Writing last week in FastCompany, Gadi Amit, president of New Deal Designs, said "in designing an object, I define what can be done physically or digitally, delivering what kind of experience, at what speed, with what kind of future roadmap for the business and its physical-digital experience." This he calls Technology Design, distinct from the more traditional Industrial Design where "…designers were routinely handed a piece of technology as is and asked to wrap it with a beautiful skin," he said.
In an interview last September, Amit said many so-called IoT smart devices aren’t really smart, they just collect and stream data into the cloud. He argued what these devices should do instead is filter through the noise of everything else and deliver only what the end user wants, contextual data, making them "Wise Devices" as he called it. However, he added “there are not many examples so far.”
Amit has had a hand in a variety of Internet of Things startups, such as Fitbit, Sproutling, Occipital, and Whistle. His team is currently working with Google’s Motorola team on Project Ara, the world’s first truly customizable smartphone.
Ara perhaps embodies what Amit means by being a Technology Designer. Ara is modular, meaning that components can be built anywhere in the world and customers can decide what camera they want, how much memory, and so forth. Equally exciting is the prospect that users can use 3D printers to design their own cases for the finished phone. He admits that some of these cases won’t look so good, from a design aesthetic, but some will.
Traditional tech design revolves around the tension between Innovation vs Business Case, which Amit suspects is taught in Silicon Valley universities. Rather he prefers the tension between Rational vs Emotional, especially when considering whether you even want a particular technology touching your body.
Take for example Fitbit, which he said began as an Internet connected pedometer on a board about the size of a postage stamp. “As Fitbit arrived on the market,” Amit said, “the market kind of formed around Fitbit.” He said this was an example of business validation being grown through the progress of the technology and the design process.
Amit also said the real design paradigm right now might be Data vs Experience. There’s the tech crowd which is a small percent of the population, and then there’s everyone else. He has a slide in this talks that illustrates his point.
Midway through his keynote speech on technology and design at the Designers Of Things Conference in San Francisco last fall, Amit flashed an gray image of a man wearing a pair of Google Glasses. In contrast to the previous images of sleek and colorful designs was this bland photo emphasizing the blocky grey metal gadget partially covering one eye. Several people in the audience chuckled.
Needless to say he’s not a fan of that particular Google aesthetic.
With wearables, unlike most IoT gadgets, Amit argues there are several critical factors. Size matters when you are considering whether it will fit on a baby or an adult. He said the design doesn’t always need to be fashionable, but that helps. Sense of self is important because you chose fashion to express yourself. And gender, is the watchband too thick or too thin for the desired audience. As an example, he said fashion is an extension of our personality so when shopping for new pair of eyeglasses you really do have to have try on several before you find the one that “feels” right.
