Dieter Rams : Ten commandments on design

February 5, 2009 – 2:26 pm

Image Source : DesignBoom

Dieter Rams is a well known designer. Among his works, I like his designs for the Braun calculator the best. The design is clean and appropriate use of colour coding for key buttons like the ‘equal’ button.

Here’s the key design guidelines from Dieter Rams that I got from Wikipedia .

1. Good design is innovative
It does not copy existing product forms, nor does it produce any kind of novelty just for the sake of it. The essence of innovation must clearly be seen in all of a product’s functions. Current technological development keeps offering new chances for innovative solutions.

2. Good design makes a product useful
The product is bought in order to be used. It must serve as a defined purpose - in both primary and additional functions. The most important task of design is to optimize the utility of a product’s usability.

3. Good design is aesthetic
The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use everyday affect our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4. Good design makes a product understandable
It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5. Good design is unobtrusive
Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

6. Good design is honest
It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

7. Good design has longevity
It does not follow trends that become out-dated after a short time. Well designed products differ significantly from short-lived trivial products in today’s throwaway society.

8. Good design is consequent down to the last detail
Nothing must be arbitrary. Thoroughness and accuracy in the design process shows respect toward the user.

9. Good design is environmentally friendly
Design must make contributions toward a stable environment and sensible raw material situation. This does not only include actual pollution, but also visual pollution and destruction of our environment.

10. Good design is as little design as possible
Less is better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

Back to purity, back to simplicity!

Perhaps, I will blog about how some of the guidelines can be applied to designing software down the road.

By yeksoon | Posted in Design | Comments (0)

Google’s M-Lab and what it means to you

January 29, 2009 – 8:32 pm

Google just announced Measurement Lab (or M-Lab for short).

M-Lab provides tools to aid network diagnostic on the ISP level.

For example, we can use the tools to check if the ISP is blocking or throttling BitTorrent traffic.

While it is no secret which ISP is doing that in Singapore, there’s another tool called DiffProbe that will allow us to find out if the ISP is purposedly trying to throttle or shuffle certain kinds of traffic to a slower pipes while allowing others to be on the faster pipe.

ISP needs to be more transparent about what they are blocking, throttling and even shuffling. ISP is always on the lookout for new revenue stream. And I won’t be surprised that there will be such practices, particularly allowing paying customers to gain access to the faster pipes.

I hope it won’t happen and I am not sure what will be IDA’s stand on this or the ISP/telcos stand on this.

But, if it does happens, rest assured that the consumers will have an array of tools to prove things and try to influence the decisions.

By yeksoon | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The Next 100 Years : A Forecast for the 21st Century

January 23, 2009 – 12:10 pm

Given the current economic conditions, it is hard for one to plan beyond the next 1-2 years. But, if we are to take time and just step aside and ponder for a moment, it does not take a lot to think further and understand the change around us. It is only at such times that we are able to recognise opportunities.

The Next 100 Years, is the latest book by George Freidman of Stratfor.

It is interesting to note what are some of his forecast. Taken from a review on Amazon, his forecasts:

 

  • Russia emergence as an aggressive hegemonic power;
  • China’s influence in international affairs due to traditional social and economic imbalances;
  • Rise of American in the second half of the century.
  • Border conflicts bewteen US and Mexico

 

This book, even before it release, is already among the Best Seller on Amazon.

There aren’t that many authors who can write on geopolitical issues well. George Freidman is one of them that I will like to follow.

You can get your copy of the book at Amazon

By yeksoon | Posted in Globalisation | Tagged | Comments (0)

Vista, Apache and Zend Core

January 21, 2009 – 8:48 pm

If you are new to Vista like myself, one of the irritation will be to deal with permission issues with files in Program Files.

After installing Zend Core in the Program Files folder (which is the default setting), I find that I cannot create folders inside ‘htdocs’.

Apparently, Vista has some new protective feature that tries to be smart and disallowed changes to stuffs under the Program Files directory.

The easy way to solve this is just to uninstall Zend Core, Apache or whatever programs that encounter this issue and install it in a folder outside of it.

You can choose a separate drive eg. D:\ or even in your user directory.

Vista, in my opinion, is one version that provides no little benefit to the users. Not really worth the upgrade unless it comes with a new machine.

And even if it comes with a new machine, be prepared for a culture shock. Things that can be done in XP may not hold true with this version.

By yeksoon | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

CISCO launch EOS, an appliance for social networks and targets media companies

January 8, 2009 – 1:52 pm

To many of us, Cisco is a networking company.

However, all these is about to change as they just launch EOS, an appliance that allows users to interact with social networks.

This product offering aims to allow media companies to easily reach out and gather feedback from their consumers in social networks.

A very good sign that CISCO is moving beyond selling network appliances and offering alternative services to YouTube and in a way, maybe, challenging Apple in this area.

More information about this is reported at WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123128575997659063.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By yeksoon | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)