Encountering Dominant Design

Ever thought why all products we see have consistency in design? For example, all umbrellas have a similar design and a similar way of operating. Did you ever think about why books are rectangular and not round? Ever since childhood, I observed things and thought why something would look like this and not like that. I can still remember when I saw a computer for the first time. I was around 4 or 5 years old back then. The first question that popped in my mind was, “why is the keyboard not set in alphabetical order?” I asked my mother and she said this is the system.

Back then I couldn’t comprehend what system meant. However, now I know why every product has a common design pattern. Why, when we see a chair and recognize it for a chair and not a table or a tool. This is because of the term “dominant design.” This is a technology management concept introduced by Utterback and Abernathy in 1975. The concept states that when a possible range of designs for a specific product is introduced to a market, only one design becomes the gold standard and all other players should or eventually use that design. The most interesting part of this concept is that the best design doesn’t always become the dominant design. Instead, the most accepted one becomes the dominant design.

Let’s get back to my childhood curiosity, the ‘QWERTY keyboard’. This keyboard was specifically designed to overcome the operative limitations of a mechanical typewriter. The main problem of typewriters was that the letters used to stick when two keys were pressed simultaneously. To decrease the speed, the concept of QWERTY was introduced. It wasn’t the most efficient way of typing but rather it was designed to slow down the speed. However, the users made it the dominant design and to this day, we continue using the QWERTY keyboard. This example shows how dominant design can capture the devotion of the marketplace.

To me, the dominant design is what pops up in our mind whenever we think of any products. For example, if we think of search engines the first name that pops up is obviously Google. It’s not the only search engine available, but consumers have accepted it. Hence, Google is the dominant design for search engines.

The mobile phone industry is dominated by the iPhone. When the touch phone industry was emerging the touch screen with a button in the middle became the dominant design. Then all the competitors more or less followed the design, because that was the dominant design. So, are notched phones the dominant design for phones now? Yes, I think so. Essential did it first but Apple made it bolder to the customer. Now, the rest of the smartphone industry is following this design. So, the interesting part of the dominant design is it’s not fixed, it can change over time, for example, the smartphone industry, and again it can never change, for example, the “QWERTY Keyboard”.

So, we can see how this concept plays a role in every aspect of our life. Every product has a design pattern, and the interesting part is there is dynamic changes in its design. It shows how customer’s preference is important, how customer psychology helps to make a design dominant. It is the design that wins the marketplace allegiance, the one which competitors and innovators must follow if they hope to command substantial market following.

Written by Ananna Rahman