A well-designed product seems to fill a gap in the market so perfectly that it almost has a sense of reverence about it. It just works; it just fits, and it plays a role in the consumer’s life that makes it worth fixing and cherishing. These are products like the iPod/iPhone, the KitchenAid Stand Mixer, the Swiss Army Knife, and in this designer’s opinion, the Dodge Viper.
We don’t always publish memes, but when we do, it’s on April Fool’s day. Celebrate April Fool’s Day with some of our favorite engineering memes!
An engineering student shares his thoughts and experiences about mental health.
Graham Wallas proposed one of the first formal models of the creative process. Simple and insightful, this model has continued to inspire creative people throughout the world. This article reduces Wallas’s description of that process to just a few paragraphs designed to introduce you to this model.
Multi-Axis Figures can be powerful in telling a story, but there are some real pitfalls that we see people fall into time and time again. Be careful and know the mistakes that others have made in order to keep your data figures well designed.
America’s Cup is one of the most interesting sporting events in the world, from a design perspective. No, it isn’t the hardest-hitting sport, and the boats don’t reach Formula 1 speeds. The interesting part is that the winner gets to make the rules, and set the location for the next competition.
Fluency means to do something with ease and accuracy. I would love to do mechanical engineering with ease and accuracy! This is something I aspire to, and for good reason. It means I can do more with my time. This article describes 5 things we all need to do to become more effective and efficient in our technical work.
It’s easy to get caught up in the mire of minutiae and forget to keep the end in mind. Here are some design principles that can help teams avoid common problems.
I was surprised at how valuable the DIY experience was as an engineer. Hopefully these lessons can save you the reader the trouble of learning them the hard way, but I encourage you to try some DIY and learn your own design lessons.
The experience of your product is more important than your product. Is that a deep thought by Jack Handy or a true principle?
In this article I look at WD-40 as a model of innovation. Why? Its popularity has stood the test of time, and its story is simple enough for us to extract out what WD-40 did right during its long history. Of course every product is different, but the principles observed from WD-40 are at least worth considering in any innovation setting.
Over the last few years you have probably heard the words machine learning (ML) and AI thrown around more and more. Using tools like Microsoft Azure Learning Studio you can get an ML algorithm running in a few minutes without ever writing any code. Is it ethical to design products with tools I don’t fully understand?
The Chaco is an adventurist’s sandal designed to last a lifetime. They were first made in 1989 in the garage of a river rafting guide. Due to their cultish-like devoted customer base and high prices many people seek to stay clear of them. However, I caved about 3 years ago and bought my first pair.
Progressing toward goals is difficult for all of us. That’s part of what makes goals a meaningful part of growth. If you find yourself struggling to reach your goals, as I do, consider the simple time-tested start-stop-continue method described in this article.
Everyone loves a good puzzle - especially Designers, Engineers, and Inventors.
Billions of people use mathematics everyday, arithmetic to multivariable calculus. This has become a paradox that I have spent time thinking about – math is certainly useful, yet why is it so hard to explain or show students how it can be useful to them?
A common deficiency in heating a room with a wood stove is that the heated air accumulates around the ceiling or dissipates off of the exhaust pipe instead of spreading out to fill the room. Stove top fans solve this problem by blowing hot air next to the stove into the rest of the room. Let’s look into the relationship between the fan, the stove, and the consumer for design principles we can apply to our future projects.
Because we have so much information at our fingertips via smart devices and the internet many students complain at having to learn (especially memorize) anything. The common response by students is that this is a waste of time and that these things can always be looked up in the future. Well they certainly can. That isn’t the point I am debating. The problem is that you can only look up things that you know you don’t know.
With the start of the new year come new year’s resolutions and goals that often fall by the wayside within the first few months. Maybe you have fitness goals or career goals or a new hobby you want to pick up. Here are some tips that I think could be helpful for you in setting goals that you can achieve.
It’s that time when many of us reflect on what we have accomplished and what we might like to change in our lives. Whether or not you set new year’s resolutions there are important parts of the design process that can help you design a better year for yourself.
