My tongs, the tongs that I use almost every day, are Oxo tongs. They are wonderful tongs. I use them on the stove, when roasting in the over, on the barbecue grill. I also use them to serve guests. I use them for salad. When cooking and serving, my tongs act as an extension to my hand. I like them so much that when we closed up the Work Industries offices recently for ski days in Fernie, I brought them with me to cook there.

So I read this LA Times article about how Oxo has reinvented kitchen devices with some personal bias. I wanted to like the article because I already like the tongs. I like them so much I travel with them. Okay, I’m a cooking nerd. But I don’t think about them much when I use them. And I hadn’t really appreciated all the consideration that had gone into their use until I read about it, which I suppose is a measure of how well they’re designed.

In the LA Times article I love the story about how Oxo came upon the breakthrough that helped them build a superior measuring cup, and I love the way they sweat the small stuff and make things for people, with people involved in the making:

…people are often better at showing than they are at telling; mostly they could only articulate that the problems with the traditional Pyrex measurer were that it was “glass, hot, greasy.” But watching them struggle with the cup revealed the ultimate flaw: You cannot tell how full it is without lifting it up to eye level.

The Oxo measurer has markings down the inside, large enough to read without glasses. And the latest version is made of a hard plastic that stands up better to repeated runs through the dishwasher. (Improvements in materials and technology account for many Oxo upgrades—the silicone potholder can now be bonded with fabric; plastic can adhere to stainless steel in a mixing bowl.)

The measuring cup is one of five Oxo products that were not in-house eurekas but came to the company from outside in the last 10 years. “We have some very passionate consumers,” said Gretchen Holt, who handles media for the company, demonstrating to editors why “they should give a damn” about an Oxo breakthrough. Ideas also flow in from retailers and wannabe inventors.

I love it! There are always more smart, capable people with insight outside of whatever organization houses the creation.

As someone who cooks a lot, Oxo products have become a relied-upon standard, and, now that I’ve read about products like the cutting board that doesn’t slip on the counter when you cut on it, I will seek out other Oxo products because of my excellent experiences.

I’m pointing out the Oxo article because I think some great parallels can be drawn between how they design kitchen tools and how I believe web tools and websites should be designed. In particular, the article demonstrates the following guidelines.

• Better tools equal fewer tools. The better your tools are at doing their job, the fewer specialized tools you need to do portions of that job or similar jobs. Or, put anther way, the better the execution, the less need there is for alternate yet semi-same tools.
• Big ideas and breakthroughs are rare while small, incremental improvements are always available to be tackled. Whatever diety your ascribe to, we need to recognize that godliness and goodness lives in the details.
• Sometimes people don’t know they want a better product. Not until they’re presented with a better product, at least. For instance, I wasn’t really dissatisfied with my steamer basket – it’s the typical spaceship-style, unfold steamer that sits in about an inch of water, with a peg in the middle and a ring through the top of the peg – until I read in the article about the Oxo steamer. I never thought about using that peg for anything, it was pretty unusable. But because of the peg, I have to break my asparagus (a common steamed items in these parts) in half to fit in the steamer. Oxo has created a steamer with a removable peg that folds flat when not in use. Brilliant!
• Tools need to be designed with a relentless focus on serving people. Sounds simple, but it can never be repeated often enough.
• People come in all manner of varieties but tend to do things in common ways.
• Tools come with inherent biases and their design shapes the possibilities of their use.
• A rich interchange is happening between professionals and amateurs with both benefiting from the exchange of information and practices. At the same, a new type of person (user) is arising, variously called the pro-am or prosumer, someone between the professionals and the amateurs. As tools for everyone get better professionals have less tool-based advantage and must rely on craft, experience or knowledge-based advantage. Think of photographers, journalists, athletes and chefs. The amateurs are catching up faster than the professionals are pulling away. A key driver of this trend is the web. The web, as a tool, offers the following biases: transparency, decentralized coordination and constant feedback loops. Consequently, we see cheap coordination of resources, anywhere-to-anywhere networked communication, and increased access and storage of information.
• Connected Consumption: As the exchange of information continues to accellerate, and people have greater access to timely, contextual, peer-reviewed information, they purchase habits become more responsive and changeable. Most of the time I’ve seen this phenomena expressed as an increase in the fickleness of consumers, and this can be true, but I also believe that companies that deliver on their promise develop greater momentum and loyalty. The same way that someone who always sticks to their word becomes more trusted.
• Others I’m missing? Please comment.