Good news from Northwestern and from Professor Don Norman's website about a new design institute. The programs sound very interesting and applicable--perhaps something for me to explore down the road. Glad to see that Northwestern is continuing to expand its emphasis on engineering design. The multidisciplinary, project-based, process-focused approach has already proven invaluable in my initial experiences in the real world of engineering and product development, and I think it gives young engineers some very relevant and useful skills that will help them immediately contribute to their new environments. Makes me happy to call myself an alum.
March 2007 Archives
It amazes me that so many companies stay in business while often knowing very little about their customers and their needs. I was especially dumbfounded at work recently, when I took part in a program to launch development of a new machine for one of our commercial food equipment divisions.
This was to be "game-changing" and "revolutionary"; the "next generation" in food machines. Of the many innovations that were to be, ease of cleaning was a longtime customer complaint at the top of the design criteria list. However, when we decided to try out the machines to get a hands-on feel for potential improvements, it turns out that only three of the fourteen people in the room had ever cleaned a machine! I was absolutely stunned that anyone whose career revolves around these machines--whether in engineering, sales, marketing, or production--could know so little about its daily operation.
As someone who once cleaned seven machines, three times each, in two days of performance benchmarking, I had a true appreciation for just how difficult, time-consuming, and intimidating it was to clean one of these beasts.
How can you possibly understand and empathize with your users, and claim to be solving their needs without ever putting yourself in their shoes or experiencing what they go through on a daily basis?
