Vikas Gupta

In Search of Design Excellence

Rutter, G. B. (2010). “In Search of Design Excellence.” http://www.appliancedesign.com. Visited on October 15th, 2012: http://www.appliancedesign.com/Articles/Feature_Article/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000931808 Design excellence can be defined as a combination of design excellence, or the fidelity of decisions decisions and the innovations. Often, people conflate innovation and  the execution of design. Even if a design is new and a breakthrough, the execution of the design can make or break the how excellent a design truly is. One area to consider for design execution is human centered design. Examples given include the design of a music application. While it might be possible to dpwnload music in a new manner, it does not mean ease of use has been considered. Similary, when considering design decisions for making a new chair, often times, ergonomics and engineering check boxes may be used to create new experiences. However, if human centered design tenants are not considered, the design may still ultimately fail. Ie, s the music app easy to use? Fun to use? Is the chair comfortable? Does it fit in the users environment? For new innovations if human centered designed is a component of the design a better product may emerge, and this is one sign of excellent design. p-prim…

Article: Sometimes more choices leave people worse off

Research published in Biology Letters shows that people confronted with too many choices have difficulty making a good decision. The study analyses over 3,700 human dating descisons across 84 speed-dating events. The study found that when the numnber of variable attributes increases (ie heigh, occupation, education background), people made fewer dating proposals. The effect was even stronger as the number of potential partners increased. Another study shows that when participants in a dating study are given more potential partners, their emotional satisfaction is not higher than when presented with fewer options. Other studies have shows that more options cripple a people to not make any decision at all. Consumer studies show that when given limited options, consumers make a purchasing decison, and are happier with the limited set of options. When given large numbers of options, humans and other animals tend to rely on heuristics that help guide decision making. These rules of thumb help to reduce and simplify the decision making proceess by ignoring some information. We tend to default to quick, easy, and recognizable options. We can decide the appeal of a face in 13 milliseconds. So with fewer options, people make quicker decisions. With more options, people…