch
The Nintendo Switch has a lot of great features, but the modular design leads to some clunky compromises. Ultimately, does it matter?
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Your brand deserves a language
How do we know the difference between a designer handbag and a knockoff?
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How Design for Accessibility Drives Innovation for All
Accessible, also called assistive, designs that consider the needs of the disabled are often adopted more widely as others find new uses for them.
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The Viability Crevasse
Have you noticed how many crowdsourcing hits fail to bridge the chasm between viral video and sellable product?
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Six Teardowns That Inspire Design Innovation
Engineering details, manufacturing processes, and material choices can all be used to inspire your own designs and decisions.
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Models and Prototypes 101
Product design is an iterative process. Models are a critical part of that process.
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Ingenious Engineering: Toothbrushes
Even the most simple items we use every day require an amazing amount of effort to produce. Take, for example, the humble toothbrush.
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#sideproject: United We Stand (Updated)
I thought 2016's divisiveness seems like a good reason to revisit my "United We Stand" state flags project, tweak some, and make them available to download.
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The role of virtual prototyping in product development
When you have to make a bunch of something or something where failure isn’t an option (a parachute, for instance), you better make sure that you’re making the right thing and that you’re sure it will work.
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Favorite Things: Diptyque Philosykos Solid Perfume
As product designers, Design Concepts staff are always looking at the things that surround them with an eye for the exceptional.
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How to Innovate by Spotting and Applying Trends
Have you ever read an article about design trends and
wondered, “Where on earth did
THAT come
from?”
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Design approach selected for adjustable hand cycle
We recently met with the adaptive sports experts at No Limits Kids Fitness to choose one of several design approaches for our hand cycle.
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Suck up ... tear down
A neighbor of mine left this
stunning post-war (~1950) Electrolux XXX at their curb. I snatched it,
immediately hoping to convert it to a table lamp. I was blown away by the
industrial design and the workmanship.
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Uncertainty changes expectations
Earlier this year, I was on an amazing project that took me to both India and China to visit hospitals and clinics of all sizes and types.
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Creating a bike that works for all kids
In late 2014, Delve worked with No Limits Kids Fitness to launch an Indiegogo campaign to help us build a prototype of an adjustable hand cycle that grows with kids with physical disabilities.
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Empathy is key to new product success
I
love the energy in the new product development space.
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Designing Handheld Devices That Don’t Hurt
What's behind the lack of useful thumb-reach and hand-grip data for designers of handheld devices, and how can designers gather their own?
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A system approach to advanced LED product design
Light emitting diode (LED) technology has developed quickly over the last decade. Once only the familiar red dot indicating power was “on,” LEDs can now replace traditional incandescent and fluorescent lighting as our primary source of illumination.
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The Internet of (Disconnected) Things
Want to experience connected Zen? Grab a Lyft, the ride sharing service fueled by digital transactions.
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Innovation? It's on the bag
Hmmm… am I more hungry than unwilling to get cold?
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Super Bowl 2015 ads reflect our conflicted era
Last year, I wrote a blog post about my impressions of the collective body of Super Bowl ads and what it might tell us about consumer trends.
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Wearables at CES 2015: Enough with the activity trackers!
CES 2015 (Consumer Electronics Show) wasn’t a year for big unveils and shifts in conversation. Everything was smart, everything had an app, and the Internet of Everything was still an overarching promise for the future.
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Game on: The best of the boards
What can I say; I’m a bit of nerd when it comes to board games.
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Embracing the Old School
I love to BBQ! I’m not talking a Sunday afternoon burgers on the grill. I’m talking pork shoulder, ribs and brisket. The kind of food you have to cook low and slow for hours over smoke-infused fire.
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Details, details, details ...
Living in Wisconsin I find that I need to have a certain mindset to embrace the change of seasons and prepare for the inevitable cold and snow that will eventually blanket the Midwest. Typical annual rituals for me involve putting snow tires on the car, winterizing the lawn mower and digging the snow blower out of the shed.
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Aging in Place
“Was it you?!?” Al points at the fake political sign stuck in his garden celebrating his 89th birthday. He can’t decide if he’s annoyed or amused. Al hates birthdays and that’s too bad because he’s had a ton of them.
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Active procrastination and passive thinking
I’m not going to beat around the bush — I’ve known I was on the docket for months now and assumed that some flash of genius worthy of a blog would present itself. But life got busy going into the field for a project, attending a destination wedding in California, and starting my MBA. So instead of a nice story that reads like your favorite episode of This American Life, here’s a few thoughts on “things I’ve noticed” over the last couple months. (And if you are a TAL fan imagine Ira Glass is reading this and it will totally redeem itself!)
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Designing for the Apocalypse
Here at Design Concepts, you’ll sometimes hear the term “co-creation” used on a project. Typically it’s used to refer to a kind of brainstorming activity we undertake with design research participants where we brainstorm together with them, our “users,” to co-create solutions for their needs.
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Why Designers Are Not Artists
Making a difference and calling attention to important issues through design is more achievable once designers get over the fact that they're not artists.
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Read our observations on product development and the latest industry trends in our product innovation blog.