Why a Toaster Is a Design Triumph
Last year I fell in love with a toaster. It looks like most others. A brushed, stainless-steel housing. Four slots, to accommodate the whole family’s bread-provisioning needs. It is alluring but modest, perched atop the counter on proud haunches. But at a time when industry promises disruptive innovation, Breville, the Australian manufacturer of my toaster, offers something truly new and useful through humility rather than pride. The mechanism that raises and lowers the bread
How Design Thinking Is Improving Patient-Caregiver Conversations
Technical developments tend to grab the headlines in health care. Predictive analytics, telemedicine, electronic health records — technology is rightly seen as a transformative force in health delivery. But it’s not the only one. At Rotterdam Eye Hospital, hospital administrators have found that through their ongoing design-thinking program, lower-tech measures can also improve health care. Simple measures such as building a more intuitive website, replacing harsh fluorescent