Anthony Checks in On Design

Tom Kelley of IDEO fame mentioned in his book, The Art of Innovation, a few more cultural issues/barriers with product design. I thought about your apple juice and Japan example. Here are a few excerpts from Kelley's book.

Japanese like their vacuum cleaners quieter and less powerful with smaller motors than American vacuum cleaners. Americans think if the vacuum cleaner is not noisy it's not working.

European car makers were slow to adopt cup holders. The makers assumed their cars were such a pleasure to drive that no one would possibly want to compromise their performance or spoil the experience by taking one hand off the wheel to hold a cup of coffee. On a side note...My brother drives an old Volvo 240 Wagon. I call it the worlds toughest station wagon, a real Swedish brick with 300,000 miles on it. Very rugged and it has taken him all over remote parts Mexico and the US. His biggest complaint...no cup holders.

Betty Crocker tried to peddle its moist cakes in England. They didn't fly. The English like dry cakes and cookies with their tea.

The fax machine, invented in the mid 1800s, had no advantages over the telegraph so it never took off. However, telegraphs cannot easily handle the ideographic Japanese language while faxes can. Japan became the world leader in fax technology.

Finland has had a long tradition of communications expertise, once boasting of having over 800 telephone companies. They quickly became leaders in cell phone technology.

If you grew up in the 50s and the 60s you tend to rinse off the dishes before you put them into the dishwasher. This has been rendered totally obsolete by modern dishwashers according to Kitchenaid. What's the lesson? Often you've got to work especially hard to overcome rituals or superstition.

Anthony

Bookmark this post --- Email this post