Photo by Cam Ballard on Unsplash
大家好，这是“日出山谷”第六十八期。
“日出山谷”是由我主理的Newsletter，内容主要分为认识自己、探索世界和了解未知。针对这三个方面，我会分享自己的所思所想，并推荐个人觉得不错的东西，可能是电影、书籍或文章。之所以聚焦这三个方面，是因为我认为好奇心是个体发展的重要推动力。
“日出山谷”不定时更新。如果更新的话，你将在周末收到最新一期内容。有任何建议或想法，都可以直接联系我。
Best of article系列更新。本期推荐Tony Fadell在2016年发表的一篇文章《How to Reinvent the Ordinary》：
如何将一件普通得几乎被我们忽视的事物，变成既吸引人又令人无法抗拒的东西？如何让它成为我们愿意购买的产品？这是每位产品设计师每天都在尝试回答的问题，也是我成年以来一直努力解决的难题。
第一步看似简单，但实则不易：要改善平凡的事物，我们首先需要注意到它们。我们的头脑天生倾向于“习惯化”——对每天看到的事物逐渐麻木，即使这些事物并不如我们所愿。
想想超市里的水果贴纸吧。小时候，水果上并没有这些标签。但某个时候，为了方便结账，有人决定给水果贴上标签。现在，我们吃水果前必须先把贴纸撕掉并扔掉。这是一个多余又恼人的步骤，但我们做得太频繁，以至于几乎没再留意到它。
理解“止痛药”和“维生素”的区别也同样重要。解决某个问题是否能立刻显著改善生活？还是仅仅在时间中带来细微的进步？智能手机最初是“止痛药”：它们远远超越了我们习惯的带摄像头的手机。但如今，每一部新智能手机只是“维生素”：在上一代基础上略有改进。维生素代表小步前进，而止痛药则是跨越式的飞跃。
假如我们发现了一个重大痛点，接下来的问题是：我们是否拥有颠覆性的技术来解决它？这项技术是否足够独特，使我们在市场上占据优势？
我记得上世纪 80 年代末，我在密歇根大学的一门课程项目中尝试制作虚拟现实头盔和手套。在那个 VHS 磁带模糊、CRT 电视流行的时代，所有人都想要一种完全沉浸式的体验。问题在于，当时的技术远不足以实现高质量的 VR。而今天，这一切正在改变。这也是为什么像 Oculus 和 Google 这样的公司能够利用最新的显示技术、芯片和软件，为大众带来高品质的虚拟现实体验。
另一方面，技术发展迅速，但社会接受变革的速度往往较慢。如果两者步调不一致呢？
我在硅谷的第一份工作是在 General Magic，这家公司团队曾参与开发首款 Macintosh。当时，我们研发了最早的手持电脑之一。我们设计的许多功能——比如移动邮件、在线购物和可下载应用——20 年后才出现在 iPhone 上。但那时的消费者并不知道如何使用这些功能。很难向只想要一个数字地址簿的人推销应用程序（这也解释了为什么 Palm 能取得成功）。
不过，偶尔星辰会完美对齐。颠覆性技术进步与消费者准备度相吻合，而一家企业恰好能打造出吸引大众的产品。
我仍记得第一次向 Steve Jobs 推销 iPod 的情景。显而易见，没有人喜欢随身携带装满 CD 的活页夹，而苹果公司的专利硬盘技术让人们可以将 1000 首歌曲装进口袋。条件都成熟了。当时，其他公司仍将产品专注于极客用户。
苹果的成功在于：我们不仅制造了一款优秀的 MP3 播放器，还让它美观、易用，并通过营销让人们记住那些被抛弃的痛点。我们从头到尾精心设计消费者体验，以其他公司难以模仿的方式实现了这一切。
许多普通又恼人的事物多年未变，绝非偶然。注意到它们很难。在合适时机引入新技术更难。而打造一款大众愿意购买的独特产品则是最难的。但如果一切条件都契合，魔法就会发生，世界也会因此以我们从未想象过的方式改变。
以下为英文原文：
How do you take something mundane, that most of us overlook, and turn it into something attractive and compelling? Something we can’t help but notice—and can’t resist buying? It’s a question every product designer tries to answer every day—and it’s one I’ve struggled with for my entire adult life.
The first step is deceptively simple: To improve the ordinary, we need to notice it. We have to fight back against our brain’s natural tendency to “habituate” or get used to the things we see every day, even if those things don’t work as well as they should.
Consider the little stickers on pieces of fruit at the grocery store. Those stickers weren’t there when I was a kid. But at some point, someone decided to label produce in order to make it easier to check out. Now we have to peel off the stickers and throw them away before we can even take a bite. It’s an unnecessary step. It’s annoying. But we do it so often that we don’t even notice anymore.
It’s also important to recognize the difference between a painkiller and a vitamin. Would solving a problem make someone’s life a lot better right away? Or would it just improve things in small ways over time? Smartphones started as a painkiller: They were miles beyond the camera phones we had been used to. But today, every new smartphone is a vitamin: Just a little bit better than the last version. Vitamins represent small steps forward. Painkillers are giant leaps.
But let’s say we’ve done that. We’ve noticed a major pain point that others seem to have missed. The next question is: Do we have the disruptive technology to do something about it? And is that technology unique enough that it allows us to seize the advantage over others in the market?
I remember trying to build a virtual-reality helmet and gloves as part of a class project at the University of Michigan in the late 1980s. In an era of fuzzy VHS tapes and cathode ray TVs, everyone wanted a fully immersive experience. The problem was that we didn’t have the technology to make VR good enough. Today, that’s changing, which is why companies like Oculus and Google, using the latest displays, chips and software, believe they can finally bring high-quality VR to the masses.
Then there’s the other side of the equation: What if people just aren’t ready? Technology grows exponentially, faster and faster all the time. And yet, too often, our social appetite for change is more linear, advancing slowly. What if they don’t match up?
My first job in Silicon Valley was at a company called General Magic, working with the team that built the original Macintosh to develop one of the earliest hand-held computers. Many of the features we came up with—like mobile email, online shopping and downloadable apps—would reappear in the iPhone 20 years later. But consumers didn’t know what to do with them at the time. It was hard to sell apps to people who had never had a cell phone and just wanted a digital address book (which, incidentally, is why Palm was so successful).
But once in a rare while, the stars align. Disruptive technology improves at the same time consumers are ready for it—and a company is able to build a product that appeals to the masses.
I remember pitching Steve Jobs on the iPod for the first time. It was clear that nobody loved dragging a binder full of CDs around, and Apple had a proprietary hard drive that made it possible to carry 1,000 songs in your pocket. The conditions were right. And so far, other companies were focusing their products solely on the geeks.
That’s how Apple succeeded. We didn’t just make a great mp3 player. We made a beautiful one. We made the experience of buying songs fun and easy. We helped people remember the pain they were leaving behind—marketing the iPod in a way that made it look like a sexy solution. We thought about the consumer experience from start to finish—and we did it in a way that no other company could easily duplicate.
There’s a reason so many ordinary, annoying things stay the same for so many years. Noticing them is hard. Introducing new technology at the right time is even harder. Building a unique product that lots of people want to buy is hardest of all. But if everything comes together, magic can happen—and the world can change in ways we never could have imagined.
本期完
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