Tuesday, July 21, 2015

In praise of product manuals

I recently bought two things: a knife sharpener & a soap dispenser both of which had manuals I read. 

I took notes on the knife sharpener manual to summarize key information, which really ended up being: "how many times do you put a knife through each slot?" 

Cliff notes aside, I thought it was interesting to contrast the number of words and the instructions. See for yourself.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

The impact of hotel sheets

There are lots of lever we can pull as designers but some have more business impact than others.

When Darker or patterned sheets & bedspreads are easier to clean so why invest in white sheets if you're in charge of designing hotel rooms?

"The all-white bed created this halo effect -- people thought a room had been renovated, even if it was just the bed that had been changed, It had a huge impact." -Erin Hoover, VP design for Westin and Sheraton hotels


The key here to me is that testing revealed the right choice. Testing is design's best friend. Read the full article here.