5.1 Design

The aesthetics of a product or technology can influence its success in different ways. In the automobile industry, the way a car looks is very important to a customer, in fact people often pay as much attention to the aesthetics of a car as to its performance. A classic example of this is the Skoda. This manufacturer traditionally had a very bad reputation for performance and bad aesthetics, but in the last few years have completely redesigned their range of cars. At the same time, they launched a very popular advertising campaign which didn't settle for simply promoting the new design, but enhanced its appeal by making fun of the old designs, and people's perceptions of them.

In some cases however, aesthetics are more or less important depending on the particular group targeted. The first GUI (graphical user interface), MacOS, developed by Apple Macintosh, captured a large market share, due to its aesthetically pleasing design and ease of use; therefore, ensuring a niche market share for Macintosh for over a decade. In contrast, console based operating systems, such as Unix, are considerably less user friendly yet provide much greater control for the user. This is also a niche market, largely used by programmers and computer enthusiasts.

As seen in the Tyrrell P34 example, lack of pre-production testing was a serious issue in the automobile industry, before computer-aided design (CAD) programs became available in the early 1980s. With access to such equipment, Tyrrell would have been able to model the P34's performance, and thus recognise the design flaws before such great and ultimately unnecessary capital expenditure.

Firms are often driven to produce items that increase the ease of the design process or take advantage of loopholes in legislative law. The Sinclair C5 was a small, three-wheeled vehicle powered by either pedal or battery and was designed by the entrepreneur Sir Clive Sinclair. Using this as an example, rather than a product to suit the needs and desires of the customer, the design of the C5 was tailored to take advantage of government incentives for producing low-emission, environmentally friendly vehicles; therefore, resulting in the production of a product that was undesirable to consumers.

The lack of battery technology was the main stumbling block for all forms of electric transport, including the C5; however, Sinclair chose not to invest in improving battery technology, and so ended up with a product that was let down by that very same lack of technology. Their view was that the existing battery manufacturers should be the ones to come up with the technology, thus relying on firms who had no interest in whether the C5 succeeded or not. When released, the main consumer complaint with the C5 was that the battery life was not long enough, and this made it inconvenient and unusable for most consumers, thus making the C5 a failure.