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10/12/2011
08/02/2011
Continuum belonging the WSJ
Christopher Churchill for The Wall Street Journ
On sunday the WSJ published an article about Gianfranco Zaccai and Continuum experience:
• Industrial designer Gianfranco Zaccai snaps pictures with his iPhone during the day to capture small moments of inspiration, but he says that he does his best thinking with his staff, a diverse team whose members have included a former circus performer and a neurologist who studied mouse brains.
• Though the company tries to create a nurturing environment for developing new ideas (one work room bore a sign that read "Don't Stop Believin' "), the staff tests those ideas by conducting several rounds of consumer research. "Coming up with an idea is no problem," Mr. Zaccai said. "It's having the confidence that you can be a strong advocate of it, feeling it comes from actual evidence and it's not half-baked."
• Researchers may have to get creative to gain access. To deal with privacy restrictions on hospitals, a Continuum team working on a health-care project relied on a pregnant staffer and employees with ailing relatives to help gather information during their hospital visits.
• The company tries to turn abstract design ideas into crude models at the start of a project, using on-site workshops specializing in metal, plastics and robotics. It recently rented a warehouse space to house a full-scale foam-core mock-up of a hotel lobby in a project for Holiday Inn.
• Visual aids are the key to driving home an idea. Meetings are often interrupted with video interviews or animated clips.
• Metaphors are useful. The staff envisioned "Get Well" balloons when trying to design hospital furniture that would seem light and airy.
• Staffers try to see old habits with new eyes. They built a shower in the office to help come up with a new showerhead line for Moen and studied the behaviors of volunteers videotaped in their showers at home.