工业产品设计外文文献翻译中英文

1、外文文献翻译 (含：英文原文及中文译文) 英文原文 Design Without DesignersD NormanI will always remember my first introduction to the power of good product design. I was newly arrived at Apple, still learning the ways of business, when I was visited by a member of Apples Industrial Design team. He showed me a foam mockup o

2、f a proposed product. Wow, I said, I want one! What is it?That experience brought home the power of design: I was excited and enthusiastic even before I knew what it was. This type of visceral wow response requires creative designers. It is subjective, personal. Uh oh, this is not what engineers lik

3、e to hear. If you cant put a number to it, its not important. As a result, there is a trend to eliminate designers. Who needs them when we can simply test our way to success? The excitement of powerful, captivating design is defined as irrelevant. Worse, the nature of design is in danger.Dont believ

4、e me? Consider Google. In a well-publicized move, a senior designer at Google recently quit, stating that Google had no interest in or understanding of design . Google, it seems, relies primarily upon test results, not human skill or judgment. Want to know whether a design is effective? Try it out.

5、Google can quickly submit samples to millions of people in well-controlled trials, pitting one design against another, selecting the winner based upon number of clicks, or sales, or whatever objective measure they wish. Which color of blue is best? Test. Item placement? Test. Web page layout? Test.T

6、his procedure is hardly unique to Google. A has long followed this practice. Years ago I was proudly informed that they no longer have debates about which design is best: they simply test them and use the data to decide. And this, of course, is the approach used by the human-centered iterative desig

7、n approach: prototype, test, revise.Is this the future of design? Certainly there are many who believe so. This is a hot topic on the talk and seminar circuit. After all, the proponents ask reasonably, who could object to making decisions based upon data?Two Types of Innovation: Incremental Improvem

8、ents and New ConceptsIn design and almost all innovation, for that matter there are at least two distinct forms. One is incremental improvement. In the manufacturing of products, companies assume that unit costs will continually decrease through continual, incremental improvements. A steady chain of

9、 incremental innovation enhances operations, the sourcing of parts and supply-chain management. The product design is continually tinkered with, adjusting the interface, adding new features, changing small things here and there. New products are announced yearly that are simply small modifications t

10、o the existing platform by a different constellation of features. Sometimes features are removed to enable a new, low-cost line. Sometimes features are enhanced or added. In incremental improvement, the basic platform is unchanged. Incremental design and innovation is less glamorous than the develop

11、ment of new concepts and ideas, but it is both far more frequent and far more important. Most of these innovations are small, but most are quite successful. This is what companies call their cash cow: a product line that requires very little new development cost while being profitable year after yea

12、r.The second form of design is what is generally taught in design, engineering and MBA courses on breakthrough product innovation. Here is where new concepts get invented, new products defined, and new businesses formed. This is the fun part of innovation. As a result, it is the arena that most desi

13、gners and inventors wish to inhabit. But the risks are great: most new innovations fail. Successful innovations can take decades to become accepted. As a result, the people who create the innovation are not necessarily the people who profit from it.In my Apple example, the designers were devising a

14、new conception. In the case of Google and Amazon, the companies are practicing incremental enhancement. They are two different activities. Note that the Apple product, like most new innovations, failed. Why? I return to this example later.Both forms of innovation are necessary. The fight over data-d

15、riven design is misleading in that it uses the power of one method to deny the importance of the second. Data-driven design through testing is indeed effective at improving existing products. But where did the idea for the product come from in the first place? From someones creative mind. Testing is

16、 effective at enhancing an idea, but creative designers and inventors are required to come up with the idea.Why Testing Is Both Essential and IncompleteData-driven design is hill-climbing, a well-known algorithm for optimization. Imagine standing in the dark in an unknown, hilly terrain. How do you

17、get to the top of the hill when you cant see? Test the immediate surroundings to determine which direction goes up the most steeply and take a step that way. Repeat until every direction leads to a lower level.But what if the terrain has many hills? How would you know whether you are on the highest?

18、 Answer: you cant know. This is called the local maximum problem: you cant tell if you are on highest hill (a global maximum) or just at the top of a small one.When a computer does hill climbing on a mathematical space, it tries to avoid the problem of local maxima by initiating climbs from numerous

19、, different parts of the space being explored, selecting the highest of the separate attempts. This doesnt guarantee the very highest peak, but it can avoid being stuck on a low-ranking one. This strategy is seldom available to a designer: it is difficult enough to come up with a single starting poi

20、nt, let alone multiple, different ones. So, refinement through testing in the world of design is usually only capable of reaching the local maximum. Is there a far better solution (that is, is there a different hill which yields far superior results)? Testing will never tell us.Here is where creativ

21、e people come in. Breakthroughs occur when a person restructures the problem, thereby recognizing that one is exploring the wrong space. This is the creative side of design and invention. Incremental enhancements will not get us there.Barriers to Great InnovationDramatic new innovation has some fund

