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The First Secret of Great Design: Tony Fadell (Full Transcript)

Tony Fadell at TED Talks

Full transcript of designer Tony Fadell’s TED Talk on The First Secret of Great Design.

Listen to the MP3 Audio: The first secret of great design by Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell –  Inventor, designer, entrepreneur, and angel investor

In the great 1980s movie “The Blues Brothers,” there’s a scene where John Belushi goes to visit Dan Aykroyd in his apartment in Chicago for the very first time. It’s a cramped, tiny space and it’s just three feet away from the train tracks.

As John sits on Dan’s bed, a train goes rushing by, rattling everything in the room, John asks, “How often does that train go by?”

Dan replies, “So often, you won’t even notice it.”

And then, something falls off the wall. We all know what he’s talking about. As human beings, we get used to everyday things really fast.

As a product designer, it’s my job to see those everyday things, to feel them, and try to improve upon them. For example, see this piece of fruit? See this little sticker? That sticker wasn’t there when I was a kid.

But somewhere as the years passed, someone had the bright idea to put that sticker on the fruit. Why? So it could be easier for us to check out at the grocery counter. Well that’s great, we can get in and out of the store quickly.

But now, there’s a new problem. When we get home and we’re hungry and we see this ripe, juicy piece of fruit on the counter, we just want to pick it up and eat it. Except now, we have to look for this little sticker. And dig at it with our nails, damaging the flesh. Then rolling up that sticker — you know what I mean.

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