How can good design impact our future

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hi everyone we’re here from

tedx singapore studios talking today to

don co industrial designer co-founder of

the studio known as

stuck and also lecture at nus

hi don hey yeah good to be here so

really good to have you here today one

of the interesting projects that you’ve

done is something called the lift button

project and i think that that came out

of the concept of

people having to touch things which of

course became pretty much

anathema in during covet

what inspired you to do the lift button

project and what that’s all about

one of the things that we were

challenging ourselves to think about was

some you know when the moment you go

into uh don’t touch things

um it’s very quick for us to do sensors

and uh

you know uh distance sensing uh devices

that

completely take away your sense of

tactility

right um so now you know lift buttons

it’s been happening right

uh you put your hand here and then it

buzzes and then you can kind of like

activate the button but um

there is something about human beings

and needing to feel the button move

right that we we thought was lost i mean

this seems a bit myopic

almost like a designer talking about

something that’s not so important to

people but on many

levels i would say uh the the reaction

or maybe a bit of a design over

overreaction right to say hey

what if even at a distance the button

yields to our movement

right without touching it would that

make something interesting now the lift

button itself

to me to be very honest as a designer is

slightly superfluous as a solution right

because

these buttons uh and pressing them are

not

such an important thing in our lives you

know they

they to kind of feel that tactility but

but then it opens the question

to say could we do things with um less

yielding to that pandemic uh could we

kind of like have some kind of

uh more delightful response now a

parallel example that

may make more sense in this space

is a project that i recently guided in

nus

where we had a bunch of students rethink

how do you do a hand sanitizer

especially if you do a hand sanitizer

with uh children

and we’ve had them basically say if the

sanitizer was such a

mundane action of pressing it and if you

look everywhere

they spill all over the ground right

this this bunch of uh students they say

what if we brought more fuel into these

things and

they spent time trying to figure out how

do you make

sanitizer solutions bubble

right and so what they created was like

a bubble machine which uh

releases the sanitizing liquid in

in happy form right so children children

went crazy when they tested it because

you could just kind of like just put

over

and the bubbles came up now that may be

less superfluous than

than a leaf button because in some in

some instances i don’t know whether in

schools

perhaps if you want to cultivate a habit

right of say sanitize your hand

right maybe it’s good to bring in some

fun okay

let’s move on to another project another

one that you’ve been involved in is

called the sliding door

okay tell us a little bit about that you

see the the lift button

project um opened up this paradigm for

of things that move in sync with your

body at the distance

right and um the sliding door well the

lift button is a better

carrier of the message at this point in

time because people are sensitive to

touching you know and that’s where the

public spaces are

the sliding door um being a more

efficient format because you only need

one sensor and only one thing is moving

right instead of like 32 buttons would

be in my mind

a better place to use this concept of

kinetic touchless the whole kinetic

touchless type of concept was

basically coming out from you feeling

like you’re darth vader you know

the ability to kind of like uh lock onto

something

at a distance and then it follows you

even though you’re not touching it so

the sliding door is just that when you

get close enough

right it latches to your hands position

right and you can just open as much as

you want

release it goes back again it’s a it’s

for me very interesting because

if we talk about models which try to be

eco-friendly and they install the doors

that keep closing and you have to tap

the button to

have it open sure uh when you tap it it

opens fully

right right and it just stays there for

a while to let you go but um

here when you link it to your hand you

can just open as much as you need to go

through and just walk through and it

goes back so so that’s that’s for me

has some gains with regards to the

efficiency if we go back to the

idea that we use our resources properly

we always have to ask the question that

it endorsed right also you just don’t

want to be

um you know many years down the road

your grandchildren asking why did you do

that

yeah that makes no sense now uh that

that’s i think uh something that

uh yeah we we tend to look at okay often

um you’ve actually been credited with a

number of award-winning designs

so great congratulations it’s really

good um

what do you think is the one design that

you’re most proud of i’m

certainly most proud of uh the arc touch

mouse that

uh microsoft came and uh tasked them

with the challenge to do this

i guess for me uh that singapore

education where we are a little bit you

know um

uh broad-based especially in the earlier

years of your

schooling got me to connect design and

the problem at hand

with a simple phenomenon of thermostats

there’s the

bi-metallic strip in there that bends

with temperature right so

that clicked and i just thought we could

make

a bending mechanism from such principles

uh i made it

um i went to build it and i just gave it

the boss and i think they were a little

bit

stunned by how it worked um and so

that’s where it began

um i yeah so for me it was like yeah

it’s a nice it’s

kind of a nice little milestone for me

there must be so many things in terms of

design

in terms of design thinking there’s the

american school the european school you

know the far eastern school the japanese

school

when you think of certain designs what

gives you that inspiration where you

stop and you go

wow you know that is impressive i think

the one defining thing that uh i’m most

inspired by usually is

when somebody takes away something and

it performs better

than if you try to add something so the

reduction is type of approach

the object that always comes to mind and

i talk about quite a bit

is the balance bike right i’m not sure

if you’ve uh

balanced balance bike you know like the

