For the past two months, we’ve been racing forward on our tea project with a concept we dubbed The Hourglass. The Hourglass Concept is basically this: In our combination tea kettle and pot, water was heated on the bottom of the device while tea leaves were placed into an infuser at the top. Once the water heated to the right temperature for the type of tea, you flipped the pot over and the water landed on the tea leaves. When the tea was done steeping, you flipped the pot back over and, removing the cap, you could pour the tea.

We met with a professional glassblower to discuss how the glass body could be made. We made several rounds of prototypes, from rough plastic bottles to a printed 3D model to an Arduino with a tilt sensor taped to a glass tea jar.

As we discussed in the last post, we even solved the tricky engineering problem of how the steam from the heating up water got released from the cap. All in all, it was a considerable amount of work.

But during testing, we discovered several flaws that, while functional, don’t make for the best experience.

First is that, despite the glass body being double-walled and being able to take the heat of boiling water, after sitting for several minutes while filled with hot water, the glass body was simply too hot to reasonably assume anyone could handle it easily, much less flip it over twice. To fix this, we’d have to add a handle or some kind of sleeve (plastic or fabric). The second problem is that the caps also get extremely hot to the touch. Accidentally touching or trying to remove the cap to pour the tea out would be painful. A cap that was useful enough for our purposes and maintains the overall integrity of the design would always heat up. We could add things like a rubber sheath to the cap to fix it, but it’s simply not nice.

More important perhaps than either of these is the (not unjustified) psychological fear that the top cap might not be put on completely, so that when the pot was flipped over, 16oz of scalding water would gush out, perhaps right onto your lap.

So, despite the months working on this concept, we’ve switched to other concepts. But not without learning some valuable lessons, like that before you can have a good experience, you need to have perceived safety and trust. We’ve also realized what we really liked about this design is the physical interaction with the pot, so we’re trying to retain that feeling in the new concept. Luckily, we still have our design principles to work from, and we’re forging ahead.

The benefit of doing rapid iterations is clear: better to find out your flaws now, before production and manufacturing, than later, when someone is suing you for a lap-full of tea.

• Nice design: Tapi Turns a Tap Water Faucet Into a Drinking Fountain http://is.gd/ex02F #
• The End of Moore's Law: A Love Story http://is.gd/ezavT #
• RT @thingm: Download the Sketching in Hardware 2010 presentations here: http://www.sketching10.com/presentations/ #
• The Significant Objects Project: "Narrative transforms the insignificant to the significant" http://is.gd/eDcXW #
• Why Innovation is Beginner's Luck http://is.gd/eDdTg #
• What Makes a Button a Button? http://is.gd/eDdTg #
• "50 different game mechanics that can be mixed and matched to create the foundation for different types of games" http://is.gd/eEa6O #
• Top Ten Videos About the Internet of Things http://is.gd/eEUiF #
• Electrolux Design Lab 2010 Finalists http://is.gd/eEV7R #
• Rethinking The Remote http://is.gd/eEViY #
• Creepy: Robotic hands attached to small helicopters can grip objects even as the helicopter hovers http://is.gd/eHac7 #

When it comes to touchscreen devices, we’re not making the best use of our fingers.

Our fingers (except for the thumbs) are made up of three hinge joints. (Thumbs have a unique (to humans) joint at their base—the saddle joint—and only one hinge joint.) These hinge joints allow us to bend our fingers into several shapes. Doing this is a form of flexion. (Extension straightens the finger.)

Barring disability and age, most adult fingers have at least two comfortable positions: fully extended or curled. The index finger, generally being the most flexible, can have several (at least two) comfortable curled positions. As proof of this, watch yourself type and see how many finger positions particularly your fingers move into. (This isn’t true for hunt-and-peck typists, if there are any of those still around.)

Kinesiology lesson over, flash forward to touchscreens. Most of these use one finger position—fully extended—for taps, swipes, etc. Often, buttons are placed at the very top of the screen, forcing users to reach using a fully extended finger to access them. This is likely because in the desktop or application space, designers are used to putting menu items at the top, out of the way, where they can be just as easily accessed by a mouse and cursor as a bottom menu. But with touchscreens, items close by (at the bottom of the screen) are better for two reasons: they don’t require changing a hand position (often even removing a hand), and secondly, they are less likely to cause screen coverage, when the user’s own hand hides items on the screen.

Most reading apps on the iPad, for instance, put the Back or Home buttons at the top left of the screen, where you would usually find it on a browser. This is also because, I’m guessing the designers decided, the thumbs are already in use: to swipe turning pages. This is true, but the thumbs could have another use in the flexed (curled) position to access menu items at the bottom of the screen. (This isn’t to say that the menu items need to be visible all the time, I should mention. With many apps for reading, they are invisible until the screen is tapped.)

Granted, this is much less of a problem on touchscreen mobile devices like Android phones or the iPhone, since the thumbs can typically reach the top of the screen without much interference (although you’ll still get screen coverage, and it can be an overextension for people, particularly women, with smaller thumb lengths). But this use of a second “space” with a curled finger for touch targets could have many different uses, such as in gaming, typing, and different menu styles.

