Ideas worth spreading

Design for people, not awards

1,129,642 views |

Timothy Prestero |

TEDxBoston 2012

• June 2012

Timothy Prestero thought he'd designed the perfect incubator for newborns in the developing world -- he even won awards for it. But he and his team learned a hard lesson when their incubator completely failed to catch on. Hear his hard-earned manifesto on the importance of designing for real-world use, not accolades.

Timothy Prestero thought he'd designed the perfect incubator for newborns in the developing world -- he even won awards for it. But he and his team learned a hard lesson when their incubator completely failed to catch on. Hear his hard-earned manifesto on the importance of designing for real-world use, not accolades.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBoston 2012, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

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About the speaker

Timothy Prestero

Timothy Prestero

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Timothy Prestero loves a flashy "concept car." But in his own work, he aims to design products for social impact, keeping users in mind.

Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble | Harvard Business Review Press, 2010 | Book

The Other Side of Innovation

The second half of this book is a superb explanation of how to conduct product innovation as a disciplined experiment. Think like Karl Popper: Develop your product hypothesis and then seek to falsify rather than validate your highest-risk assumptions.

Jim Collins | HarperCollins, 2005 | Book

Good to Great and the Social Sectors

An excellent and thoughtful assessment of greatness 'indicators' for social impact.

Clayton M. Christensen et al. | HarperBusiness, 2012 | Book

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Among other books, this is an excellent overview of key concepts in innovation management.

Primo Levi | Schocken Books, 1995 | Book

The Periodic Table

Designers can find a lyrical description of the hazards of embedded assumptions in Primo Levi's short story 'Chromium' in this collection.

Dan Roam | Portfolio Trade, 2013 | Book

The Back of the Napkin

Viewers may have noticed some cartoons in my presentation. Tools like IDEO's Human Centered Design toolkit tell you how to collect loads of data; in addition to being a good guide to cartooning, Dan Roam's Back of the Napkin is the only book I've ever found that explains the kinds of visual 'frameworks' we use for data reduction — specifically how to communicate qualitative insights and observations as the first step in developing quantitative product requirements and specification.

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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxBoston 2012, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

Volunteer with Design That Matters by donating your expertise to developing breakthrough products for communities in need.