The Design Inspired Innovation Workbook (358 Pages) · To be continued… the Vigix story In Design-Inspired Innovation, Vigix founder and book co-author, Eduardo Alvarez, told the

THE DESIGN-INSPIRED INNOVATION WORKBOOK © World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.http://www.worldscibooks.com/business/7516.html

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B1029 The Work Book of Design-Inspired Innovation

Chapter 1

PROLOGUE: INSTANCES OF DESIGN — CASE STORIES

There is a world of fascinating designed objects, services, experiences,

and emotions, and a host of wonderfully illustrated books on the sub-

ject. This chapter presents only a random few, with the idea that they

serve as a backdrop for the remainder of the book. So they should

function as the props of a scenery to be revealed, a reasoning to

come — function as triggers for refl ection, and stimulants to further

ideas. And objections!

To be continued… the Vigix story

In Design-Inspired Innovation, Vigix founder and book co-author, Eduardo

Alvarez, told the story about his business idea, and the associated

product. The idea was to develop a system for the rental of DVDs that

would require no human involvement; everything in the transaction

would be handled automatically by a machine. To achieve maximum

convenience, much-frequented locations would be preferable, thus where

space is at a premium. Ergo: the machine must have a small footprint

and be inexpensive, and also easy, fast, and inexpensive to re-stock.

Together with design consultancy IDEO, Alvarez developed a scenario

B1029_Ch-01.indd 1B1029_Ch-01.indd 1 12/27/2010 4:08:09 PM12/27/2010 4:08:09 PM


2 DESIGN-INSPIRED INNOVATION WORKBOOK


for how a family en route on the highway to some distant destination

was halting at a Vigix kiosk to rent a DVD to keep the kids happy, the

DVD to be returned by mail later.

To achieve user friendliness, Alvarez has a principle — a concept

must pass a critical test group of one: his distinctly un-nerdy mother

in Mexico. Yes, the concept did indeed pass that critical “My Mom’s

Test”!

The problem of high reliability for DVD delivery from the machine

led to a breakthrough, a key invention, resulting in a patent application.

The method, the technology for letting the customer receive the DVD,

turned out to be a generic one, not applicable just for DVDs. Remarkably,

it is a system without any moving parts — reliability to a fault — and

much of the whole system revolves around this breakthrough.

So what happened to Vigix? Where is it today?

Alive and kicking, thank you. The concept has rounded out with

sophisticated software for controlling a network of Vigix kiosks — and as

so often with new ideas, Vigix is developing along a different trajectory

from the one initially foreseen. Distributing DVDs may not be such a big

market, with broadband Internet transmission as one of the alternatives.

Instead, the generic technique for dispensing a product automatically

from a mechanism, maybe a kiosk, opens up a host of opportunities, the

correlation being that kiosks may be loaded and re-loaded by ordinary

deliverymen from the likes of UPS or Federal Express. Among such

opportunities, the Vigix home page lists prepaid mobile phones and

accessories, which may be generalized to other electronic gears such as

iPods; print media such as maps, books, and magazines; event tickets;



PROLOGUE: INSTANCES OF DESIGN 3


greeting cards; and more. As we can see from Fig. 1.1, the Vigix kiosk

is designed to occupy about the same space as a person.

MIT and personal transportation

At the annual Buckminster Fuller design competition, the winners

in 2009 were a group from MIT, who presented an entire system for

personal transportation, Mobility-on-Demand. The concept holds that

there should be a number of docking stations (racks) for the storage,

retrieval, and charging of the electric vehicles that constitute the sys-

tem hardware. There are three types of vehicles, envisaged to cater to

Figure 1.1.





different transportation ranges — a scooter, a bike (possibly electric), and

a minicab (Fig. 1.2). Their availability is monitored and their utilization

managed by a computer system connected to those docking stations,

also allowing users to reserve a vehicle from a net-book or a cell phone

(Fig. 1.3). This computer management includes charging and acquiring

payment for usage.

