Hasta La Ideas

HTC launched the new HTC One (M8) to great fanfare in central London yesterday, it’s new DotView case stealing much of the show. Core77 UK correspondent Sam Dunne caught up with VP of Design Scott Croyle to talk industrial design on the front-line.

With the keynotes out of the way and a restless swarm of tech bloggers let loose on banks of demo handsets, we were plucked from the fray and ushered down a bright white corridor of pre-fab meeting rooms. A quick handshake and a warm smile, Scott takes a seat at a table strewn with a spectrum of handsets, apologizing for the smell of fresh paint. I mention the local joke that the smell follows the Queen around. He lifts his gaze and grins quizzically.

HTC’s VP of Design makes no attempt to hide his relief at another launch event done and dusted. “Selling,” Croyle tells me, “is a huge part of my job, of the designer’s job, both externally and internally… You gotta engage the business with stories to drive home innovations that are actually meaningful to people… even our engineers are selling their new stuff with fun little consumer stories now…” And then, of course, it’s showtime: “Giving the consumer the stories behind the design helps them engage with our work emotionally.” Getting up on stage, Scott admits, doesn’t come naturally, “but it’s so important for us as designers to put ourselves and our ideas out there… we’ve got to be confident and resilient if we want to be heard.”

As a leader within a massive organization, Scott eloquently elaborates on the ongoing battle of championing meaning in product development: “There’s a fire hose of information and stuff coming at you from all directions all the time… the only thing you can do is to filter it. With experience, designers develop what I call an informed intuition. You don’t need to know everything before you act. You do have to know when to trust your gut. These days, I can look at the title and summary of a report and know whether I should dig for more detail. It comes with practice.” With a wince of self-awareness, Scott speaks of the language he has armed himself with for fighting feature creep and mediocrity. “I don’t let anyone talk about differentiation, it’s not about that, it’s got to be better-entiated. I’m always talking about meaningful innovation… innovation by itself just doesn’t cut it.”

(more…)