Gems of Unnoticed Problems

Pleasure and Pain alerted me to a talk series not unlike the TED talks called the Gel Conference. One talk to catch my attention was by Oxo's Alex Lee. Alex explained how Oxo, a kitchen utensil company renowned for its comfy designs, is constantly on the lookout for the gems of unnoticed problems; those unquestioned and unnecessarily difficult things people have to do everyday. Traditional measuring cup Oxo measuring cup I like his example of asking people "What is wrong with your current measuring cup?", which got answers like "it's sometimes slippery", or "the handle gets hot with hot liquids in it", but never

"it's actually hard to measure accurately without pouring a bit, bending down to look, pouring some more, bending down again…"

People didn't see the problem, until Oxo presented them with the solution. (Oxo actually didn't invent the better measuring cup design, they just improved on it and brought it to the masses). UPDATE: As was brought up in the comments, a company called Smart Design does the design work for Oxo. In addition, Oxo recieves many unsolicited designs, which on rare occasion turn into real products. This cup is one example. Alex Lee at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

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