The Pen Process
By Jennifer Bove, Vice President of Service Design at Fjord; Andrew Crow, Head of Design at Uber; Jordan Husney, Director at Undercurrent
This article first appeared in the Fall 2014 Design Journal, published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
When the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration (present-day Cooper Hewitt) opened in 1897, it was conceived as a working museum for professional designers and Cooper Union students — a place of immersive experience. The objects in the collection were meant to be handled. Direct physical engagement was seen as integral to the creative process.
Cooper Hewitt’s redesign created an opportunity to reconsider the contemporary museum experience. Designers Local Projects and Diller Scofidio + Renfro worked with the museum to conceive of an electronic pen that would put the tools of designers into the hands of museum visitors. By touching the Pen to an object’s label, visitors will be able to save data and recall the information at digital tables throughout the museum — allowing them to explore after their visit through a custom URL printed on their entrance ticket. The Pen would encourage visitors to actively engage with objects, thereby extending the museum experience beyond the gallery walls. To do this, however, the museum needed to create original hardware — its own tool!
“Hardware is hard” is a popular aphorism among interaction designers. Unlike other media, such as audio or graphics, hardware requires a finalized design much earlier in the process. Once hardware designs are released for manufacture, no changes can be made. Furthermore, hardware must be able to withstand its environment. For the Pen, this meant being handled by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of visitors.
Cooper Hewitt Director Caroline Baumann reached out to supporter and friend of the museum Aaron Dignan, CEO of the organizational transformation firm Undercurrent, about enlisting his company to help make the Pen a reality. Undercurrent was intrigued and excited to be a part of this unique opportunity.
Their first task was to identify design milestones and establish how much time the museum would have to iterate the various aspects of the Pen’s production. There was a lot to consider, such as the electrical and software engineering, aesthetics, and industrial design. A process for validating design choices was integrated into the schedule — it is all too easy to focus on building the thing right rather than on building the right thing.
Cooper Hewitt produced storyboards and videos of anticipated design interaction to illustrate exploratory actions, such as using the Pen to save and manipulate objects at a table, as well as practical concerns, like returning the Pen to museum staff at the end of a visit.
In interaction design, all initial specifications need to be tested in real life. To accomplish this, Undercurrent and Avi Reichental — CEO of 3D-printing company 3D Systems — collaborated to produce 3D prototypes of pen designs. The experience design and engineering firm, Tellart, created a set of working electronic prototypes to model basic interaction with real users. The next step was to focus on engineering.
Engineering an easy-to-use device intended to wirelessly read and manage a list of objects while maximizing battery life presented a significant set of technical challenges. Engineering such a device from scratch would have taken years. It was recommended that SistelNetworks in Spain might have already developed a partial usable solution — an interactive pen for use in hospitals. The pen was tested and determined to be a suitable starting point.
An effective union of form and function underpins good design, and Cooper Hewitt was determined to produce a pen with the functionality, aesthetics, and ergonomics worthy of a national design museum. Fortunately, Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer of General Electric and the president of Cooper Hewitt’s Board of Directors, mobilized the GE Design Council, a world-class industrial and interaction design team.
The team gathered for two days at 3D Systems’ innovation center in New York City to direct the industrial and interaction design of the Pen and to flesh out additional use cases. These scenarios included: receiving the Pen at reception, collecting objects, interacting with digital tables, returning the Pen, and maintenance (e.g., changing the battery and cleaning). The team also considered practical constraints. For example, the Pen needed to have a long battery life, but also needed to be easily handled by visitors without excessive battery weight. Through a series of 2D and 3D sketches, the team honed several concepts into a single design direction and developed the Pen’s vocabulary of cues and feedback.
The team created a set of seven design principles to guide the design of the Pen experience. These principles enabled the designers and engineers to vet ideas and hypotheses.
The Pen’s final design was driven by a combination of functional requirements, constraints, and unique interaction opportunities. Paying close attention to visitor and museum staff needs helped the team to refine the interaction details of the Pen system.
Remote cooperation among the many design teams was key to design iteration, and was facilitated by Workbench, a collaborative internet platform from GrabCAD.
At this stage, 3D prints and interaction scenarios were created to test and evaluate design choices, and the Pen began to take its final shape. Details, such as the angle at the top of the Pen, were modified to intuitively guide the user to accurately align the Pen’s antenna when scanning an object. The outer casing was made as narrow as possible to make the Pen feel natural to hold.
To transition from design concept to manufactured object, all design components must either be sourced or be able to be produced through a repeatable manufacturing process. Through the R/GA Internet of Things Accelerator, the team was introduced to MakeSimply, a hardware startup firm that transformed the Pen’s design into parts and processes that could be manufactured by its international network of factories. Getting the manufacturer involved early saves time. The manufacturer will recognize if an exterior angle is too sharp or a wall too thin — this helps to avoid many headaches later in the process.
It is our hope that the Pen will change the museum experience — from one that is spent seeing the galleries through a mobile device to one that engages visitors in an immersive environment. Imagine a world where collecting an object at the museum prompts a 3D printer to create a replica, or allows visitors to create mashups of forms and materials from many objects. Permeable museum walls offer infinite possibilities and with its pen, Cooper Hewitt is taking a lead in redefining the way the world will see its collections.