As can be seen in Fig. 1.4, the scooters, with electric motors fully

integrated into their wheels, as well as the minicabs, are collapsible,

making for compact storage. Safety, convenience, and comfort fi gure

prominently — and fun as well. We can happily read in the presentation

Figure 1.2. CityCar and RoboScooter Footprint comparison





Figure 1.3. Availability and utilization monitored by a computer system

“In-wheel motors offer an example of design-inspired innovation” (empha-

sis added). Those CityCar fully integrated in-wheel electric motors and

suspension systems eliminate all need for traditional drive trains like

engine blocks, gearboxes, and differentials; braking and steering is like-

wise included. The wheels can be re-directed omni-directionally (that is,

360°), allowing for extreme maneuverability.





Merry furniture

The Spanish design fi rm Merry seems to specialize in absolutely intriguing,

playful designs (appropriate company name, no?). Here is a dish inspiring

you to take a (another) bite (Fig. 1.5); a zip lamp, where you control how

much light to use by zipping up and down (Fig. 1.6); and you must admit

that the little end tables (Fig. 1.7) are absolutely charming, because they are

anthropomorphic, no? — not, for a Swede, the ordinary IKEA frugality.

Figure 1.4. CityCar Chassis — Full Scale Working Prototype





Figure 1.5.

Figure 1.6.





Nike+ into the shoe

Nike engineers, possibly inspired by the fact that in marathon races,

runners are equipped with chips that help time them, discussed and

brainstormed future intelligent running shoes. Runners often listen to

music while jogging, relying upon an MP3-player like the iPod. Perhaps

an iPod should be integrated into the runner’s shoe?

One of the Nike designers had worked for Apple for a long time,

so a contact between the two companies, and the relevant teams within

them, came naturally. Together, they concocted storyboards telling how

intelligent shoes might run, where one metaphor was ‘the shoe speed-

ometer,’ recalling that initially, cars had no speedometers but now, of

course, a car without one would be unthinkable.

Figure 1.7.





Nike had come up with a sensor, but Apple took over that respon-

sibility, miniaturizing and perfecting this component. Nike focused on

the shoes and also on the interfaces to the iPod and the Web. Thus,

the end result was a system, creating a log for the jogger as well as

allowing her to hook up to an Internet community. In August 2008,

Nike organized “the Human Race” in 25 cities around the world. There,

runners could participate, individually, everywhere and not just in

those cities, running 10 km and uploading their data to Nike. All in all,

almost 800,000 people took part in that run. Of course, the community

is open to more or less ingenious initiatives, such as people challeng-

ing each other: “fi rst to 100 miles,” “don’t miss doing three workouts a

week,” “beat the average per km time for your age group” (not everyone

can do that)…

For an individual running, the Nike+ helps keeping track of distance,

speed, and may also help establish the route covered with the aid of

maps on the Internet. The gadget may intercept the jogger, prompting

if she sags and also activate some exciting music if such might be called

for. Already a long time ago, biomedical research had established that

the time that a runner’s foot is in contact with the ground is inversely

proportional to the runner’s speed, independent of stride or slope. This

had been frowned upon as not terribly exact, but turned out to hold

well within error margins suffi cient for the Nike+ function, a research

discovery fundamental to the gadget’s design.

The Nike+ consists of just three parts — an accelerometer, a trans-

mitter for communication, and the necessary battery (Fig. 1.8). It has to

fi t into a shoe so shoes must be prepared with a small compartment





for the Nike+ (Fig. 1.9). There is no heart rate monitoring, and no GPS

tracking of the course run — that has to be done on the Nike web site.

This equates with a lesson Nike learnt from Apple and the iPod: sim-

plicity, focusing on user experience.

Nike has learnt a lot from users and their behavior. Not every run-

ner has an iPod, so the alternative is a bracelet monitor (Fig. 1.10) where

the data collection part is detached after the run and fi t into the USB

port of a personal computer. Data can then be uploaded to the runner’s

Figure 1.8.





personal fi le at the Nike+ site. On the site, the runner may follow her

progress, establish goals, and compare with other runners or statistics

of various types. One of the lessons for Nike was that people may try

and test the site a few times but if they have logged on fi ve times, then

they are hooked and have become regulars. Or, perhaps, this refl ects the

positive habit-making effect that running — at least fi ve times — has

had on the individual?

Figure 1.9.

Figure 1.10.





As with the iPhone App Store, independent developers have estab-

lished themselves, with open source initiatives such as Neki++ and freeware

Running Tracker, making the user independent of the Nike+ site (Fig. 1.11).

