Free Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman

used interchangeably
with fashion, but like mode often stresses adherence to standards of elegance: traveling in style; miniskirts that were the mode in the late sixties. Vogue is applied to fashion that prevails widely and often suggests enthusiastic but short-lived acceptance: a video game that was in vogue a few years ago.”
    The very existence of the terms f ashion, style, mode, and vogue demonstrates the fragility of the reflective side of design. What is liked today may not be tomorrow. Indeed, the reason for the change is the very fact that something was once liked: When too many people like something, then it is no longer deemed appropriate for the leaders of a society to partake of it. After all, goes the thinking, how can one be a leader unless one is different, doing today what others will do tomorrow, and doing tomorrow what they will be doing after that? Even the rebellious have to change continually, carefully noticing what is in fashion so as not to be following it, carefully creating their own fashion of counterfashion.
    How does a designer cope with popular taste if it has little to do with substance? Well, it depends upon the nature of the product and the intentions of the company producing it. If the product is something fundamental to life and well-being, then the proper response is to ignore continual shifts in popular sentiment and aim for long-lasting value. Yes, the product must be attractive. Yes, it should be pleasurable and fun. But it must also be effective, understandable, and appropriately priced. In other words, it must strive for balance among the three levels of design.
    In the long run, simple style with quality construction and effective performance still wins. So a business that manufactures office machines, or basic home appliances, or web sites for shipping, commerce, or information, would be wise to stick to the fundamentals. In these cases, the task dictates the design: make the design fit the task, and the product works more smoothly and is bound to be more effective across a wide range of users and uses. Here is where the number of different products is determined by the nature of particular tasks and the economics.

    There is a set of products, however, whose goals are entertainment, or style, or perhaps enhancement of a person’s image. Here is where fashion comes into play. Here is where the huge individual differences in people and cultures are important. Here the person and market segment dictate the design. Make the design appropriate to the market segment that forms the target audience. It is probably necessary to have multiple versions of the design for different market segments. And it is probably necessary to do rapid changes in style and appearance as the market dictates.
    Designing for the whims of fashion is tricky. Some designers may see it as a difficult challenge, others, as an opportunity. In some sense, the division often breaks between large and small companies, or between market leaders and the competition. To the market leader, the continual changes in people’s fashion, and the wide variety of preferences for the same product across the world, are huge challenges. How can the company ever keep up? How does it track all the changes and even anticipate them? How does it keep the many necessary product lines effective? To the competitive companies, however, the same issues represent an opportunity. Small companies can be nimble, moving rapidly into areas and using approaches that the more conservative larger companies hesitate to try. Small companies can be outrageous, different, and experimental. They can exploit the public’s interests, even if the product is initially purchased by only a few. Large companies attempt to experiment by spinning off smaller, more nimble divisions, sometimes with unique names that make them appear to be independent of their parent. All in all, this is the ever-changing, continual battleground of the consumer