Purpose
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The design of organisations and products
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For the Purpose of a, NDA, see Purpose - Confi Provision
A typically derivative essay on the wonderful Fender Stratocaster got us thinking about how the design imperatives in a process may differ at different points in that process.
If we take the Strat’s overall lifecycle to include its manufacture, marketing, use, maintenance and eventual retirement — rock ’n’ roll will never die, of course — then we can see that the design imperatives for the different phases of its life change. during manufacture, the design imperatives are ease of assembly, configuration and sale. Once assembled, configured and sold, these design imperatives largely disappear. A single careful owner cares not how easy it is to install the tremolo or wire the pickguard. She cares about only how to make, as Frank Zappa put it, “the disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar”.
Upshot: how easy the guitar is for a machinist or an electrician to “use” is not the same question as how easy it is for a player or a repairer to “use”. The real genius of the Strat is how fabulously it delivers for all these users.
Hypothesis, therefore: great design works for all phases, and all users, of an artefact throughout its production and use.
Metaphor over. Let us know tearing ourselves away from Leo Fender’s wonderful creation and think about legal process.