And for those who wish, Twiike can post their running data directly on

to Twitter. Traditionally, Nike has been eager on patent protection but now

seems to look rather positively on open source as a mechanism to enlarge

the Nike community and thus the brand’s appeal. Also traditionally, Nike

focused on physiological needs — with Nike+ it is aiming at psychological

and social demands, and, well, the meaning of running.

Shimano (re-)invents bicycle coasting

In Design-Inspired Innovation, we credited Shimano with having been

instrumental in establishing “mountain bikes” as a market of its own, not

by attempting to elbow itself into the place occupied by entrenched bike

Analyze and compare your Nike+ workouts with Running Tracker ! Import your existing workouts directly from the Nike+ website Import your workouts from your iPod Nano Analyze and compare your workouts Generate graphs and statistics

Figure 1.11.





manufacturers, but, instead, by establishing itself as the ‘must-have’ gearbox

for mountain bikes. Studying and talking to bikers and ex-bikers, Shimano,

together with design fi rm IDEO, discovered that the fast growing popula-

tion of aging people held many ex-bikers and would-be bikers who felt

gear-shifting going uphill necessary but too cumbersome. So, an idea was

born: an automatic gear-shift for bikes, one that changed gears when the

going got increasingly diffi cult (and shifted again, for the downhill ride).

An idea was born, and, like with mountain bikes, a new category:

coasting. Together with IDEO, Shimano had developed the automatic

gear-shift, and now set out to market the new approach to biking, and

to convince the traditional producers of bikes to develop their own

lines of Shimano-equipped coasting bikes. Three of the six largest bike

manufacturers had introduced coasting bikes in 2007, and seven more

producers did so in 2008.

The above was written before the appearance of IDEO CEO

Tim Brown’s 2009 book Change by Design.1 Here, we learn that there

are several more elements to the coasting bike design that evokes a

‘traditional’ and ‘childhood’ experience (Fig. 1.12). In addition, there is

another important dimension: coasting bikes are sold through stores

that are designed to be less off-putting to senior citizens than shops

geared at extreme sports, with lycra-clad salesmen.

KOR re-designs water

In many parts of the world, water is a scarce resource — clean, portable

water, that is. Often, it is consumed out of plastic bottles that are produced





from petroleum in energy-demanding processes; even more energy is

required for the transportation of these bottles. And out of those bottles,

just one fi fth is recycled, the remainder waste, often a nuisance or worse,

such as, for example, with toxic stews amassing in the oceans.

KOR had a dream: to redesign water, or, rather, the ways water

was bottled and consumed, and the way water consumers are drinking.

The polycarbonate plastic in ordinary plastic bottles comes with traces

of toxic substances. “Water ReDesigned” would have to be associated

with design, health, and sustainability; the water bottles should be cool

as well as reusable.

At the RKS design fi rm, KOR found the competency for discovering

water users’ unmet emotional yearnings and discover essential elements in

the ‘ritual of hydration,’ of water intake. Available drinking/rehydration

Figure 1.12.





alternatives were plotted in a diagram with two axes, one being the degree

of interactivity, the other being engagement or empowerment. Hydration/

drinking should tell a story, and KOR bottle users would feel like heroes

relying upon a better, purer way to drink and to rehydrate. Ideally, they

would function as evangelists starting a wave of viral demand (blog post-

ings by bottle users indicate that the wave is on its way).

The eventual bottle should be something to be proud of, to feel

good for both the one drinking water and in demonstrating her concern

for the planet: a piece to display, to vaunt (Fig. 1.3). Water should be

delivered easily and in one big gulp; the cap should allow for one-hand

use and be impossible to lose; the bottle should be easy to refi ll under

an ordinary tap, from a fridge, or a water cooler; and the material must

be environmentally friendly and healthy.

While developing a guitar series, RKS had made good contacts with

Eastman Chemicals, and so posed the question on whether they might

propose some better alternatives to polycarbonate plastic. The answer

was a qualifi ed negative: ‘not quite yet.’ Soon, the Eastman Tritan™

co-polyester was introduced, featuring versatility, impact resistance,

dishwater safety, wondrous clarity, furthermore allowing for varying

wall thicknesses, and moldable in tools made for polycarbonate. Of

course, it met the no-health-risk requirement.

