Gallery: How the Home Telephone Sparked the User-Centered Design Revolution
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A new book and corresponding Cooper Hewitt exhibit—both called *Beautiful Users*---survey products past and present designed with the human form in mind. American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss created the Model 302 phone for Bell Labs, to be given to AT&T consumers. It was beautiful, but its shape made it hard for talkers to cradle it between their shoulder and cheek.
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So in 1953, with the Model 500, Dreyfuss put users' needs first. It's a boxier phone, but its shape has endured: our phones today all have a similar squareness to them.
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Designing around human movement is as old as the Greek empire, or as Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings. During the 20th century, designers began to diagram these ideas more meticulously. Bauhaus architect Ernst Neufert sketched out these *Bauentwurfslegre (Architects’ Data)* images in the 1930s, to standardize kitchen and appliance design.
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Dreyfuss's *Measure of Man* diagrams drew on data from the military and the fashion industry. He called the 2-D models Joe, and Josephine.
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Later, the shape of Dreyfuss's phone would be subtly adapted for marketing reasons. The Princess phone came in a variety of colors and was meant to entice housewives.
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Author and exhibit curator Ellen Lupton spotlights several contemporary designs made with Dreyfuss-like attention to human movement. Sabi is a line of sleek wellness devices for aging baby boomers who will want stylish, not medical, products—like this hold bar for the shower.
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Biotech company Iomai hired design firm IDEO to create a new kind of vaccine. This one not only skips needles, delivering vaccine molecules through the skin, it can be stockpiled and shipped far more easily.
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The August Smart Lock, designed by Yves Béhar, installs easily onto any door, and uses technology to sync with user's apps automatically—eliminating getting phones in and out of pockets all the time.
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The Free Universal Construction Kit, designed by Golan Levin and Shawn Sims, is a set of adapters that can connect kid's toys—Legos, Lincoln Logs, all of that—together, for more connected playing.
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The folding STRiDA LT Bicycle, designed by Mark Sander in 1958, is one such product.
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Another featured product, MaKey MaKey can turn almost anything analog thing into a digital interface.
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The book includes works from the growing field of bionics, as well. This modular prosthetic limb was designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and Hunter Defense Technologies. It contains motors that can respond to brain activity in the user.
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The Leveraged Freedom Chair asks its riders to push on levers, instead of wheels, making it an easier wheelchair for uneven terrain. This means users everywhere—not just in hospitals—have improved access.
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Home appliances feature prominently in the book and exhibit, as well. This prototype for the Neato Robotics vacuum cleaner.
