Design Thinking

Chapter 23Face And Interface: Richer Product Experiences through Integrated User Interface and Industrial Design¹

Keith S. Karn

Bresslergroup

Introduction

When users flip a light switch, turn a knob to adjust the volume on a radio, or swipe their fingers across a touch screen, they are interacting with the product's user interface (UI). The user interface encompasses the physical and digital components that allow a user to communicate with a machine or device. The devices we use in everyday life are constantly evolving, and they have morphed drastically in the past 50, and even 20, years. Likewise, user interfaces and the UI design process have changed considerably.

This chapter begins with a call for reintegration of hardware and software UI development, which have evolved into separate silos within many organizations. Next, I provide an overview of emerging UI technologies in new product development (NPD) that are providing designers with opportunities to expand products beyond the limits of physical controls and screens. In the last half of the chapter, I suggest methods for teams who are ready to dig in and develop UI and industrial design (ID) in parallel. (This chapter assumes that teams have already discovered and defined the problems to be solved by the product and are at the threshold of creating and evaluating concepts.) And as no two projects progress identically—and as no process informed by design thinking proceeds in a wholly linear fashion—I conclude with seven ...