22、amental characteristics that make it inappropriate for judgment through testing. People resist novelty. Behavior tends to be conservative. New technologies and new methods of doing things usually take decades to be accepted - sometimes multiple decades. But the testing methods all assume that one ca

23、n make a change, try it out, and immediately determine if it is better than what is currently available.There is no known way to tell if a radical new idea will eventually be successful. Here is where great leadership and courage is required. History tells us of many people who persevered for long p

24、eriods in the face of repeated rejection before their idea was accepted, often to the point that after success, people could not imagine how they got along without it before. History also tells us of many people who persevered yet never were able to succeed. It is proper to be skeptical of radical n

25、ew ideas.In the early years of an idea, it might not be accepted because the technology isnt ready, or because there is a lot more optimization still to be done, or because the audience isnt ready. Or because it is a bad idea. It is difficult to determine which of those reasons dominates. The task o

26、nly becomes easy in hindsight, long after it becomes established.These long periods between formation and initial implementation of a novel idea and its eventual determination of success or failure in the marketplace is what defeats those who wish to use evidence as a decision criterion for followin

27、g a new direction. Even if a superior way of doing something has been found, the automated test process will probably reject it, not because the idea is inferior, but because it cannot wait decades for the answer. Those who look only at test results will miss the large payoff.Of course there are sou

28、nd business reasons why ignoring potentially superior approaches might be a wise decision. After all, if the audience is not ready for the new approach, it would initially fail in the marketplace. That is true, in the short run. But to prosper in the future, the best approach would be to develop and

29、 commercialize the new idea to get marketplace experience, to begin the optimization process, and to develop the customer base. At the same time one is preparing the company for the day when the method takes off. Sure, keep doing the old, but get ready for the new. If the company fails to recognize

30、the newly emerging method, its competitors will take over. Quite often these competitors will be a startup that existing companies ignored because what they were doing was not well accepted, and in any event did not appear to challenge the existing business: see The innovators dilemma.Gestural, mult

31、i-touch interfaces for screen-driven devices and computer games are good examples. Are these a brilliant new innovation? Brilliant? Yes. New? Absolutely not. Multi-touch devices were in research labs for almost three decades before the first successful mass-produced products. I saw gestures demonstr

32、ated over two decades ago. New ideas take considerable time to reach success in the marketplace. If an idea is commercialized too soon, the result is usually failure (and a large loss of money).This is precisely what the Apple designer of my opening paragraph had done. What I was shown was a portabl

33、e computer designed for schoolchildren with a form factor unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was wonderful, and even to my normally critical eye, it looked like a perfect fit for the purpose and audience. Alas, the product got caught in a political fight between warring Apple divisions. Alth

34、ough it was eventually released into the marketplace, the fight crippled its integrity and it was badly executed, badly supported, and badly marketed.The resistance of a company to new innovations is well founded. It is expensive to develop a new product line with unknown profitability. Moreover, ex

35、isting product divisions will be concerned that the new product will disrupt existing sales (this is called cannibalization). These fears are often correct. This is a classic case of what is good for the company being bad for an existing division, which means bad for the promotion and reward opportu

36、nities for the existing division. Is it a wonder companies resist? The data clearly show that although a few new innovations are dramatically successful, most fail, often at great expense. It is no wonder that companies are hesitant - resistant - to innovation no matter what their press releases and

37、 annual reports claim. To be conservative is to be sensible.The FutureAutomated data-driven processes will slowly make more and more inroads into the space now occupied by human designers. New approaches to computer-generated creativity such as genetic algorithms, knowledge-intensive systems, and ot

38、hers will start taking over the creative aspect of design. This is happening in many other fields, whether it be medical diagnosis or engineering design.We will get more design without designers, but primarily of the enhancement, refinement, and optimization of existing concepts. Even where new crea

39、tive artificial systems are developed, whether by neural networks, genetic algorithms, or some yet undiscovered method, any new concept will still face the hurdle of overcoming the slow adoption rate of people and of overcoming the complex psychological, social, and political needs of people. To do

40、this, we need creative designers, creative business people, and risk takers willing to push the boundaries. New ideas will be resisted. Great innovations will come at the cost of multiple great failures.Design without designers? Those who dislike the ambiguity and uncertainty of human judgments, wit

41、h its uncertain track record and contradictory statements will try to abolish the human element in favor of the certainty that numbers and data appear to offer. But those who want the big gains that creative judgment can produce will follow their own judgment. The first case will bring about the sma

42、ll, continual improvements that have contributed greatly to the increased productivity and lowering of costs of our technologies. The second case will be rewarded with great failures and occasional great success. But those great successes will transform the world.中文译文不需要设计师的设计作者 诺曼我永远也不会忘记我第一次向人们介绍优

