Socialmediaworx

The job of an industrial designer is to consider the end-user’s experience. Once upon a time that was as basic as making a chair supportive in the right places, making a handle chunky enough to grab or asking the graphics guys to make the numbers bigger for legibility. Nowadays it’s getting more complicated.

A modern product like an iPhone works (or doesn’t work–read: AT&T) not only because of its inherent industrial and interface design, but because of the ecosystem in which it “lives.” In the case of the iPhone that ecosystem has been carefully designed, in the form of the iTunes Music/App Store, (among other things); providing consumers with an easy way to buy and use music and apps increases the phone’s utility, improves the customer experience, and creates wealth for the record labels, musicians, and software companies.

In other words, as well-designed as the iPhone is as an individual object, it is the design of the services around it that makes it a game-changer.