On Product Design...

I read this on Twitter the other day:

-"ha.. my iPaq still lives after 3 years and does most of what the iphone does" 05:46 PM September 27, 2007 from web

-"function without hype" 05:46 PM September 27, 2007 from web

The poster is right in a naive sort of way, the iPaq (and the Treo, and a host of other devices) have had the entire feature set of the iPhone for several years now. In many cases they have even more functionality than the iPhone. Nonetheless, these devices are badly designed. This tweeter(?) shows a fundamental (albeit common) misunderstanding of what's important in designing and building a consumer product.

Product design is not about filling out the feature list on the spec sheet. Product design is about how the features you implement work together as an entire user experience.