If a product is to become iconic it needs to serve a purpose that offers a lot of utility to the user, offer an aesthetic that is suitable for a variety of settings and get out of the way to allow the task it is designed for to be completed.

This ‘getting out of the way’ theory is not often spoken about, but the more I think about it, the more obvious it is. My review of the RingConn Gen 2 Air yesterday brought the topic back to me; it is invisible when worn, rarely needs charging and it performs multiple tasks without me having to do anything. It gets out of the way.

Other iconic products that get out of the way have achieved huge success over many decades-

Automatic watches (no manual winding)
Battery powered watches (change the battery every few years)
Ball point pens (no dipping the nib in ink)
Light bulbs (no lighting candles)
Central heating (no burning wood or choosing when to turn the heating on)
Alarm clocks (automation of your wake up time each day)
…and likely many many more that I cannot think of at the moment.

And then there are those products that take a task, or a series of tasks, and hide what is going on in the background-

MacBook
iPad
iPhone
AirPods
Walkman
CD player
Psion / Palm PDAs

Again, there will be so many more and I have deliberately chosen a selection of Apple products because of how they have changed how I work. I never enjoy using Windows and always feel that I have to see what is happening at all times, deal with multiple upfront updates and generally do too much just to be able to complete a task. I don’t feel that with macOS, or at least the feeling is much diminished.

The automated connection abilities of AirPods saves time and hassle, the iPad and iPhone are mere screens with operating systems that are designed to hide how the sausages are made, again I find Android to be too much of a computer experience for my liking, and of course the CD player enabled track skipping and a few other advantages.

Not many products are designed to get out of the way now, but there are examples. Despite the fact that you have to physically use a Scrub Daddy, the solution itself is time saving, intuitive to use and it offers amazing results. Products like this crop up on occasion and I believe that they are the ones that ultimately become icons. Marketing departments don’t take account for what people will buy and it is often the case that success comes without the customers even thinking about why they love a product so much.

Categories: Articles, Thoughts