Over in another thread James Dyson has been discussed. So it led we to think about why his vacuum cleaners were so much more successful than their competitors. True, they are well engineered, but so are many others. He ensured they were 'stylish' as best he could, but that's no clear cut thing: a slight breeze in the fashion world and they would be labelled ugly and gaudy.

No, to me the real moment of genius in the design was to make the waste collection 'bag' transparent. So simple, but it completely changes the relationship between the user and the machine in a way that makes the machine vastly more effective. How so? Because when a traditional machine gets clogged the user thinks 'this machine isn't very good' - so blames the machine. With The transparent design the user sees it is clogged and thinks "I need to empty that" - the machine is in no way to blame. So the user is far more likely to empty it often and as a result "Dyson's pick up dirt better" gets around. Simply genius, in my book.


Any other examples that strike you?