children’s bicycles where

you know there’s no pedals right they uh

and i i was just stunned seeing my kids

take to it and then all of them

learn to ride a two-wheeled bicycle

faster than

any other kids that i know of right in

fact they don’t even have to be trained

so for me that’s a a great example

because

you know you can say let’s teach a kid

to learn a bike

let’s hold it let’s add wheels to it

right

someone just says let’s take away the

pedal right and then the kid is now

running on his legs but

when he gets a certain momentum it

balances by itself the kid never ever

kind of deals with you know things that

support him

and my daughter she was uh there after

having

used the balance back from for for like

a few months on

our own she she was like say let me try

the paddle bike

right the two-wheel paddle bike got 15

minutes she got on it and she’s riding

around the shop herself

we didn’t have to teach her how to ride

the bike so that was for me like a

you know a really brilliant type of uh

solution which is

um aligned with the clever use of

resources

in fact it reduces the use of resources

to solve the problem

do you apply that when you’re in your

designs is that you try and take out

yes as much as you possibly can um it’s

a bit like a

it’s a bit like a mantra we go through

all the process and we always ask

ourselves

okay now can we take out something you

know can we do this with five dollars

instead of fifty dollars

right it’s not that it’s literally that

reduction but um it causes

us to just oh maybe it’s time to to

think of

the other way around instead of yeah

everybody has the ability to learn

creativity how so

well creativity fundamentally is about

improving things

right and i think everyone

in big and small ways are improving

things in their lives

the challenge is this the challenge is

how do you cultivate a healthy

discontent

right healthy discontent yes i mean tell

us more yeah

i’m all for a contented outlook towards

life right

okay but in terms of improving things um

we need to cultivate the status quo yeah

we need to cultivate a certain kind of

healthy discontent

so that we are able to see the gaps and

the moment that you can see the gap

you know a human being is usually able

to kind of say how do we kind of close

that gap

most of the time we are either

conditioned to numb

ourselves from seeing that gap or

we we need some frameworks to help

ourselves to think that way but

as as a designer operating for you know

some years we’ve

trained ourselves on certain signals

that we always use

so at any one time we can always see an

object and

know how to improve it in some aspect

for human beings now

i think a lot of people can do that for

many things in

even at work or their home it generates

for me actually another question though

which is

isn’t what you’re talking about also

around attitude versus aptitude i always

found that

somebody has to have a certain level of

aptitude to be able to do something

which is why i asked you about

being teachable but also you’ve got to

have the right attitude to be able to

apply that

would you agree or what would you agree

on um in fact

uh you need both and um

sing education even um there there will

uh ones who have a lot of aptitude and

so there’s a stronger inclination in

this space

but you still kind of need to work it to

unwrap that

gift of the talent that you have you

know it’s you know somehow

the way we are given gifts we it’s not

just like oh you’re just brilliant right

from the start

right even if you have the inclinations

too you have to work at it

now then there are others who maybe have

less

aptitude right naturally um they can

gain a very good stretch right to a

true just attitude but

in the same spirit of utilizing

resources for their maximum

potential we see designers and students

this way too meaning that

let’s put everyone in their best game

space you know

where their natural aptitudes are let’s

maximize that

and they are also happier but but this

also engenders the next question of

this is not necessarily age specific

right i mean you could also have someone

who decides to want to go into

industrial

design at a later age and start to learn

and suddenly

they discover an unknown talent right uh

yes

uh in fact even at nus

we’ve had very interesting candidates

with who are like in their 40s and 50s

who

decide after years of successful career

elsewhere

they say i just want to learn design now

you know and they come in and it’s like

you are maybe 20 years older than me as

your teacher yeah but

but but but really uh they surprised us

and

sometimes even more so because of the

clarity that they come to this with

uh students you know from say

the younger age they might come to say

let me try out design but this is

someone who is like i’ve done a lot

um now i want to look at design so that

clarity is quite uh

quite different um in one of the

articles

that has been cited you talked about

this concept of

imagining better possibilities can you

talk to us a little bit about that

imagining better possibilities yes i

think it’s relating to

things like the healthy discontent but

we can imagine better possibility in so

many ways uh

that could be really frivolous and so i

would prefer

if we imagine in certain kinds of boxes

that are productive

for example we know that human beings

always want to

gravitate towards bonding right for

example we know that and it doesn’t

change right we need to be social

creatures um of course there has two

sides to it the the bond dynamic has

the need to be together and also the

need to be a part right

so if we if we always bring to uh

everything that we do this question for

example as a lens

i think we suddenly can realize that

there are a lot of things that we can

improve right like

um how does a sitting layout like that

between you and me or chess

create a better conversational response

right how do you know how does a

backpack

that you bring to school build

friendships right i think

yeah or maybe even help you to open

conversations with another classmate

right they i mean these are questions

that we don’t usually ask of

things that we we um uh

work on right but when you say

possibilities yeah this is where we

start to ask these questions

and but of course we we don’t ask the

frivolous ones we try to ask those that

the human being will resonate with

don ko co-founder of stark

industrial designer lecturer it’s been a

pleasure

i’ve learned a lot thank you very much

for your time thank you it’s been great

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