Description
- Designing for the User
When Samsung realized older customers were ignoring many of the features on their cell phones, they commissioned inclusive design specialists to find out why. Observing that older adults in focus groups were looking to the box for instructions, the specialists came up with an innovative, book-style package for the phones that doubled as a how-to guide.In this program viewers learn how observation, research data, and a feedback development cycle are brought into play to ensure that products meet the needs of the people using them.
The video also profiles a bicycle that had been marketed to children but built for adult proportions; after the design flaws were addressed, the bikes were safer and easier for kids to ride.
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- Sustainable Packaging
A container should protect a product, attract customers, and be relatively cheap to produce. It should also satisfy consumer demand for goods that do not contribute to the billions of tons of waste produced every year.This program shows how designers are meeting all of these goals by reducing packaging, choosing more recycled materials, and sometimes, completely rethinking a products design.
A thermoforming specialist demonstrates that changing the shape of a take-out box reduces its carbon footprint, and the 6 Rs of sustainable packaging are used to create eco-friendly wrap for Cadbury Easter Eggs. The video includes a tour of a recycling facility to see how bottles are sorted, cleaned, and extruded into pellets to make new packaging.
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- Designing With Recycled Materials
Using recycled materials makes sense, but also presents designers with a unique set of challenges, because they must work within the parameters of the materials properties.This program profiles two companies who have successfully created products from recycled goods. London-based Pli Design produced a stackable chair made from recycled Sony PlayStations, after feeding shredded game consoles through an extruder to learn what kinds of polymers they contained, then determining how these would impact strength and flexibility of the final design.
Tooling and other issues of large-scale plastics recycling are addressed as an appliance manufacturer turns discarded refrigerators into parts for washing machines, cars, and flower pots.
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- Life Cycle Assessment
Volvos ReCharge hybrid car has an electric motor in each of its wheels, helping to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide created when being driven. But a cars performance on the road is only one part of its overall green rating.With the ReCharge serving as an example, this program shows how Life Cycle Assessment is employed to evaluate the environmental impact of manufactured goods – from their raw materials, to production, usage, and disposal.
Designers used recycled materials for much of the ReCharge, but it lost the new car smell after toxic components were eliminated. The video takes a close look at the production phase of LCA with a tour of Volvos energy-efficient assembly plant, and at end-of-life recovery at a dismantling facility.
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- Product Design and Mass Manufacture-Design Optimization
By working closely with potential customers as well as suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors, designers can optimize the products they create while keeping tooling and assembly costs down.In this program designers from Britains Kinneir Dufort employ market research and model-making technology to redesign a peak flow meter, used by people with asthma to measure lung function. To keep up with competitors the device had to be functional, sophisticated, and cheap.
Incorporating what they learned from focus groups, the designers developed a look, shape, and feel for the device, then used rapid prototyping technology to transform CAD coordinates into a physical model. Viewers get a detailed look at CGI, CAD, and model-making technology.
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- Choosing Sustainable Materials
This program profiles CO2 Zero, an eco-friendly housing development in the UK, focusing on its use of recycled plastics and FSC-certified wood. The architect built with renewable and reclaimed resources, and took into account how all parts of the houses would be disposed of at end-of-life, thus minimizing the carbon footprint of this unique living space.Although the countertops are made from nonrenewable plastic, that plastic was created from salvaged materialmelted-down Lego toys.
The video also documents modern timber production, with a representative from Englands historic Forest of Dean explaining how clear cutting can be part of sustainable management, when conducted properly.
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- Designing for Innovation and Safety
Decades ago, Volvos famous safety features were the least appealing part of their cars, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Now designers work with engineers from the beginning of the development process to make sure that Volvo remains competitive on all fronts.In this program Volvo representatives address the issue of combining safety features with good design while maintaining brand identity. Using the Volvo S60 as a case study, a design director discusses the challenges of balancing its pedestrian recognition technology with the overall look, feel, and performance of the car.
Viewers also travel to Volvos state-of-the-art crash-test facility, where engineers work to identify hazards and then begin the cooperative design process.
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- Product Design, Testing, and Modification
Trunki is a popular childrens ride-on suitcase – its brightly colored, rounded surfaces appeal to toddlers and parents alike. But when its designer appeared on a British TV show featuring the product, its towing strap broke, sending Trunki into another round of modification.This program explains how a product became a worldwide success through following three important principles of good merchandise design: its construction was based on testing feedback and modifications, it conforms to legal safety standards, and its designer was knowledgeable about manufacturing options.
Viewers see injection and rotational molding machines at work, and a product inspector demonstrates how Trunki was tested for safety hazards.
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IFH
0911
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