Tony Fadell TED Talk: The first secret of design is...noticing

In this talk, Tony Fadell talks about how we should open up our eyes and note all the details in life. Things are the way they are because that is what they have always been and this is our mindset. However, we can make the habitual things in life better and easier for us. Here are some of the key points on how we can explore and stop ourselves from habituation.




Sticker on fruits

• We have to peel and dig on the fruits for the sticker to come off and it is not a fun thing to do
• you will wonder if there is another sticker and this is how our mind works as we get used to everyday things easily
• our brain made all these everyday things into habits so that there is space for new things

Habituation

• It is good that our mind habituate things because if not, we will need to remember every little details and it will be hard on us
• Sometimes habituation is not really good as it does not make us notice the problem that lays around us and even harder if we do not fix them

Designers

• Mary Anderson who had an experience in a streetcar where the driver opened the window to clean the excess snow, which troubled all the passengers with the cold and wet air that were entering
• She thought what if the driver can clean the windshield from the inside and stay safe in the car and at the same time not troubling the passengers
• Her thoughts was drawn in a sketchbook and what would become the first windshield wiper

Working at Apple with Steve Jobs

• seeing their products through the eyes of their customers
• to solve the problems that customers faced in the past such as charging the batteries to use instead of playing with the new item immediately

there are invisible problems that we can solve but firstly, we need to see them and feel them

Look broader

• when solving problems, there are a lot of steps that lead to a problem and and sometimes a lot of steps after it
• thermostats designers decided to program thermostats, which was previously just turning up and down
• people were afraid of the energy crisis during that year and wanted to save energy
• it turned out no one save energy through program
• designers then made better documentation and came out with machine learning algorithm
• the machine worked and people started to save energy
• when solving a problem, sometimes we need to take a step back , eliminate steps or maybe combine the steps 

Look closer

• Tony and his grandfather had to come out with products for their customers that are easy to install
• they decided to put 3 different types of screws in the box but that did not worked
• after analysing, they figured they did not get it right and came out a special custom screw that is easy to use
• the special screw worked and they ended up having just that one screw in that box

Think younger

• his three young kids often asked questions and some of them were very smart
• kids have not been long enough to get used to things and when they encounter a problem, they would want to solve it immediately
• with young people in the team, everyone will start to think younger

Tony Fadell had broke down different types of ways to handle a problem and restrict from habituation. You need to feel the problem, see the details, look broader, look closer and think younger. These steps may be hard as we try to not ourselves drown in the basic things of how things go but once we are able to do it, the product will be amazing.