It might sound trivial but the size of the mouthpiece, the opening

which lets water into the mouth, is nothing but. Too large, and water

will spill on the side; too small, and water will come intermittently

if not sucked; the bottle squeezed or equipped with an extra air

inlet, a troublingly cumbersome addition. RKS performed intensive





Figure 1.13. Photo credit: Ben Dowdy and Carla Olson of Eastman

testing to arrive at the ideal size and shape of the mouthpiece

(Fig. 1.14). A side result was that ice cubes from the fridge now fit

into the bottle.

Next challenge: the cap. To be operated by one hand, it could

not be a screw-cork. After lots of experimentation in the RKS lab, the

solution was a cap opened by the simple pressing of a lid by the thumb.





A built-in gasket prevents any leaking whatever bottle position once

the latch has been re-set and the bottle sealed again. The resulting top

resembles a Chinese puzzle (Fig. 1.15).

Another partner was also involved: Nypro, experts in manufactur-

ing “integrated plastics solutions.” Since the designers wanted the bottle

bottom free from the normal notch in the middle of the bottom, emanating

from the plastics production process and the gate for the material, the

gate was moved off-center, to the side. Thus, the bottle — the water —

would look really clear, clean, and crystal-like.

Normally, re-usable water bottles would not offer much beauty or

excitement. The KOR one, however, proposes a drinking, re-hydration

experience, with a bottle material with attractive tactile properties: a glass

clear material with but a tint of blue, and an obelisk shape that intrigues (there

are three more colors available, each with its own non-profi t organization

Figure 1.14.





as a partner, like the Container Recycling Institute for Sunrise Orange).

The frame is a semi-transparent white aimed at evoking the feel of a

glacier; functionally, the frame offers an easy grip for the user’s fi nger(s)

(Fig. 1.16).

What about personalizing your water bottle? The designers decided

to include another unique feature: the KOR stone. This is a small round

piece, a disc-shaped token, that can easily be inserted into the cap, by

lifting its fl exible end seal; a stone printed with content chosen by the

Figure 1.15.





user. The stone’s text can be seen just by the person drinking the water.

(Fig. 1.17) Any bottle comes with a set of stones with different messages

and new ones can be produced and exchanged over the KOR web site

and within the KOR community.

Philips re-thinks MRI

The Dutch electronics (and light-bulb) giant Philips has been a pio-

neer in applying industrial design, recently also with an explicit focus

Figure 1.16.





on simplicity, with a director in charge of precisely the latter. At a

conference in Copenhagen, Hans Robertus of Philips Design made an

instructive exposé of Philips design activities, including some enticing

light-bulb designs, based on light-emitting diodes, with which we begin

our report from Philips (Fig. 1.18). So my use of the term ‘light-bulb’

is, in fact, obsolete.

Following Hans Robertus, we present some slides from the design

process for a magnetic resonance system, MRI — an environment

for radiology: images of the body’s interior. For magnetic resonance

tomography to produce images akin to those resulting from X-rays,

the body (or parts of it) has to pass through the appropriate apparatus.

The term ‘tomography’ indicates that computer power is relied upon to

compose an integrated picture from measurements that amount to ‘one

Figure 1.17.





slice at a time.’ The part of the body studied is on a conveyor belt pass-

ing through an opening whose walls contain the necessary magnetic

resonance generation and image signals collection equipment.

Figure 1.19 shows a photo of the radiology system confi gura-

tion as it existed, the sketch (Fig. 1.20) shows a vision of a putative

future solution. The team had a truly eclectic composition: health-care

Figure 1.18.





Figure 1.19.

Figure 1.20.

expert; psychologist; engineer; architect; product; interaction; multi-

media; and light designers. The very activities envisioned were

described in storyboards; as we see in Figs. 1.21–1.23, they are different

for different potential stakeholders, and several categories of medical

personnel and patients, including children. The different ‘fl ows’ apply-

ing to these categories were made to correspond — that is the idea — to

specifi c designated areas and activity zones. One particular concern,

not shown here, had to do with managing the coils for the magnets.

Finally, there is a resulting concept specifi cation where hand-drawn

sketches have been substituted by CAD renderings (Fig. 1.24).





Figure 1.22.

Figure 1.21.





Figure 1.24.

Figure 1.23.





Figure 1.25.

Figure 1.26.





Kids were among the groups consciously considered (Figs. 1.26–1.27).

