A new book and corresponding Cooper Hewitt exhibit—both called Beautiful Users---survey products past and present designed with the human form in mind. American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss created the Model 302 phone for Bell Labs, to be given to AT&T consumers. It was beautiful, but its shape made it hard for talkers to cradle it between their shoulder and cheek. Hiro Ihara
Photo: Hiro Ihara
So in 1953, with the Model 500, Dreyfuss put users' needs first. It's a boxier phone, but its shape has endured: our phones today all have a similar squareness to them. Ellen McDermott
So in 1953, with the Model 500, Dreyfuss put users' needs first. It's a boxier phone, but its shape has endured: our phones today all have a similar squareness to them.
Designing around human movement is as old as the Greek empire, or as Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings. During the 20th century, designers began to diagram these ideas more meticulously. Bauhaus architect Ernst Neufert sketched out these Bauentwurfslegre (Architects’ Data) images in the 1930s, to standardize kitchen and appliance design. Ernst Neufert
Designing around human movement is as old as the Greek empire, or as Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings. During the 20th century, designers began to diagram these ideas more meticulously. Bauhaus architect Ernst Neufert sketched out these Bauentwurfslegre (Architects’ Data) images in the 1930s, to standardize kitchen and appliance design.
Dreyfuss's Measure of Man diagrams drew on data from the military and the fashion industry. He called the 2-D models Joe, and Josephine. Henry Dreyfuss
Dreyfuss's Measure of Man diagrams drew on data from the military and the fashion industry. He called the 2-D models Joe, and Josephine.
Later, the shape of Dreyfuss's phone would be subtly adapted for marketing reasons. The Princess phone came in a variety of colors and was meant to entice housewives. Princess Telephone Advertisement, 1959
Later, the shape of Dreyfuss's phone would be subtly adapted for marketing reasons. The Princess phone came in a variety of colors and was meant to entice housewives.
Author and exhibit curator Ellen Lupton spotlights several contemporary designs made with Dreyfuss-like attention to human movement. Sabi is a line of sleek wellness devices for aging baby boomers who will want stylish, not medical, products—like this hold bar for the shower. Courtesy of Sabi
Author and exhibit curator Ellen Lupton spotlights several contemporary designs made with Dreyfuss-like attention to human movement. Sabi is a line of sleek wellness devices for aging baby boomers who will want stylish, not medical, products—like this hold bar for the shower.
Biotech company Iomai hired design firm IDEO to create a new kind of vaccine. This one not only skips needles, delivering vaccine molecules through the skin, it can be stockpiled and shipped far more easily. Courtesy of IDEO
Biotech company Iomai hired design firm IDEO to create a new kind of vaccine. This one not only skips needles, delivering vaccine molecules through the skin, it can be stockpiled and shipped far more easily.
The August Smart Lock, designed by Yves Béhar, installs easily onto any door, and uses technology to sync with user's apps automatically—eliminating getting phones in and out of pockets all the time. Courtesy of August
The August Smart Lock, designed by Yves Béhar, installs easily onto any door, and uses technology to sync with user's apps automatically—eliminating getting phones in and out of pockets all the time.
The Free Universal Construction Kit, designed by Golan Levin and Shawn Sims, is a set of adapters that can connect kid's toys—Legos, Lincoln Logs, all of that—together, for more connected playing. Courtesy of Golan Levin and Shawn Sims
The Free Universal Construction Kit, designed by Golan Levin and Shawn Sims, is a set of adapters that can connect kid's toys—Legos, Lincoln Logs, all of that—together, for more connected playing.
The folding STRiDA LT Bicycle, designed by Mark Sander in 1958, is one such product. Courtesy of Ming Cycle
The folding STRiDA LT Bicycle, designed by Mark Sander in 1958, is one such product.
Another featured product, MaKey MaKey can turn almost anything analog thing into a digital interface. MaKey MaKey
Another featured product, MaKey MaKey can turn almost anything analog thing into a digital interface.
The book includes works from the growing field of bionics, as well. This modular prosthetic limb was designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and Hunter Defense Technologies. It contains motors that can respond to brain activity in the user. Courtesy of Bryan Christie Design and Josh Fischman/National Geographic Creative
The book includes works from the growing field of bionics, as well. This modular prosthetic limb was designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and Hunter Defense Technologies. It contains motors that can respond to brain activity in the user.
The Leveraged Freedom Chair asks its riders to push on levers, instead of wheels, making it an easier wheelchair for uneven terrain. This means users everywhere—not just in hospitals—have improved access. Courtesy of GRIT
The Leveraged Freedom Chair asks its riders to push on levers, instead of wheels, making it an easier wheelchair for uneven terrain. This means users everywhere—not just in hospitals—have improved access.
Home appliances feature prominently in the book and exhibit, as well. This prototype for the Neato Robotics vacuum cleaner. Courtesy of Smart Design
Home appliances feature prominently in the book and exhibit, as well. This prototype for the Neato Robotics vacuum cleaner.
Have you ever thought about why doorknobs are positioned at around two-fifths of the door’s height, instead of right in the middle? Or why a washing machine is of its particular shape and size? These sound like stoner thoughts, but there’s actually an entire discipline and rich design history devoted to the answers.
In 1955 industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss published Designing for People, a seminal book for the design industry. Way back when, Leonardo da Vinci theorized on man as the main unit of measurement for the world. In the 1920s, Bauhaus student Ernst Neufert published a book on human dimensions that helped set certain building standards. But no one since had promoted the idea as carefully as Dreyfuss. He introduced the ideas of user-centered design and ergonomics by drawing diagrams of a typical man and woman and using them to map out human movement. (His model humans, “Joe” and “Josephine,” were based on heaps of data from the military and the fashion industry.) Products, Dreyfuss argued, should be crafted according to these measurements and movements.
In Ellen Lupton’s new book Beautiful Users: Designing for People, which accompanies an exhibit by the same name at the newly reopened Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, Lupton tells a story about the early days of user-centric design. In the 1930s, Dreyfuss designed a phone for Bell Labs, to be given to AT&T consumers (in those days, phones were like cable boxes: you just took the one they gave you). The Model 302 telephone was black with a rotary dial. It had a statuesque curved base and handsome receiver. It was a beautiful object. But when telephone-talkers tried to cradle it between shoulder and cheek, the phone would swivel away and fall. In 1953, Dreyfuss did things differently. His Model 500 is boxier—less of a stunner—but far more usable. Thanks to the receiver’s chunkier handle and flattened back, handsfree talking was much easier. The thinking behind the form was rare for industrial design of the time. And if you look at phones since—from portable landline phones to our smartphones today—they all mimic its squared-off shape.
The Measure of Man diagrams, by Henry Dreyfuss. Matt Flynn
This approach to making stuff may sound utterly obvious. But consider Lupton’s argument: “The forces that drive product development range from the short-term economic interests of manufacturers to the expressive or theoretical intent of designers to a community’s entrenched habits and customs.” Put differently: money, ego, and habit often inform design instead of carefully considered human needs. The ones that do take usability into account often endure. Lupton’s book carries the idea forward into 2015.
Beautiful Users catalogs dozens of modern products made with careful consideration of interaction and interface, or as Lupton puts it, the “points of friction between people and devices.” The book documents the evolution of the wall thermostat, from a 1943 design for the Acratherm Gauge module to the Nest. Contemporary products like Harry’s razors, August smart lock, and Sabi’s line of aging-at-home wares are featured. There’s a ton of cutlery.
For a deeper look, you can pick up the book, Beautiful Users , or check out the exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt.
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