The 10 square feet factory.

 

A couple of weeks ago the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) held their annual conference in Portland with a theme of DIY Design, threat or opportunity. I was invited to speak at the conference and I gave a talk around the” 10 square foot factory”. During this talk I described lessons learned in software design and prototyping that I applied to the small scale manufacturing of real products.

Software development does not require a lot of overhead, investment or people in order to create a competitive product of high quality. With small scale manufacturing tools becoming more widely available, the creation of real products starts to enjoy the same bootstrapping benefits.

Last year I set out on an experiment to see whether it is possible to design, prototype and manufacture profitable products in small runs, without sacrificing any of the quality you get with mass manufacturing. And without it becoming a one-off craft product either.

My desire to do this started about 5 years ago, when my daughter was born. I had this idea for a modular playhouse where you can rearrange the rooms and roofs and build different unique structures. I created designs for this and my father was willing to build this.

The end result looked great,…for something that was built by hand. However I was somewhat disappointed that we could not accomplish the same quality that one might get with mass produced products.

After all, this is what I am used to in software UX design. We, as designers and developers, can create something of high quality with just a small group of people with the tools that are widely available. Also, a simple software product, for example an iPhone application, can be of the same quality as a more complex application, such as Microsoft Office. This still isn’t possible in the development of physical products; you either can have one product that is crafted or prototyped in a very expensive manner. Or you can get a large run of the product in high quality. This is cheaper per product, but more expensive as an investment.

Small run manufacturing tools are becoming more widely available and affordable. For example, entry-level laser cutting, 3d printing or CNC routing machines are now offered for under $10,000. There are also many online services available were you can submit your design and they will either, laser cut, 3d print, or CNC it and ship it anywhere.

Last year I decide to buy a small Shopbot CNC router to experiment with. Besides the fact that this allowed me to make high quality single run products, this also introduced another aspect that I was used to in software design; you are always dealing with a real product, no matter where you are in the development process.

In software, when a product gets developed it runs through a couple of different phases; design, programming and testing. A complex software product might go through a couple of these cycles.

Throughout the development all the code that is being written is assembled and built into an in-between software product. The interesting aspect is that this in-between product is not a model or prototype, but the real product, just not in its final state yet. This allows you to evaluate your product on a daily basis and adjust the design, or send it to your customers as an alpha or beta to gather feedback.

At some point the product is in a good enough state to be sold to customers. This is sometimes called “going gold”. From this point on copies will be made of this final product.

My CNC machine allows me to iterate in a similar manner. I can create real versions of the product as I am designing it and test both the appeal and construction. Once I decide the product is good enough, I can start making copies.

The end result of this first experiment is the Toideloi Stackhouse.

The Stackhouse is a modern, multi-functional and expandable playhouse. It consists of individual rooms and roofs that can be stacked and arranged in multiple different ways. For example you can arrange it into single houses, a castle of a sky scraper. The Stackhouse does not require any fasteners and consists entirely of Eastern European birch plywood. The Stackhouse can be manufactured on a 10 square feet CNC router and it can easily scale to more and/or larger machines.

You can find more information on this website; www.toideloi.com.

Artefact Establishes its Industrial Design Team with Three Strategic Hires

 

SEATTLE, WA – (Marketwire – August 20, 2010) – Artefact, a Seattle-based design consultancy, today announced that it has hired Jonas Buck, Johanna Schoemaker, and Markus Wierzoch. With these strategic additions, Artefact has quickly established a very capable and accomplished industrial design team.

Jonas Buck holds a degree in Product Design from University Wuppertal, Germany. His previous work has gained him the recognition and respect from clients like Microsoft, Intel & Braun, as well as earning him multiple national and international design awards. “Jonas is a very thoughtful and intelligent designer. We have been very impressed by his talent and are very excited to bring him on board,” said Gavin Kelly, Artefact principal and co-founder.

Johanna Schoemaker began her career as a jewelry maker before earning a degree in Industrial Design from the University of Wuppertal. Her work for companies like Microsoft, Intel, Fluke and Braun has earned her a reputation as a very talented designer. She has been honored with several design awards, including the precious Braun Prize for her “Future Lighting” project. “She is a very gifted designer,” said Fernd van Engelen, Artefact’s Director of Industrial Design. “Her insights and creativity will be a valuable asset to our company.”

