Science and technology

Man: So, did the judges' comments sting? You went very quiet on the train back. Woman: Not the judges, really. They were fair enough. It was Lena, the girl who tested the hand for us. We'd spent months getting the grip right, all those calculations about the finger joints, and she put it on, turned it over, and the first thing she asked was whether it could be purple. Man: Well, she's nine. Woman: I know. But it made me realise we'd been designing for a panel of engineers, not for her. For a child who's going to wear that thing in the playground, how it looks isn't some trivial detail. It decides whether she wears it at all. Man: I'd push back a bit there. If the grip doesn't work, no colour in the world is going to rescue it. We had to get the mechanics right first. Woman: First, yes. But we never planned a second. We didn't ask her a single thing until the final week. Man: That's fair. We should have had her in from the very beginning, even with the rough prototypes. The printer can do any colour we like, that's the easy part. Finding out in month six what someone actually wants from the thing isn't. Woman: So next year, testing with a real user goes into the plan from week one. Man: Agreed.