from design to audio design /q+a

Following my lecture at the eTf, there were some high-calibre questions. To answer them, I connected some more dots in the world of (audio) design. Hence it is worth writing them up below. Note that I am paraphrasing the questions and my answers, from memory.

• Guy Sergeant, of puresound, asked: ‘You said a product cannot be designed for everybody. Was the iPod not designed for everyone?’

The original iPod was certainly not created as a product for everyone. It was created for those who wanted to carry a lot of songs (1000 at that time) with them—at decent sound quality—and were prepared to pay a premium price for that. iPods were exclusive items, the first couple of years.

Fittingly, the iPod is a device that lives at the crossroads of audio design and interaction design. You can see that its design addresses the ‘lots of tracks’ vision. The click wheel—together with some hierarchical navigation—is a solution for navigating through 1000 songs. The decision to leave playlist management off the iPod and to do it in iTunes is an example of ‘looking at the bigger plan.’ It was the start of an iconic example of what is called service design, i.e. designing the very big plan: iTunes + iTunes store + iPods working together, towards the goal of making it ridiculously easy to obtain songs—legally—and bringing them anywhere with you.

Ultimately, the product vision of the original iPod was reflected by the marketing (as it should be and in that direction): ‘iPod. 1,000 songs in your pocket.’

• Christian Rintelen, former editor of the enthusiast magazine HiFi Scene Schweiz, remarked: ‘There are audio manufacturers that bring models to market just to fill a hole in their model palette.’

I actually do not object to companies having product marketing strategies. What I do object to is audio manufacturers—and there are plenty of them doing it—creating models without a vision. If a manufacturer deducts that they need to have three phono preamps in the market and are able to formulate a vision for each—‘what is it we’re creating, who is it for and where is the value?’—then an audio designer can take care of realising that.

And the results will be meaningful. Without a vision that will not be the case; the products will just be something that is engineered to deliver certain specs at a certain price, that somebody, somewhere will like.

• Ari Polisois of Polisois audio asked: ‘What role does cost play in all this?’
  I fell silent for a moment, some in the audience started laughing because they inferred I had never thought of this factor before. In fact, I was translating back and forth between audio design and interaction design.

It is true that there is a difference in where the cost is in making software and making audio gear. For audio, cost of manufacturing plays a huge role. Every €/£/$ saved per unit on parts or labour translates into an instant profit of (tens) of thousands. In mobile devices, where I have been involved for a long time, it is about saving parts of a cent per unit, because these can number into the hundreds of millions.

In software the bulk of the cost a designer has to deal with is in development, although support costs, or hosting costs for websites can be major concerns too. The costs that I direct with my work ranges from a fraction to tens of man-years. Keeping this effort/cost within budget is part of making it buildable. And…

‘for a designer, making it buildable is half the job’

For a designer, to make it buildable, by liaising with engineers and managers, is taking care of details. If it is simply left to those engineers and managers, they will turn the essence of the design to dust.

• Later that day, David Haigner of Haigner horn speakers asked me ‘You said design is about dealing with the whole thing, how do you know what the whole thing is? There are alway things that are known and those that are unknown.’

Ah yes, the whole thing (pictured above). The opening phase of any design project is always about gathering and organising information, and during the project knowledge should be growing all the time. An axiom of mine about that is:

‘on the last day of the project you actually know just enough to do the project’

But I do agree with bear’s comment that the ‘whole’ thing is limited by the audio designer’s knowledge, gathered project information and experience. And speaking of the latter:

‘in design, nothing beats experience; however for this to hold, a designer must never stop learning’

Yes, learning one or more new things with every project I do, gives me peace of mind.

When hiring a designer, one is exactly tapping into that experience, knowledge and wherewithal to uncover and organise the needed information.

What I meant with ‘the whole thing’ is audio designers seeing more dimensions—and being able to connect them—than anyone else in and around the project: the engineers, product + marketing folks, the management, the brand owner, the listeners.

Although it gives rise to a certain amount of friction with, and plain envy from, the collaborators in the project, living in more dimensions than them gets the job done for designers.

I thank Guy, Christian, Ari and David for their cool questions. Stay tuned for the lecture bonus material.