Markus Wierzoch graduated with a degree in Industrial Design from the Fachhochschule Darmstadt in Germany. After beginning his professional career working for Barski Design in Germany, he moved to Taiwan where he worked for GE/Fitch and consumer electronics giant Asus. Most recently, Markus was a lead designer at Carbon. His impressive list of clients includes HP, Dell, Panasonic, Clear Wireless, Microsoft and Intel. “Markus is a gifted designer who is well respected in the industry, whose opinion and insights companies seek out,” said Rob Girling, Artefact principal and co-founder. “He is an important hire who brings a great deal of know-how and credibility.”

While the addition of Buck, Schoemaker and Wierzoch gives Artefact a highly capable industrial design discipline in its own right, the real benefits lay in the extent to which Artefact is able to deliver seamlessly integrated user experiences across a broad range of devices and platforms. “We live in a time when the distinctions between hardware and software are becoming increasingly blurred,” said Kelly. “Integrating industrial design into our very well respected user experience design, research, and development offerings sets us apart from most other creative companies.”

Hierarchy, Communication and Success.

 

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s, “Outliers”. The book is full of interesting ideas and explanations such as: why the birthdays of professional hockey players fall predominantly in January, February and March; the relationship between goat-herding and family feuds, or how it takes ten thousand hours to get good at your art.  One section that particularly struck me introduced the concepts of Power Distance and Mitigated Speech, and how they relate to success or failure in high-risk situations that require clear communication.

In thinking more about this I found parallels to the design world (lots of situations that require clear communication), and ultimately an article that was picked up by core77.com. Check it out – I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts and comments.

Mitigating Mitigation via (@core77)

SIGGRAPH 2010

 

This sheer size of this convention never ceases to impress me – about 10,000 people spread over 50+ rooms and exhibit halls in the 900,000 square feet convention centre.

LA Convention Centre arrow.jpg

Room 408 AB holds about 800 people. This shot taken between sessions.

The latest and greatest academic papers on computer graphics along with talks, workshops and courses in anything related to the subject as well as an animation festival, trade show and job fair. Producers and directors presenting clips of the most impressing upcoming CG movies – pretty much any major movie is a CG movie these days – and details of the production.

As a result it has about 6-8 events going on at any one time, so it’s impossible to follow it all. Luckily, they record all the sessions, so I’ll get them all on DVD in a couple of weeks.

The conference has shrunk since I first attended in the ’97 where it had almost 50,000 attendees in the same location. In a post-Avatar world it’s obvious that most of the core problems of photo-realistic rendering have been solved. It was tale-telling that the Jury award in the animation festival went to a short that was first and foremost a great story, told with average animation.

It’s no longer about what we’re able to do technically, at least for movies, that’s pretty much anything except for some edge-cases. It’s more a question of how much content we can afford to create and to what quality level. That’s where the budgets of all these movies are going.

As anybody that has sat down in front of Maya or 3DS Max can attest to, creating 3D content has a steep learning curve and takes much longer that you thought when you first tried to do it. I don’t think any of those tools will go away, but it’s time to generate a new class of tools that focus on making it easier to tell a story with basic figures and then add detail as time and budget allows.

Think of the difference between Quark Xpress and Word – Quark Xpress is clearly more powerful and a better tool for a professional type-setter, but Word can do a pretty good job and is far more accessible.

That said there is still a lot of great new research going on:

Much of the work this year focused processing 2D images in interesting ways. Now that almost everyone has a video camera on them all the time, this field is getting renewed interest. From automated compositing of crowd-sourced video into multi-camera event footage to using user input about favorite pictures to automatically to teach your camera to take pictures in your preferred style. Here’s a list of my favorites:

- Image Deblurring Using Inertial Measurement – this can use inertial data from your blurry cell-phone snaps to de-blur them into tri-pod sharpness (or at least a lot closer).

- Unstructured Video-Based Rendering: Interactive Exploration of Casually Captured Videos – turning crowd-sourced event coverage into 3D-based cut scenes.

- Video Tapestries with Continuous Temporal Zoom – turn any movie into a zoom-able tapestry

- Personal Photo Enhancement Using Example Images – automatically adjust process your photos to look more like your favorite pictures.

