Understanding the past for a better future ?

ray.kuo
Apr 26, 2019
3 min read

MITAC 2016 Design Credits : (ID) Matthieu GERARD-GODDET / Rick HUANG (UI/GUI) Lydia LU

Once upon a time was Mercury, a sport watch for runner beginners !

Back in 2016, in Nangang Office, we were all busy with Sport products. Who remembers it here in the team ? MiVia 350 for Mio Brand is just one of the products we developed for outdoor & fitness.

3 years later ... The team landscape has significantly changed, some departed, some arrived, we moved office, we reorganized, and we recently we relocated to second floor, one floor below our original location.

With those changes, our team memories & values are challenged by the natural road bumps of every company's business journey.

More than Design Lead or Managers, we are storytellers

Recently I realized how important it is to transmit the story of our products, our brand, our company, our team. knowing where we come from, understanding our roots, help the team to align with the vision, the principles, the product identity.

meanwhile younger generation bring new ideas, new tools, new process what we "elder" need to observe, listen and learn from.

Designers Study Competitors Samples to discuss further with Mechanical Design Team

Take your samples out of the storage box !

Sharing old projects, sketches, mockups, samples help new member of our team to realize where we are coming from and where we are going. Why we focus now on automotive solutions rather than developing outdoor & fitness industry. This takes time, and time need to be spent to day by day, month by month share a bit of the heritage.

Product Identity & Design Language Exploration

Designers refer to an early watch concept for sweat management

"Wow this design is cool ! "

Martin told me this week by discovering one project that was awarded an IF award a few years ago. Besides his suprise to discover products and projects which were not only Dashcam, Martin one our junior designer was probably surprised to realize that his manager was also once upon a time a full time designer... This naturally creates a connection from designer to designer.

Investigating Comfort & Sweat Management

Looking back at the past highlights the mutations of Design Industry !

"Why you did not have this, why you did not do that ?

15 years ago, we did not have smartphones...

15 years ago, we did not have 3d printer ...

15 years ago, designers mostly care about appearance, we did not speak about design thinking, and not much about user experience

Showing old projects, answering questions helps to realize, technology progress, business landscape mutations, Team evolution and last but not least design industry Mutations!

Designers develop 3D model with Rhino and Creo

User Experience, Design values, Work Ethics, ....

Let your team discover your work creates the opportunity to give clear examples of your expectations as a manager. the values of efforts, challenge, never give up, iterations, study, ... all of it can be demonstrated through past case studies.

Communicating design features to Cross Function Team

Product identity & design language through the ages

By looking at the past,our designer discover where Mio's identity is coming from. How designers developed and applied the design language, across different product lines, to develop convergence factors to help identity each product as part of Mio brand , while finding Divergence factors to support differentiation from other competitors or from previous generations.

Design Supports Product Perception & Market Position

Iteration for educated design decisions !

iterations help designers to find multiple solutions and later on, through evaluation to identify most suitable solution. Sharing iterations with project team or managers will also give them the confidence that you, designer did your homework and study to find the best solution, therefore they will most likely follow your design recommendation.

Watch face graphic iterations to integrate band and create depth

User Experience : Product Design Team's #1 priority

Get Ready for questions and open your mind to criticism by looking back at the past !

Are we proud of all our past projects and design work ? For myself, the answer is no. by sharing past works with young designer, i rediscover what was good and bad, the smart and stupid decisions i made, the long living design and the quick to garbage ones.

Each concept is reviewed before moving to next stage

As Parents transmit the culture & the value of their family, the story of their childhood and of their own parents, it's our responsibility as seniors team members to pass this heritage to the younger designer generations.