Professor Brightens Washday With His Design For A Machine Of Many Colors
Reprinted Courtesy of K-State Media Relations
What’s new and colorful and designed to occupy the
middle-income appliance market bounded by Kenmore and Maytag?
It’s a line of washing machines from LG, resplendent in blue, red, green,
stainless steel, and one proprietary color, Home Depot Orange. The designer is
Sung-soo “Cliff” Shin, a Kansas State University assistant professor
of interior architecture and product design. The modernistic washer he helped
develop is on sale at Best Buy, Sears and, of course, Home Depot.
Shin teaches product design and brings his professional design experience at
LG Headquarters Design Center in Seoul, Korea, to his second-year design
studio.
The students are designing their first project now — a faucet for the
middle-income home with a target price range of $300-$600. Their next
assignment for Shin will be a hand-held device for a technology of the future.
“I want them to research and explore a whole new possibility for
products we don’t even have now,” Shin said. “I tell my students the
challenge of designing for the middle class is to satisfy both design and price
tag. That market is the toughest one to crack. Middle-income consumers are well
educated, they know what they want, and they want to save money. They can drive
designers crazy.”
In terms of aesthetics, a successful product has to be eye-catching.
“Bad design is obvious,” Shin said. “If you’re in a hotel and
have to spend a lot of time figuring out how the bath or shower works, that’s
an example of bad design.”
Achieving good design goes well beyond just having a good idea. Designing
involves a wide range of challenges, Shin said. Obviously, a designer has to
know materials, consider product safety and functionality, and grasp the
manufacturing process involved and engineering limitations.
As important, Shin said, a designer has to pay particular attention to the
lifestyle of the target buyers and be aware of human factors and human behavior.
“Design is so much about human psychology. From wristwatches to washing
machines, consumers make statements about themselves in their purchases,”
he said.
At the LG Headquarters Design Center, Shin was senior designer in charge of
creating the new washing machine’s front control panel, and he recommended the
color, midnight blue, a critical feature because LG was reintroducing color to
the world of household appliances after the post-70s’ era of white-only
washers.
Even though the previous model was selling well, LG had some consumer
feedback that the machines had too many buttons and lights, so the company
decided to create a new machine, Shin said.
“The controls seemed kind of scary for some housewives, intimidating or
confusing,” he said. “I tried to simplify the buttons and lights and
improve the machine’s overall aesthetic.”
His goal was to design a washing machine consistent in its aesthetic with
products popular with the middle-income North American target market.
The first big test of the new design was to render it on paper and ask teams
of housewives to respond to questions like how to power it on and how to use
the machine. Some figure it out right away, while others are just lost, Shin
said.
“Whenever we have struggling people, we take notes about the problem,
modify the design accordingly, and then get the reactions of another panel of
housewives,” he said.
The next consideration is determining if the design look good in probable
locations, such as the kitchen, utility room or garage. Finally, a real machine
is built and the user interface is put to the test.
“On the paper design, the buttons looked pretty good, but in reality, a
button might be too big, for example,” Shin said.
If so, it has to be changed. That is everyday life for a household product
designer, according to Shin. From the curve of a decorative line, the size of
the buttons, their placement, or the typeface, everything is tested this way. A
required change to one element often means scrapping the whole design, if the
aesthetic is compromised by the change, he said.
“You can’t put a Ford Taurus side mirror on a Mercedes,” Shin
said. “A mirror seems like a tiny detail, but it would ruin the feeling of
the overall Mercedes design. It’s the same principle with buttons on a
washer.”
In addition to the LG washing machine, Shin has designed concept LCD
monitors and concept vacuum cleaners. His heart, though, belongs to the design
of smaller everyday items. “I like small housewares like salt shakers and
I see so much potential for their improvement,” he said.
“Problem-solving and improving the design aesthetic — that’s what I want
to do now and for the rest of my life.”
Shin has degrees in manufacturing engineering technology from Arizona State
University and industrial design from Purdue University.
For more information, contact:
Cliff Shin, 785.532.5992
CAPD@ksu.edu, 785.532.1090