Understanding Industrial Design

Preface

Throughout the last century, the discipline of industrial design has refined an understanding of how to design physical products for people. More recently, as computation and network connectivity extend beyond the screen, interaction designers and UX professionals also find themselves addressing design problems in the physical world. Smart products, connected devices, the Internet of Things—these terms address a new class of product that is both physical and digital, one that speaks to the need for design disciplines to leave their silos and find productive overlap. For designers who built their careers on the nuances of screen-based interactions, it can be disorienting to address broader UX challenges with a substantial physical component. Although the context is new, much can be learned from the long-standing history and principles of industrial design. Technology evolves rapidly, but the underlying qualities that define the products we love have not changed.

In the past, one could often draw a clean line between hardware and software. As that edge blurs, industrial and interaction designers need to combine their expertise and learn from each other. In the 1990s, the emergence of the Web led designers to develop new interaction patterns for an entirely new medium. A similar definition of best practices is needed for this era, drawing from expertise embedded across multiple disciplines to create an integrative set of practices. Intertwining physical and digital experiences ...