On the more hard-core 3D side, one of the best papers was about using a new atomic object for simulating deformable objects – the Elaston. This is really brilliant stuff that greatly simplifies a lot of simulations of rubbery or otherwise deformable objects. There was also some great work (using Elastons) in realistically simulating knitwear and other types of cloth. For all the great work here we still have a ways to go before we get the full range of clothes and hair to render well – we’ve nailed spandex, crew-cuts and pony tails. Here’s a list of the best ones, in my opinion:

- Unified Simulation of Elastic Rods, Shells, and Solids – Introducing Elastons: an elegant atomic structure for handling elastic objects of almost any kind.

- Micropolygon Ray Tracing with Defocus and Motion Blur – optimizing rendering to take into account that most images (even real-time) now have more polygons that pixels, all our existing techniques assume that polygons have lots of pixels.

- Rigid-Body Fracture Sound With Pre-computed Soundbanks – yes, this one allows realistic-sounding shattering of objects in real-time.

- Interactive Hair Rendering Under Environment Lighting – this is really good, for polyester wigs.

- Subtle Gaze Direction – this explores using an camera to track eye-focus of viewer and imperceptibly direct their focus to specific parts of the picture by making small distortions outside of the focal area. It’s amazingly effective and ties in well with the development of devices that look back at you.

- Feature-Based Locomotion Controllers – this allows biped models to move realistically from A to B, either jumping, avoiding or focusing on obstacles, using a learning based reward model.

- Comprehensive Biomechanical Modeling and Simulation of the Upper Body – this is the best human simulation model I’ve seen. They’ve modeled (and made publically available) a human torso that simulates all the muscles, bones, cartilage etc. in near-real time.

- Efficient Yarn-Based Cloth With Adaptive Contact Linearizations.

The trade-show was showing off a number of new products. It’s clear that object generating machines continue to get cheaper and better:

A rose by any other name… this one is all plastic and came out of a desk-top sized machine.

Other things that caught my attention in the tradeshow was a company called EyeTech with an effective webcam-based eye-tracker that allowed pretty precise eye-tracking after a 10 second calibration.

Adjusting your belief system

 

Good research should change our thinking. People often think that sample size is an indictor of good research. There are many other more important factors that determine whether research is any good. Regardless, I’m often asked, what’s the right sample size? My first, smart ass, answer is whatever number is needed to change your thinking and adjust your belief system. I don’t answer this question until I figure out what I need to claim. I’ll also need to understand the nature of the observations (data/evidence) to make a good argument. By nature, I mean determining whether the data will be numbers, words, self reported, directly observed, opinions, facts, etc. My goals is to pick a sample of people that is necessary to make a convincing argument, supported by acceptable evidence, while including necessary assumptions and qualifications between claims and evidence.

I don’t have a simple answer to ‘how many is right’ in this line of work. Others do, but I don’t. It’s like asking what’s the meaning of life. There isn’t one answer. Statisticians will teach concepts such as the law of large numbers, central limit theorem, representativeness and repeated measures as important concepts to know when doing research, stats, and deciding the best sample size. These are important concepts I’ve learned when making observations, interpreting data, forming conclusions, and predicting the probably of future events. But, these concepts often don’t come to mind when I’m determining how many people to study. And these concepts may not be necessary in adjusting your belief system. There are three concepts I do often consider when deciding how many people to study. 1) time and budget, 2) data variability, and 3) effect size.

Time and budget has a big impact on how many people can be studied. I don’t know of anything more complex than understanding human behavior. It may take a lifetime for you to understand yourself. And many more lifetimes for me to understand you. If you think you already have yourself figured out, then good for you. But I don’t know the first thing about you. And that’s my job. The amount of time and money clients want to spend on understanding people is going to be fairly limited. I like to understand these limits.

Data variability describes how similar/different or close/far observations are from each another. If I shine a bright light in your eyes, then your pupils will get smaller. If I shine a bright light in your friend’s eyes, then her pupils will get smaller. If people behave similarly then there is less variability. If there is less variability, then fewer people need to be studied to understand the phenomenon. The behavior is fairly predictable and may be understood relatively quickly. If I asked you about BP a year ago, then asked you now, your opinion may be very different. If I watched you pump gas a year ago, and watch you pump gas now, your behavior may be very similar. Opinions about products can be much more variable then how people use products. If I’m after opinions, I tend to study larger sample sizes than if I’m interested in directly observing the use of products.

