The point of the tire(d) example is:
if a tire is a significant innovation
(and the point of choosing it as an example
is to question whether it is the tire or
the car that is significant)
did designers (who do research on people's needs)
invent it?
or did a tinkerer (who came up with a crucial
technique for a material that is both soft [able
to be inflated] and durable [able to carry a
large weight at speed with much friction])?
Not, which came first (the tinkerer of course)
but which is principal (in order to take up
your provocation that design research is not
so important as everyone thinks)?
Goodyear was certainly not trying to invent
a tire, but he was credited with it by Dunlop
when Dunlop, who did the needs-driven 'real'
work of patenting a tire, named his company
after Goodyear. Dunlop was Don Norman before
his time.
> trying for brevity
> Well, if I although I certainly have not invented the rubber tire I may have
> invented vulcanization -- if I am clever enough to benefit from the
> observation ("Chance favor the prepared mind," and all that.) Goodyear, of
> course, did not think he was inventing a car tire. (Sloppy writing there
> cameron ‹ see, we are both guilty). Pneumatic tires existed long before
> vulcanization. Vulcanization was NOT a new concept for the use of rubber, it
> was an improvement over existing uses of rubber. So nice example, but
> irrelevant.