And whom would they care for if not their best friends? And sketching

is a faculty that develops early in life…

The resulting system showed impressive advantages over its pre-

decessors: sedation rates were down by 30–40 percent, radiation dosage

was reduced by as much as 50–75 percent, capacity utilization showed

an increase by 15–20 percent, images were of higher quality, and the

steps in preparing a scan could be reduced, leading to higher patient

and staff satisfaction.

Coca-Cola freestyle and design machine

Coca-Cola got a new design chief, David Butler, who fi rst did not have

that title, and who met a design ignorant company — so he wrote a three

page memo, describing to his colleagues that Coca-Cola, as a matter of

fact, is one of the world’s largest design fi rms. This was the wake-up

Figure 1.27.





call for a troubled company; Butler envisaged that design could come

to its rescue. Supply-chains had problems, bottlers made trouble, oppor-

tunities in global markets were lost, core products were losing traction.

How to reduce carbon footprint from transporting sodas around? How

to handle increasing consumer skepticism to carbonated sodas? How to

attract consumers through variety, and how to know what they would

prefer? With between 400 and 500 brands in more than 200 countries

and more than 1.5 billion servings of the company’s products every

day, managing complexity is compulsory. The new emphasis on design

resulted in two early initiatives with major potential. One project aims

at supporting individual bottlers all over the globe, the other offers the

consumer a soda delivery system.

To allow even the most minute marketer to shape customized

point-of-sales material, Butler commissioned what is named the Design

Machine, a Web-based tool (Fig. 1.28). This is modularized for scalability

and allows for producing material tailored to local markets, still in line

with global brand strategy. There are 36 languages to choose from, more

than 100 product options, almost 9,000 templates, and also a variety

of drinking occasions. The tailoring process takes a couple of minutes

and shaves off 30 percent of fees to local ad shops. Market feedback

for local tweaks is collected and analyzed automatically, generating

improvements.

The other item, directed to consumers, is the Freestyle fountain

machine (Fig. 1.29). It offers customers a very broad selection of drinks

while eliminating the previous 5-gallon concentrate bags, replaced

with thirty 46-ounce inkjet printer cartridges, an idea — micro-dosing,





Figure 1.28. The Coca-Cola Design Machine user interface.





Figure 1.29. The Coca-Cola Freestyle: most of the radical change is found in the interior, though there is a touchpad for choosing — composing? — one’s drink

with just drops for fl avor — borrowed from the medical industry, thus

bringing down carbon footprint vastly. Cartridges, equipped with radio

frequency ID chips, track instantaneously what is being dispensed and

an integrated computer monitors consumption, enabling staff at the

Atlanta HQ to analyze data about beverage popularity, peak times, and

preferred locations. Company staff can also talk back to the machine,

letting it know digitally if a particular fl avor needs to be discontinued,





recalled, or tweaked. Test marketing is easier and less expensive to carry

out, and the performance of a new offering or campaign can be traced

closely. The data collected allows distributors to fi ne-tune inventorying

and ordering. An early discovery is that Diet Coke without caffeine has

a sales hike in the late afternoon.

The Freestyle machine heralds a new business model: a delivery

system, rather than a machine, has been designed. It is the same size

as previous vending machines, those delivering soda cans of some ten

different varieties. The consumer will now navigate to her choice by an

easy-to-use touch-sensitive screen, offering 140 varieties from combina-

tions of the drops from the thirty cartridges, so that, say, raspberry is

used in a Coke, a tea, or fl avored water (Fig. 1.30). The screen makes

Figure 1.30.





promotion and information messages possible and allows the consumer

to inspect the product and its ingredients before purchase, selecting a

drink for its brand, calories, caffeine content, and color. As a network

node, the machine can communicate digitally not only within Coca-Cola

but also, using Bluetooth, with the consumer.

Unusually for Coca-Cola, the Freestyle is an internally generated

product, resulting in a number of patents. The company is even manu-

facturing the machine internally, though with hardware from suppliers

such as Samsung.

The British Design Council offers a series of case stories for

design-oriented companies, telling about how they organize for and

manage design: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/About-Design/

managingdesign/Eleven-lessons/.

Endnotes

1Brown, Tim, 2009. Change by Design. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.


Documents

The Design Inspired Innovation Workbook (358 Pages) · To be continued… the Vigix story In Design-Inspired Innovation, Vigix founder and book co-author, Eduardo Alvarez, told the