So I am a digital information junkie. So what does every good GB hog need ….a big ass external harddrive. Enter Western Digital with a kick ass product that has made this byte junkie very happy. My WD Mybook 500gb external drive.

Here is the deal on this fine little piece of hardware. It works. Simple. Exactly the way it should work. I was moving files on to it in 10 minutes. I now have a place to work with my home movies, store my pictures, manage my music and still have room to back up all my documents via the automatic backup. All that and it looks pretty cool too.
This isn’t so much an article on the fast speeds or any other technical spec. It is more about the design of this device that I find so impressive. Here is a hard drive company that went from making a boring product that most people never saw to making a consumer facing product that is really good.

How did they do it you ask? IDEO.
As it happens that I was checking out the website of my favorite company in the world. That is a pretty big statement I know, but if you look at what the company is all about it you will understand the cool stuff they do. IDEO has great thinkers, they look at all the possibilities and not just focus on the most obvious solution. The break processes down to the core and design around what is truly important. The user.

They go into detail about the success of the product on their page. There is interesting talk about how they went about the design process. The way they design is truly impressive. They have honed the process to an art form. (They created IDEO Method cards to help others in the creative process.) There is a lot to be learned from this company and how they continually push the boundary and have created many of the products that we have today. They tell a very eloquent story.

“Aesthetically, My Book merges usability with distinctive detail to speak to Western Digital’s brand values–reliability, simplicity, innovation, design, and personal excellence. To make the drive’s inner workings as transparent as possible, a single button on the face of the design illuminates to indicate power and processing. The drive’s peripheral venting represents Western Digital’s brand values in Morse code. Finally, the drive’s monochromatic hue allows it to recede into the background.” Link

It is like poetry for the digital age.

I really like what they have done and you should check out the selection when you start considering where you are going to store your digital stuff. Lets face it DVD’s and CD’s just don’t cut it for media file storage. I think you will appreciate the thought that has gone into this product and how well it does what it is supposed to do.

Cheers,

Scott

Categories: ConceptShare, Product Design ~ ~ Trackback