Fingers being less ideal than cursors for many tasks, this is one area where the finger has the cursor beat by having two natural “modes.” It’s an interaction and ergonomic pattern well worth putting to use.

• What is a Device? by Kicker principal @odannyboy http://is.gd/eiKYA Includes the 6000-year history of devices. #
• "With 1 hour’s training, RearType…was not statistically different to a touchscreen keyboard." http://is.gd/ekal9 Why bother then? #
• Hey, it's only 4 days from @devicedesignday! Have you registered yet? http://devicedesignday.com/register #
• UX Books for Beginners http://is.gd/elQkm #
• Only two (2) days left until Device Design Day and we might sell out, so if you want to come, register today: http://devicedesignday.com #
• "[Physical] buttons…broadcast their function and then satisfy our tactile cravings" http://j.mp/bLb5Q3 (via @DanHarrelson) #
• Device Design Day is now SOLD OUT! #
• OH: "Hey, I just saw your condoms in the drugstore!" #
• Microsoft's Arc Touch mouse http://is.gd/eoYDw #
• Designing Displays for Older Adults http://is.gd/epgc5 #
• Device Design Day is tomorrow! Follow the conference at @devicedesignday or the hashtag #D3 (ignore the ones about Diablo 3 though). #
• Photos from yesterday: http://is.gd/euTk4 (via @devicedesignday) #

Jared Benson is a specialist in mobile UI design and interaction design. Jared is a founder and the Executive Creative Director at Punchcut, helping their clients envision and create next-generation interfaces. Jared also founded the acclaimed typography community, Typophile, and serves on FontShop’s type selection board. He has designed interfaces for brands like Qualcomm, ESPN, Kodak, Sun and MediaFlo. He’s also speaking at tomorrow’s Device Design Day. We asked him our Six Questions.

1. What is the most cherished product in your life? Why?
There are a handful of products that I use on a daily basis that enrich my life; however I’ll share about a product that still has the power to stop me in my tracks whenever I encounter one. When I was an early teenager, I mowed lawns and saved up for my first computer, which I still have to this day: my Commodore 64.

I really cut my teeth on this thing. I wrote my first programs. I designed and animated my first graphics; first, in color ASCII and later, in pixels. I made my first pixel fonts. At a blazing 300 baud, I connected with people all over the globe. I collected programs. I made demos. I wardialed phone numbers while I was away at school. I ran a BBS with a friend. At one point, I cobbled it together with an old Betamax VCR and created a computer/TV hybrid. It’s pretty safe to say that my experiences on that old Commodore put me on a trajectory to where I am today.

2. What’s the one product you wish you’d designed, and why?
We probably all have sketches for this one in our notebooks—I know I do—but I’ve been really impressed with Flipboard for a number of reasons. It takes a web-based content format and packages it up in an engaging, intuitive, delightful way to consume the content in a new medium. It marries an old-world paradigm with new-world technology, combined with a richer sensitivity to typography than your typical social network. Watch how many people run out and retool their apps to emulate it.

3. What excites you about being a designer? Why do you keep doing it?
A shift happened in the industry a few years ago. TV spots for mobile devices could no longer rely on the slick 360 spin of the hardware. Suddenly they had to show what’s on screen, while industrial design for touch-enabled devices maximized screen space over differentiation, resulting in a host of devices that look very similar from 10 feet back. User experience became a decision point for consumers.

I’m a bit of a futurist, so I love working on meaty problems that shape tomorrow’s behaviors and establish new rituals. My favorite moments as a designer are in workshops with smart clients where we’re exploring the possibility space for an upcoming suite of devices. The thought of millions of people relying on our work to connect each day is sobering, and at the same time, an intense thrill. As we strive to make our mobile experiences engage with the world rather than take users out of it, I like to think we’re improving lives, one millisecond at a time. Turning science fiction into non-fiction.

I love what I do. Everyone should be so lucky.

4. When do you first remember thinking of yourself as a designer?
For a long time, I self-labeled with peripheral titles. First was cartoonist, then graffiti artist, and hacker before I began to realize that really what I wanted to do was design. Not a huge step, as my father was a designer/engineer at Mattel Toys for 30+ years, and he’s always been someone I’ve wanted to emulate. I had a mentor in high school who brought me into his world working on some design projects for Disney, and it was clear to me then what I wanted to do someday. I suppose the label really started to stick when I got my first design job designing an 8 page weekly tech newsletter for my university campus. I had barely started design classes, and was still learning the software. I got the job based on a portfolio almost entirely based on scraps of student work, and suddenly a big department on campus was entrusting me with all sorts of big decisions.

5. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned, and who taught it to you?
If you’re going to get up every day and leave your family to go to work, make sure it’s something you love to do. My dad taught me that when I was young, and it’s probably made the largest impact on my professional life than any other piece of advice. I’m constantly amazed how many people I speak to who grind away at jobs that they don’t love, who are just working for the next paycheck, or waiting for their options to vest. The amount of time we spend at work, and away from our families, is staggering. You’ve only got one life. If you’re going to spend that much time away, shouldn’t it be doing what you love, in an environment that you love, with amazing, inspiring people?

6. What are 5 things all designers should know?
1. Collaborate. You may want to go back to your desk and figure it all out by yourself, but recognize that the best work happens when you pair designers from different disciplines in true real-time collaboration—not in a “throw it over the wall” or waterfall model.

2. Cut the umbilical. Sure, you spent all weekend pounding out that design solution, but your best tool in a client presentation is staying objective. Separate the emotion of the moment from what really needs to get happen. Clients can sense it if you’ve lost your objectivity, and it won’t help your cause.

3. Toughen up. If you’re in the device design space, you’re aware of how many projects happen that get dropped, shelved, iced along the way. With 2-3 year lead times, everything could go wrong and it does. It’s a reality, so brace yourself.

4. Drop the ego. Design is not something you do “at” the client, or “to” the client. Design is something you do with the client. There are way too many prima donnas in this business, and I’m not convinced it’s necessary. Just be real, and do good work.

5. Relationships matter. Whether we’re teasing out the complexities of connecting multiple devices, or crafting a client roster that builds a design business, it’s all about relationships.

• The Sharpie Liquid Pencil http://is.gd/ea48L (HT @pboersma) #
• Throughout the week, register for @devicedesignday and thanks to our sponsors you might get a free book! http://devicedesignday.com/register #
• Next 5 people who register for @devicedesignday will get a copy of Designing Gestural Interfaces courtesy @OReillyMedia http://is.gd/eagLJ #
• In honor of our second anniversary, Jennifer's article on how it all began: Starting a Design Studio In a Downturn http://is.gd/ealzI #
• Touchscreen vending machines in Tokyo http://is.gd/ebuQA #
• Next 3 people who register for @devicedesignday will get @mikekuniavsky's new Smart Things book courtesy @Morgan_Kaufmann http://is.gd/eagLJ #
• What Google Could Learn from Pixar http://is.gd/ebEXY (HT @gruber) #
• Digital Manufacturing Opportunities in Orthopedics http://is.gd/ebOLl (HT @core77) #
• The Idea or The Execution? Here’s What The Greatest Minds in Tech Say http://is.gd/ebPKQ #
• A bike that tweets its feelings http://is.gd/ebRnl #
• Cars hacked through wireless tire sensors http://is.gd/ec5Ui #
• More about the "giant tablet computer" the Kno http://is.gd/eccIM #
• "The details are the design. They're not an afterthought or something you fix later…" http://is.gd/ed2Fn #
• Amazon's Hardware Strategy http://is.gd/ed2ZW #
• Today's @devicedesignday book giveaway: @tigoe's Making Things Talk to the next 3 registrants courtesy @OReillyMedia http://is.gd/eagLJ #
• Kenmore launches washers and dryers that tell what's wrong with them http://is.gd/eeygD #
• America's first public-use quick-charge station for electric vehicles opens http://is.gd/eeyKg #
• Someone really phoned it in: @markmcc: The branding for combined United/Continental airline http://bit.ly/9JQdMx (via @gretared) #
• Hey internet! Learn how to buy design like a pro! New post “Tips On Buying Design” by @Mike_FTW! http://bit.ly/dwWrWu #
• Lessons from Google Wave and MS Kin by @berkun http://is.gd/ef1I1 #
• Ian Myles explains how to get better results from your strategic design decisions at @devicedesignday in ONE WEEK! http://is.gd/eg5QU #
• Kindle v. iPad v. Paper…under the microscope http://is.gd/eg6Pi (Be interesting to see the new Retina displays like this.) #
• Correct Kindle v. iPad v. Paper under a microscope link: http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2722 #
• Books you might get at @devicedesignday thanks to @OreillyMedia: Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps and Make: Electronics! #
• OH: "As God is my witness, there will be wifi!" #

Think you have what it takes to be a Kicker? We’re looking to add a business development manager to our staff. We need someone who can take charge of our business development process, inbound and outbound sales, and account management. You’ll need organizational skillz, be able to easily communicate to clients and potential clients via phone and email, the ability to write well and put together a spreadsheet occasionally, be able to chat with strangers at events, and a sense of humor. Bonuses: device or software experience, like dogs and indie pop music.

Send us a cover letter, salary and/or commission requirements, and resume to jobs [at] kickerstudio [dot] com. Please spell our name right.

The position is in San Francisco (where our office is). We want to see your face occasionally, so locals only please. Benefits and very decent vacation package (5 weeks). Casual, fun workplace environment. Rock Band is occasionally played.

Who we are: Kicker Studio is a design consultancy that turns the technology of tomorrow into the products of today. We’re a boutique studio that combines visionary design with real-world results to create the best products in the world. Our plans for world domination are modest.