I often want to know whether new ideas will improve people lives. Is the effect or impact of these ideas real? Is the effect small or large? Effect size measures the strength of the relationship between two variables. For example, product X keeps people entertained longer. If longer is 5 seconds, then that’s a small effect in this case. If longer is 1 hour, then that’s a big effect. Small effect sizes may require a larger sample size, especially if there a lot of variability in the data and the effect is difficult to see. Large effect sizes tend to be easier to see and can lead to needing fewer people.

My goal is to change our thinking, and perhaps adjust our belief system in a fundamental way. If I’m going to convince you, it’s not going to be based solely on a large volume of evidence I’ve gathered. It’s going to be based on whether I can make an argument, supported by acceptable evidence, while also describing assumptions and qualifications between claims and evidence.

Markus Wierzoch

 

With a German educational background and 12 years of intercultural design experience in the US, Asia and Europe, Markus is an inspired and inspiring design leader, passionate about the creation of strategies, experiences and products.

Markus holds a Diploma in Industrial Design from the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany and started his career with Eckart + Barski Design in Frankfurt, before moving to Asia in early 2001, working for GE/Fitch’s Taiwan office and spending five years with the Asus Design Center in Taipei. There, he led over 50 products from design concept stage to mass-manufacturing and spearheaded strategic projects such as the company’s corporate design guidelines. During the final 18 months of his stint with Asus, Markus led the ODM design department and guided product development efforts for clients such as Dell, HP, Alienware, Lenovo, Haier, Cisco, Leapfrog and Medion.

Prior to joining Artefact, Markus worked two and a half years for Carbon Design Group, working in the consumer and medical markets for clients such as GE Appliances, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sonosite and WL Gore. Markus has won more than ten design awards in the US, Asia and Europe.

Artefact Website

 

With a move to a new location, booming business and the launch of a new Artefact brand, a new website was definitely in order, so we came to… well ourselves, to design and develop the new Artefact website. Our goal was to create a really simple yet flexible site that communicates the work we have done, and want to do more of.

We hope you like it.

Jonas Buck

 

Jonas is passionate about creating thoughtful design solutions based in strong user insights and a clear view of the products’ environment.

Equipped with a strong sensitivity for design detailing his work has gained multiple design awards.

Jonas holds a degree in product design from University of Wuppertal, Germany.
Before joining Artefact he gained experience in the design field working for clients like Microsoft, Intel & Braun at Seattle based consultancy Carbon Design.

Johanna Schoemaker

 

Johanna graduated from the University of Wuppertal in Germany, where she earned a degree in industrial design. During her studies her focus was on consumer products and lighting. Johanna strives for clarity in her design work and likes to explore the emotional connections between objects and user.

Prior to joining Artefact Johanna worked at Seattle based design consultancy Carbon Design Group with clients such as Microsoft, Intel, Fluke and Braun. She has been honored with several design awards, including the precious Braun Prize for her graduation project “Future Lighting”.

Artefact Expands its Industrial Design Capabilities with Fernd van Engelen

 

SEATTLE, WA – (Marketwire – July 1, 2010) – Artefact, a Seattle-based design consultancy, today announced that it has added Fernd van Engelen to its team. Van Engelen joins Artefact to build an Industrial Design presence and expand the company’s offering.

With over 20 years industry experience, van Engelen is an accomplished design leader and strategist whose work spans consumer, medical, and technology segments. He has been honored with more than 30 design awards. His past clients include Microsoft, Intel, Braun, and Panasonic.

Van Engelen joins Artefact from Carbon Design Group where he was principal and head of design. His work helped establish Carbon’s industrial design practice and the company’s recognition as a premier design firm. Prior to working for Carbon, he worked for NovAtel, Technology Design, and Teague. While at Teague, he helped establish Teague’s presence in commercial product development.

“Fernd brings a track record of building strong client relationships and successful programs for both emerging and current market leaders,” said Gavin Kelly, Artefact principal and co-founder. “He brings a strong Industrial Design presence in-house to support our mission of offering seamlessly integrated user experiences across a broad range of devices and platforms.”

Fernd was born in Nigeria, grew up in the Netherlands and moved to Canada where he earned a BSC in Environmental Biology and a Masters in Industrial Design from the University of Calgary.

Media Contact
Ken Fry
Artefact
ken@artefactgroup.com