# Product Design : Lecture 1

## TEDx Talk by Christian Maats: How product design can change the world

I belief life is connected, I believe people are connected to their social and
physical environment, and I believe that mankind is connected to the plant. But our
society has lost touch of this connection. We have built a society that thinks in
straight lines: we buy things, we use things, and we throw them out, period. We
have companies that try to achieve maximum growth, maximum profit, and maximum
efficiency.

Nature works slightly differently. In nature, when you use something and you throw
it out, it rots, and it becomes a source of new life. It's a cyclical process. In
nature, there is a dynamic balance of species that are intricately connected to
each other.

I believe our future is based on an integration of these two worlds: integrating

that industrial society with its natural roots. So, after I graduated from
university, I started making shoes, as you do. But they weren't just any shoes,
they were the world's first biodegradable shoes that bloom. They were shoes that
you could wear just like any other shoes, and once they were worn down, you could
plant them in the ground, and the seeds that we put inside the tongue of the shoes
could grow into a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers; and of course, the shoes would
decompose into the earth.


Which is the best axe for cutting wood when you look at these three? Chances are
you probably took the first one.

I can already see the images racing in your head, but I'm going to help you a
little bit. Which one goes with which axe?


Which sentence fits which axe the best? Which axe fits the idea that life is about
power and conquest? Which axe is more about hard work and dedication? And finally,
which maker of the axe, or the buyer of the axe, sees life as being about self-
expression? I'm making this easy on you.


Anything like you thought? That's the way we see the world. The belief system is
basically how you see the world, and that is the basis for the purpose of your
actions. If you see life as a competition, and you want to win it, you're gonna
spend a lot of your time doing things to try to beat the competition. So when we go
to the axes, and we imagine the people making those axes, we can imagine what
purpose they might have making these axes.


I ventured to guess and said, "If life is about power and conquest, chances are
you're making that axe to help your tribe conquer some other tribe". If life is
about hard work and dedication, maybe you're making this axe to sell it and provide
for your family, send your kids to school. If life is about self-expression, maybe
you're helping young artists to express themselves by having to make these axes.

Chances are that one or two of these belief systems are things that you might
identify with; I doubt that identify with all three of them. Chances are, as well,
that one or two of these purposes might be something that you can empathize with,
and you might want to even support them. That's the key to making a product
meaningful.


Meaningful products are based on a belief system that we can identify with, and
they serve a purpose that we can empathize with.


If you look at our little circles of the product experience dimensions, I put in
this fourth one. There's still the sweet spot in the middle, obviously, where, if a
product aligns with our ideas of the function, the attitude, the style, and the
belief system, we all want to have it. It becomes meaningful, and we want to
support the people making this product. So the belief system is really the core
behind all the activities and all the design decisions that you make as a product
designer.

If we look at the dominant system in Western society as I've said in the beginning:
we're all about maximizing growth, maximizing profit, and maximizing efficiency;
and we can see that in the products that we find in the stores when we go to shop.
Most products are cheaply made, they're not great quality, we don't use them very
long, they're not easy to repair, so we throw them out, buy new stuff, that's
usually made with toxic materials, unhealthy ingredients, by people that don't get
paid what they should be paid, not in the circumstances that they need to survive
well.

Is that a system that we can identify with? Is that a purpose that we believe in?
No! We're already seeing a growing attention for sustainable products because
subconsciously, we're already starting to make our choices based on this belief
system, as well. I think by being aware, consciously, of how a belief system
affects all the decisions that a company makes, it allows us to make these choices
more consciously and show to these companies that it's worth their while to change
their ways.

Sustainability implies a belief system that values a dynamic balance and a

symbiotic relationship between people and their environment. That was the whole
idea of these shoes I was making. By adding to the function based on the belief
system, we added this function of biodegradability of these seeds that grow into
flowers. And this way, we could connect people to their natural environment, make
people part of the natural cycle of life. It added the bonus that natural materials
turn out to be really nice to your feet; it's a great feeling.

It affected the style and the attitude because we were working with these natural
materials; putting them into a very linear, geometric design created a unique
attitude for an urban, creative lifestyle. But it affected our decisions in terms
of supply chain and other things, as well. We chose to make them in Europe to keep
the line short, to be able to secure that people got paid what they needed to be
paid - the right circumstances - we sourced all of our materials in Europe.

Even the people making the shoes said, "We really like you guys because otherwise,
we make shoes with glues inside, and we're inhaling these vapors the whole day, we
go home stoned". Our shoes are made without glue, so it's a much better experience
for them. It's our choice what products we buy, and by making that choice, we force
companies to make this change.

When companies are aware of how the belief system is at the core of all their
activities, they can evaluate all those activities, they can look at who are the
owners, and whether they are private or public. What are their purposes? What do
they see as the goal of life? How do we treat our employees? It it a competitive
system? A cooperative system? How do we award them? How do we approach our
customers? How do we relate to them? How do we treat our partners in the supply
chain? Finally, how do we treat the planet?

As a company, that's a daunting thing to do. If you have to shift gears like that,
it's an enormous change to make, but you can do that one little step at a time.
Once you make that commitment, and you communicate that to people, you create a
purpose for your company, a purpose that customers like us can empathize with, a
purpose that connects us to the shared environment that we have with the companies,
and the purpose that we want to support so when we're going to come back and buy
those products, we'll tell our friends more actively what we think of these
products. That's, I think how we change this system. So, if we talk about
sustainability, I think we have to start at the root, which is the belief system,
and then, the first question to ask is, "What is life about for you?". Thank you!