Tech Products Recognised with President Design Award 2016
The President’s Design Award recognises excellence across all design disciplines, including advertising design and visual communications, architecture and urban design, fashion design, furniture design, interior design, landscape design, product and industrial design.
There are three tech products in the Design of the Year category for the President Design Award 2016, the Samsung AddWash, the SAFETiCET, and the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720. Traditionally boring devices such as the washing machine and printers shows that there is still room for innovation.
Samsung AddWash
The AddWash feature, from which the Samsung AddWash washing machine derives its name, features the world’s first distinctive access door on front load washing machines. Typically, this is not possible in front-loading machines as the door locks once the cycle has begun. By creating a second door that can be opened throughout the washing process, users can intervene at any time to add fabric conditioner, extra cleaning agents or other pieces of laundry. Or simply pop in hand-washed clothes that you just want to rinse or spin dry. What was only possible on top load washers can now be achieved with front load washers.
According to the jury citation, this innovation is “a result of deep consumer insights, ease-of-use ergonomics and design for assembly and manufacturability”. This was led by the Samsung Electronics Pte Ltd Product Innovation team based in Singapore.
SAFETiCET
SAFETiCET is a safety lancet designed primarily for pricking the finger for blood glucose sampling. Ordinarily, for safety reasons, the use of lancets is restricted to a hospital setting. However, SAFETiCET has made it easier and more convenient for diabetes patients and their caregivers to use lancets in a home environment.
The SAFETiCET is designed by Joseph Lum from NSP Tech Pte Ltd, a contract manufacturer that specialises in design and mould-making, injection moulding, and various secondary processes. With its patented contact-activated Rotational Trigger Mechanism, SAFETiCET minimises pain for users by reducing trigger force and vibration. The lancet is designed to be intuitive and easy to use with one finger triggering, and features self-deactivation after single use to prevent injuries and cross contamination.
By reducing the pain and challenges of using lancets through such unique design features and packaging, SAFETiCET promotes regular self-testing amongst people of all ages and backgrounds, and ultimately aims to save lives.
HP OfficeJet Pro 8720
Following observations that users do not like their paper tray protruding and taking up space, the HP Print Experience Design Centre in Singapore developed a new “print forward” design for the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720 All-in-One Printer. The printer features a fully-contained output tray in addition to a re-engineered paper path that allows for high-speed, two-sided printing at the speed of single-sided printing.
Drawing on insights gathered from customer research, the design team at HP improved the ubiquitous office inkjet printer in an already extremely saturated market. A re-engineered paper path sped up double-sided printing. There are no clunky extendable parts to receive the prints and all troubleshooting is consolidated within the paper and cartridge feed area, making the printer very accessible and user-friendly.