Core77

Pointless Design Research?

By Rain Noe - April 18, 2011

in design.edu

This makes no sense to me, but perhaps you academic types can draw something from it. Web design, development and marketing firm Boston Interactive has put up a website called buggy-whips.com, which looks like a lame April Fool's gag two weeks too late. The faux website purports to sell buggy whips--you know, those things for driving horses onward--and has ripped off Apple's website design to do it. Their explanation:

The buggy whip is commonly known as an analogy of businesses disrupted by innovation. It is often cited in business cases as one of the industries that did not adapt with the advent of the automobile, and thus began the demise of the buggy whip industry. The roots of the analogy can be traced to Theodore Levitt, a Harvard Business School professor.

In the web design industry we often hear about the superiority and creativity of the Apple website. Functionally, there is no technical innovation or advanced features. It is a simple wrapper with sexy, eye popping product photography, yet somehow it works. So we decided to compose an experiment to test its viability. We took a product that has been considered virtually obsolete for over 90 years and built a website using a simple, apple-istic wrapper to promote it.

Boston Interactive is calling it a "cognitive social acceptance experiment." Uh, good luck with that, guys.

o

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OriginalDesign

13 years ago

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It looks like they made a few changes... http://buggy-whips.com/contact/ including some social media.
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Derek

13 years ago

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Hey. Apple is Not Great. I'm using a Motion Computing PC touch screen tablet to do everything a Ipad does, but with the sensativity of a Wacom. One STEP further Apple, that's all ya had to go to be Absolutely Awesome. Instead, Ipad designers can forfeit functionality....but connect to friends on FB. Whoo Hooo! Really want to dump the MC PC, but Apple continues to Fail Designers. Add the $200 bucks to give us complete functionality on a Tablet...PLEASE. By the way, the Website is Absolutely Hilarous! Should have done V-Tech kids tablet or the Rubix Cube. 'nuff said.
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John

13 years ago

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I think it's an effective demonstration of Apple's excellent marketing ability.
In all honesty, for a minute or so, deep down, I wanted one.
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Shaun Smith

13 years ago

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Yes, just about everything Apple is absolutely awesome. Can we just let them have it? I'm soooooooooo sick of everyone in design, whether it is web, graphics or ID, attempting to mimic Apple. Find you own greatness! There are many examples of good design... Create more!
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Hipsterrrrr

13 years ago

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So do I, Sue. Apparently someone got his feathers a little ruffled that someone decided to poke at Apple instead of Microsoft. It's so not mainstream to criticize Apple, didn't you know?
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sue

13 years ago

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i wish the core77 article on this was more professional
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Will Evans

13 years ago

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Have you not ever heard of satire? Honestly... you took their attempt at playful humour seriously?
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Sean

13 years ago

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@hipstomp What's with the whole negative vibe towards this experiment? :-/

I do sometimes wonder if there are more people out there that can see past the icandy wrappers. It would be interesting to see this applied to other products.
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bob

13 years ago

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You don't get it? isn't the website what 'industrial' design is all about, putting a nice shiny wrapper on something? like the man said, Apple aren't especially technoligically innovative, but they do excel at the packaging and interface design of their products. And that site is trying to test the limits of the Appleish design. Needs more whipapps imo.
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John Holland

13 years ago

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Maybe it was an attempt to get links for SEO purposes. If so, kudos to them. If not, hopefully their experiment gives them some results they can use.

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