A short while ago, while attending the IDSA NED conference, CoCreate, I had the pleasure of watching a presentation by Ben Hopson. Hopson introduces himself as a “kinetic designer,” and throughout the presentation drives home the importance of maintaining design thinking through the aesthetics from the way it looks to the way it works. A product can be beautifully designed, perform wonderfully, but many times the mechanical aspects of it fall short of what could be a completely positive user experience.

Hopson uses a printer for personal use as an example, showing the numerous steps that the user needs to go through to pull out the paper tray. It’s like the cousins of Crackle, Snap, and Pop have come to life. Flip. Swivel. Flip. Flip. Then, he shows us how it could be done using common mechanics to turn it into a one-step process. Maybe it’s “Pull.” Maybe it’s “Pop.” Maybe it’s nothing at all because the action happens for you... The possibilities are within our reach if we simply take the time to consider them.