Cool Design Won't Save a Dud Product. Interesting article in Business 2.0 about industrial design. Discusses the flagrant use of design, post-iMac, to pretty up products that lack well-conceived design or to sell designy products that are inappropriate for a brand.
- No amount of fancy design work can save a product that has too many buttons, has a crummy interface, or is awkward to hold. … To help avoid such costly flameouts, designers should be involved with projects from the outset, giving engineers input on product usability and interface issues.