Nest thermostat (unexciting choice, but true)
A perfect exercise in desirability today. Take a fundamentally mundane object that is most of the time a practical but cumbersome accessory, and turn it into an object of affection that is an integral part of one’s everyday life. Even the name, nest, alludes to affective and home-building emotion.
Greatly streamlined UX from purchase to usage. UX is basically what people pay for in this case. The functions are replicable with other products, but this one allows people to save their cognitive resources to other tasks. No planning ahead or thinking necessary; no thinking necessary at all. It’s stylish, modern, easy to use and above all smart. Draws on currents trends in computing: empowering people with data, visualization, ubiquitous and adaptable. It has a green aspect to it, and it can actually save one’s money though the initial investment is pricier. It integrates with virtually any lifestyle, and fits our image of integrated mobile world. The embodiment of ‘internet of things’ that manages to be sexy rather than scary. PS: Disclaimer I don’t know it Nest actually works, and have no personal experience with it. I also personally do not necessarily desire one for I like to have control over my electronics.
credit card
As a proliferated platform it is hard to beat. However, I have troubles to see to what extent it is an incredibly designed product, and to what extent it is a product just well fitting into the stream of consumer capitalistic society. Is it one of the eggs, or one of the chickens?
Nonetheless, credit card appeals to one’s sense of financial independence that comes with the ability to borrow money at will (especially at younger age), is wonderfully convenient, in some ways more secure than cash, makes spending money feel less severe, and maps well onto the world where money are strings of numbers with artificial value anyway. Many of these characteristics are also true of now popular debit cards. However, the original concept of credit card was much more akin to one’s sense of social financial status, as well as a strange sense of mutual trustworthiness stemming from the ubiquitous omnipresent multilateral debt.
