When we use or observe something which is well designed, we might feel that it is well designed but we might not understand exactly why. Design is so much more than what it might seem like.
Dieter Rams created the 10 principles for good design. I often go back to these principles and for each time I read through, a new nuance to the underlying meanings might have formed.
06 Good design is honest. This has been my latest obsession. A new framing which I have formed is, “the UI should represent the underlying data as directly and honestly as possible”. The logic between the data and the UI should be simple. No aggregation of states, no larger data transforms. So what has become even more clear is, structuring data well is also about creating good user-facing design. Is it difficult to create a good UI, then it might be because the data is structured wrong. If the design is honest, it’s simply much easier to reason about what’s going on under the hood.
Another recent obsession has been to move as much of my workflow over to the filesystem. The file system is easy to reason about. I see a file, I can open and inspect it. Nothing is hidden. Building programs using the file system is good honest design. More programs, which currently store their data in databases or directly in the cloud, should move to the file system. I tell you, the file system is the future.
02 Good design makes a product useful. Not only is good design about the product itself. But it is also about how it interacts with its surroundings. Is it easy to integrate? Is it self-contained? Will it be a problem with compatibility? Can customers use the product in ways in which we realistically can’t test for or guarantee success? This might stretch the design principle somewhat. Perhaps there should have been a design principle not only about the product, but how it fits into its ecosystem.
I think the most important part is to be eager to learn about good design, and to build up a repertoire of ideas and principles. This will make it easier to understand the tradeoffs in design decisions. I think the best design decisions are done when trying to consider as many aspects as possible at once. This is what results in good coherent design. And for this, one has to have spent lots of time thinking and building up a good intuition.
Wow, a lot has happened these past 6 months! We started this year working on a bigger Bluetooth MIDI keyboard (KD-3 on our website), but accidentally found ourself creating a new device which we thought brought much more to the table, with more innovative ideas. What originated from an intense and fun one-day project, quickly turned to our main focus. We have been hard at work, full-time, and we are happy to now soon ship our MONKEY to everyone who pre-ordered! I will, in this short newsletter, tell you about what has been going on and what our plans going forwards are.
MONKEY is a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard. MIDI over Bluetooth is not new, but we recognised that it was not that many devices on the market which where completely bluetooth centric: defining the product based on what’s possible with Bluetooth. This is where the idea for MONKEY originated. One thing led to another and it turned out to be a device which both plays like a typical MIDI keyboard, but also has many MIDI effects (many which we think are also quite novel), as well as a loop recorder.
We decided to visit Superbooth this year, to mainly present MONKEY, but also KD-3. We couldn’t have even hoped for as good response as we got there! We where unsure if people would resonate with something which where quite different. But this turned out to not be a problem at all, and many where also quick to come up with interesting ways of incorporating MONKEY in their own setup. This is also core to our design philosophy: we define, no doubt, clear constraints to the device. But we define them to leave as much creative flexibility to the user as possible, resulting in ways of using it we didn’t initially expect.
Sonicstate had a visit at our stand and I got to make a quick demonstration video. We are honoured to have received the award value for money from Sonicstate. Below you can see the demo video, and it’s a great way to get a feel for the device!
So whats up next? We launched pre-orders on our website, they are still active. The next months we have a few focus areas, before our planned shipment in late August:
Packaging: We want to have some nicely done packaging. But we don’t want to give any promises here yet, as we are still in a phase where we are looking at which packaging options seems to be reasonably achievable.
Quality: It’s important for us that we create devices which lasts. We are doing a lot of rough field testing as well as doing the necessary design-improvements and manufacturing adjustments to make the device more rugged and long-lasting.
Firmware: Firmware is currently in a state where it’s totally possible to ship it. During our intense days at Superbooth, having about 5 devices connected up simultaneously, we didn’t experience a single firmware bug, which we think is a very good sign for the maturity of the codebase. But the presets and the effects are currently a bit all over the place. We think this helps to give the device a fun and creative character. But we are also committed to quality, improving them where we feel it’s necessary.
Documentation: We need to improve information about all the features of Monkey. As well as guides for different types of setups and DAWs.
That’s our plan! We would love to hear your thoughts, please reach out to us at hello@wavyindustries.com. We are very exited about what the future might hold, and with many new ideas up in the air for future projects. We are grateful for there existing people who are interested in what we are doing, deciding to subscribe to out newsletter, and for those taking the extra step and pre-ordering.
Love from the Wavy Industries team ❤️
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