Experience Matters

2008 Predictions: Is value the new black?

This is my son’s eeePC. This little computer accompanies the Apple iPhone on Wired’s list of Top 10 Gadgets of the Year.

If I had to choose just one device, I would probably take the iPhone. If my son had to choose, I know he’d pick the eeePC.

He’s not alone. In December, this gadget got people talking. I heard about it from support people at CM, the counter guys at my local hole-in-the-wall technology store, and my brother-in-law, the (jaded) tech support guy for a local school board. The reaction sounded like a choir of Keanu Reeves impersonators. “Whoa…”

This article is supposed to about predictions, but I have to admit I’m terrible at making predictions. I always confuse “predictions” with “what I think should happen.” And when I look at the eeePC, it’s a great example a lot of things that I think should happen to product design in 2008.

What makes the eeePC special? The eeePC is not a groundbreaking concept, by any means. Laptops have been with us since the 24 pound Osbourne 1 hit the shelves in 1981. Since then, we’ve been trained by the electronics industry to expect smaller products to be less functional and more expensive. But, for its’ price and size, the eeePC has surpringly few limitations.

However, consider that this ultra mobile PC (UMPC):

• Weighs about 2 pounds
• Boots up and connects to a wireless network in less than 30 seconds
• Has an integrated webcam, microphone and speaker jacks
• Runs just enough software for me to do my day job

Oh yeah - it costs $399. Exactly the same as an iPhone. Without a monthly bill. (And it runs Skype.)

But the purpose of this article isn’t to give a you a product review. Or to demonstrate what a remarkable Christmas shopper (or father) I am. Let’s predict what might happen if other manufacturers follow this lead.

More value, less money: Regardless of our love affair with innovative technologies, not everyone is prepared to spend four hundred dollars to own an iPhone when, for the same money, you could have a computer that does so much more. In 2007, projects like One Laptop Per Child and Intel’s Classmate project reminded designers and manufacturers that there’s a healthy and important market for low cost, highly functionally tools among the world’s “non-digerati.” In 2008, we will find that the digerati starts adopting these tools because they present better value than more fashionable gadgets.

Hacker as product designer: If you can’t afford a fancy R&D department, how do you improve your products? Let your customers do it. Unlike Apple’s iPhone, products like the eeePC beg to be hacked. If, in 2008, more product designers and managers learn to go with the flow, hacking forums like this one will become an important source of product development ideas .

Simplicity, redux: Does simple ever go out of fashion? Or do most product managers fail to understand how to achieve simplicity? In 2008, offshore designers and manufacturers are going to continue to teach us some things about simplicity. Working in developing nations, they understand the importance that consumers place on low cost and simplicity. As fast followers, they understand working on a tight time line. These constraints will help to drive simpler, more functional (and more elegant) products that everyone can afford.

So, if my predictions are true, we’re going to start see more well-designed and useful gadgets that cost less money. (Though I’m still digging the retro stylings of that Osbourne 1!)