The Evolution of Useful Things A Book by Henry Petroski Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity. Spike and sponShaped and reshapedForm follows failureTheir wrongness is somehow more immediateA small corner of the world of things+23 More The evolution of devices formfunctioninventionprogressfailure
Customers don't know what they want At the end of the presentation someone asked whether he thought they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. "No," he replied, "because customers don't know what they want until we've shown them." Then he pulled out a device that was about the size of a desk diary. "Do you want to see something neat?" When he flipped it open, it turned out to be a mock-up of a computer that could fit in your lap, with a keyboard and a screen hinged together like a notebook. "This is my dream of what we will be making in the mid- to late eighties," he said. They were building a company that would invent the future. Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs The iMac