Different people have different ideas of what a review is. There’s lots of review sites floating around the web, but a huge number of them only offer an off-the-cuff glancing idea of someone’s impression of an item, usually being far from objective or thorough. This is all just fluff and doesn’t benefit anyone except for the writer’s ego, and maybe their bank account. What I like to do is be very objective, focus intensely, and thoroughly examine every aspect of an item to give my opinion and possibly recommendations of a design in the end. If this sounds like I am an engineer - well, that’s because that’s what I am.
I am both a product designer and engineering manager by profession. I design machines. It’s my job to take the parameters that our customers are asking for, translated through our sales and marketing department and design a new product, the outcome of which is hopefully the result of the best of the thousand or ten thousand choices you have made over the course of a design. I don’t know why, but it seems everyone wants to be a designer, and everyone also seems to think it’s an easy and simple thing to design something, but it’s quite the opposite in reality. Perhaps the illusion that supports this is a good design is very simple, yet how you got to that design is a very complex process. You have to be thinking of an enormous number of things at the same time, in order to come up with the best design solution for a product. Some of the many things you may need to focus on while designing a product are: performance, manufacturability, product cost, form factor/size, product lifecycle, durability, ergonomics, failure modes and their effects. You have to be analytical and objective, have a sense of practicality, a great knowledge of materials, manufacturing methods and a good understanding on how people would like to use a product. Those who are the best at design have vision. To be conscious of all of these things at the same time is sometimes almost incomprehensible – mind boggling and a very tough thing to do, especially when you have to design complex systems of subsystems. When you design something complex, it quickly becomes apparent that there are always balances and tradeoffs with everything, as there often is in life. The best design is something that takes all these areas, and based on their relative importances, and choices you have, finds the optimum balance of all of these areas. It takes much practice for this design process and I will forever be learning more - always a student, never a master, similar to photography.
So, I am saying that, because of the way I think day to day, I’m good at doing writeups(if you prefer, over the term ‘review’), on products to examine every aspect of their design and function, with respect to maybe not by what they are intended for, but how I personally use them – these things may be different. I like to do this because I find it satisfying to pull those thoughts out of my head and onto a page/document. Some people call it ‘learning what we already know’. Bottom line, it makes me think of the root causes of why I like something or why I don’t and how something could potentially be improved, the strengths and weaknesses of something, not unlike what I do everyday in my job, but it's good to apply it to my personal passions and hobbies, this blog focusing on outdoor gears and adventures and outdoor photography. The other challenge I like is trying to write in an entertaining style, unlike this rant, which is kind of dry :)
In any case, my plan is to be posting some reviews of the outdoor and photography gear I use regularly, so I can learn what I know about the gear I use, and hopefully anyone else reading this can possibly get little tidbits of insight as well.
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