> Actually, the big sellers are the ones who get both right, current example
> is the Apple iPod.

Maybe. The man who designed it has a page there:

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/index.php?id=63

> A car that is just chrome soon gets a name as a pile of junk.  You still
> need that big engine in there.  Matching suspension and brakes are optional,
> of course.

;-) Flamingo Bertoni has a page there. Then there is F. Porsche, 
Pinninfarina, Ghia etc. It was not always chrome that sold the cars ;-)

> Consumers buy chrome (often by comparing feature lists, biggest wins).  They
> then grumble a lot (why'd I buy this piece of crap?), and then buy something
> else.  In one of life's bizarre mysteries, they buy chrome again.

There is an interesting discussion I ran into on the internet about why 
household implements and cleaning liquid bottles etc. which are 
typically bought by women share a certain shape. I suppose chrome is the 
male equivalent of whatever psychological button that shape pushes ;-) 
Now, the *engineer* equivalent of that button has lots of buttons, many 
dials, shockproof matte black hammer laquer and minimum 1000lbs and 
100HP. If some part of the workings is exposed and visible then it can 
cause fainting and obsessive-compulsive behavior. No ? ;-)

> There's a story of designing a scanner for Logitech.  Became famous for its
> very few tech support calls.  The reason was the software was very simple.
> Did Logitech learn?  No, their current drivers are feature packed pieces of
> crap, (and so are those by Canon, HP, etc).

If it had been bought by a lot of people they may have repeated it. They 
probably did not (not enough chrome ?). The skin system in the Mozilla 
and Firefox browsers (and in KDE) is called Chrome. Since this is GNU 
stuff that could be a joke in itself ;-)

> I found the perfect replacement remote control once, 6 big buttons (power
> volume +/-, channel +/-, mute), nice shape.  Apparently had a matching video
> one.  Most replacements are chrome, ie feature packed, control 16 devices
> with our 67 button remote (real example!).

Here is a man who got it right combining form and function:

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/index.php?id=103

another three (?) are those who design for B & O.

> And don't trust engineers to get form right.

;-)

Peter
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