Research Manager Carolynn Johnson and Interaction Designer Bill Bernstein recently presented a design thinking lecture to students participating in a Creativity and Innovative Thinking course at Alfred University in New York (200+ miles away) via live-streaming video.
The lecture (presented at local universities in the past) illustrates the impact of design thinking on research and design at Daedalus. To demonstrate the advantages of our process, the lecture usually involves two volunteers from the audience trying on a generic fall safety harness of the type typically seen on construction sites versus the Miller Revolution Fall Safety Harness, designed by Daedalus. This year, the lecture featured two of our newest employees, Ola Roberts and Rich Huber, neither of whom had ever worn a fall safety harness before. Completely unrehearsed, the results are quite impressive and clearly demonstrate the success of our process. Ola was confident of her safety in less than a minute, while another two minutes later we allowed Rich to just go back to work. The Miller Revolution Fall Safety Harness revolutionized the category. Never before had a harness been so targeted to users' needs for performance. Miller sold their first year's projected sales volume in just five weeks. Rich now knows why…