43、秀产品设计的魅力的经历,那时候我刚刚到苹果公司,还在逐渐的学习工作上的事务。有一个苹果工业设计小组的成员来我这里, 向我展示了一个即将推出的产品的泡沫模型,“喔!”我说,“这是什么?我也想要个!”这种体验带来了设计的力量：甚至在我知道它是什么之前，我感到兴奋和热情。这种内心的“哇”反应需要有创意的设计师。这是主观的，个人的。呃哦，这不是工程师喜欢听到的。如果你不能给它一个数字，这并不重要。因此，有一种消除设计师的趋势。当我们能够简单地测试我们的成功之路时，谁需要他们？令人兴奋的强大，迷人的设计被定义为无关紧要。更糟的是，设计的本质处于危险之中。不要相信我？考虑谷歌。在一个广为流传的举动中，谷歌

44、的一位高级设计师最近辞职，称谷歌对设计没有兴趣或理解。谷歌似乎主要依靠测试结果，而不是人的技能或判断。想知道设计是否有效？试试看。 Google可以通过良好控制的试验快速向数百万人提交样本，将一个设计与另一个设计相对照，根据点击次数或销售量或他们希望的任何客观度量选择优胜者。蓝色哪种颜色最好？测试。项目安置？测试。网页布局？测试。这个程序对Google来说并不是特有的。亚马逊网站一直遵循这种做法。几年前，我很自豪地被告知，他们不再争论哪种设计是最好的：他们只是测试它们并使用数据来决定。当然，这是以人为中心的迭代设计方法所使用的方法：原型，测试和修改。这是设计的未来吗？当然有很多人相信。这是谈话

45、和研讨会的热门话题。毕竟，支持者合理地问，谁可以反对根据数据做出决定？两种创新：渐进式改进和新概念在设计方面 - 几乎所有的创新，至少有两种不同的形式。一个是渐进式改进。在制造产品的过程中，公司认为单位成本将通过持续不断的渐进式改进而持续下降。稳定的增量创新链增强了运营，零部件采购和供应链管理。产品设计不断修改，调整界面，添加新功能，改变小东西在这里和那里。每年都会公布新产品，这些产品只是对现有平台的一些不同的功能进行小修改。有时会删除功能以启用新的低成本生产线。有时功能会增强或添加。在渐进式改进中，基本平台不变。增量设计和创新不如新概念和想法的发展光鲜，但它更加频繁和重要得多。这些创新中的大

46、部分都很小，但大多数都很成功。这就是公司所称的“他们的摇钱树”：一个产品线，在年复一年盈利的同时，只需要很少的新开发成本。设计的第二种形式是在“突破性产品创新”的设计，工程和MBA课程中普遍教授的内容。这里是发明新概念，定义新产品和形成新业务的地方。这是创新的有趣部分。因此，这是大多数设计师和发明家希望居住的舞台。但风险很大：大多数新创新都失败了。成功的创新可能需要数十年才能被接受。结果，创造创新的人不一定是从中获利的人。在我的Apple例子中，设计师正在设计一个新的概念。在谷歌和亚马逊的情况下，这些公司正在实施增量增强。他们是两种不同的活动。请注意，Apple产品与大多数新创新一样，都失败了

47、。为什么？稍后我会回到这个例子。这两种创新形式都是必要的。数据驱动设计的争论是误导性的，因为它使用一种方法的力量否认第二种方法的重要性。通过测试进行的数据驱动设计对改进现有产品确实有效。但是，产品的创意来自哪里呢？从某人的创意思维。测试对提升创意非常有效，但创意设计师和发明人需要提出这个想法。为什么测试既重要又不完整数据驱动设计是“爬山”，一种众所周知的优化算法。想象一下，在黑暗中，在一片未知的丘陵地带站立。当你看不到时，你如何到达山顶？测试周围的环境，以确定哪个方向最陡峭，然后迈出一步。重复，直到每个方向导致较低的水平。但如果地形有许多山丘呢？你怎么知道你是否在最高？答：你不知道。这被称为“

48、局部最大”问题：你不能分辨出你是在最高的山丘上（全球最大值），还是只能在最小的山顶上。当一台计算机在数学空间上爬山时，它试图通过从正在探索的空间的许多不同部分开始爬升，选择最高的单独尝试来避免局部最大值问题。这并不能保证最高的峰值，但它可以避免被困在低级别的峰值。这种策略很少有设计师可以使用：很难提出一个单一的起点，更不用说多个不同的起点。因此，通过设计领域的测试进行细化通常只能达到局部最大值。有没有更好的解决方案（也就是说，是否有一个不同的小山可以产生更好的结果）？测试永远不会告诉我们。这就是有创造力的人进来的地方。突破发生在一个人重组问题时，从而认识到一个人正在探索错误的空间。这是设计和发明的创造性方面。增量增强不会让我们在那里。创新的障碍戏剧性的新创新具有一些基本特征，使其不适合通过测试进行判断。人们抵制新奇。行为往往是保守的。新技术和做事的新方法通常需要数十年才能被接受 - 有时甚至会持续数十年。但是测试方法都假设可以做出改变，尝试一下，并立即确定它是否比当前可用的更好。没有已知的方式来判断一个激进的新想法是否最终会成功。这是需要伟大领导力和勇气的地方。