Once in a while you run into products that are just great, that make you feel like someone has finally put some thought into it. During my holiday I visited the Naturkompaniet outdoor store in Sweden. In a secluded corner I found this Friluft toilet bag, that had a detail I long-longed for: you could hang it on the wall. On campings the washing rooms usually are at least wet, and often dirty as well. The last thing you want to do is lay down your toilet bag on the washbasin. And with this toilet bag you don't have to.
While I was walking around it hit me that outdoor products feature lots of details that show great consideration for how they will be used and the physical ergonomics of the products are usually excellent. I can imagine it is because when going on a hike having a product that's annoying or uncomfortable to use will become even more uncomfortable: poorly designed products have a higher impact if you're camping, hiking or canoeing.

Deuter Futura Backpack
For some examples of the details I'm talking about let's take look at the Deuter Futura 32 AC backpack below.

The most striking detail that hit me was this small cord in the upper compartment of the backpack (left picture), that you can use to ensure you don't lose your keys. Great feature, because otherwise if you open the compartment, there's a large risk of stuff like keys falling out of it.
On the outside of the backpack there are two net-like pouches (middle picture) in which you can store items you have to take out regularly, without taking off the entire bag, like drinking bottles. Integrated in the hip belt there's a small compartment for some money, an mp3-player, or a compass. Again, no need to take off the backpack to access it.
Finally, the physical ergonomics of the product are outstanding. It's easy to make the bag fit your body, and there is a trampoline kind of contraption on the back, so your back keeps cool a little longer (right picture)

And I could make the list even longer. The whole bag just seems to have been designed with me in mind. And walk around any outdoor store and you'll find a plethora of products with similar attention to usage. It makes me curious: where do the designers get all these ideas? Do they come from enthusiastic and involved users? Are the designers outdoor people themselves? Can the manufacturers afford to include these details and development time, because users are prepared to pay a premium price for these products? Whatever the cause: I love the result.

I drove a Volkswagen Polo on my Holiday this year, and I was struck by a number of small delightful details in the design. Not all of them are new, some of them I know from my old VW Golf mark II. An oldy is for example that the screw cap for the fuel tank can be rested on the lid behind which it is concealed (see photo). On other cars you end up laying the thing on the roof, and you'd be amazed how many people then drive away with their fuel tank still open...
Secondly, if you open the car with the remote and then do not open any doors, the car locks itself again. VW seems to be paying a lot attention to the locking of cars; on my old Golf it was not possible to lock the door on the driver side from the inside (so without the key) to prevent you from locking yourself out.
Finally the car makes a noise when you open the door and leave the lights on. For me personally, that one's a life saver. But I presume (or hope), this feature is standard by now on most cars.
It's all just details that do not cost very much to implement, but that can prevent you (the user) from getting a lot of trouble. All the manufacturer really has to do is think. And thinking things through, that's one thing you can leave up to Volkswagen. Consider this quote from Jean-Pierre Ploué, the current design director at Citroën, about his time at Volkswagen in an interview in the automotive issue of Elsevier (Dutch magazine) in April 2007:

[After coming from Renault] Volkswagen was very much focused on quality. They spend a whole month on making a mudguard fit properly.

It's this attention to quality that makes you rethink every detail about a product, including usage aspects. And that results in a car that makes you say:"What a thoughtful design(er)."

Buttons like this fascinate me. I get this urge to push them. It's two meter up the wall next to the door in a public restroom. And it's marked 'not allowed to touch'. It's all just a bit provocative isn't it? At least tell me what it does so I don't have to try it out in order to satisfy my curiosity.

Sweden is a land of thoughtful people. All over the country there are toilets for handicapped people, baby changing rooms and I've never seen more clearly labelled hiking trails in my life. And for its senior or visually impaired citizens Telia, the national phone company, offers this phone.

The nice thing about being on holiday is that you're completely cut off from your daily stream of e-mails, phone calls and text messages. Unless of course you bring your e-mail and text enabled phone with you... And in that case, because you don't have anything else to nag about, small details about your mobile start to annoy you. Such as why my SonyEricsson K800i does have a custom dictionary to which you can add your custom set of words. Swear words, for example, are not in the dictionary. Not even the more civilized ones. Overly modern words such as email or voicemail (strangely enough) were also not part of it for a long time. But the learning dictionary allows you to fix that. But why then, doesn't my learnin dictionary learn the names and places I have in my address book. That would have saved me a lot of time. And I am pressed for that during the holidays of course.

Those of you who have camped (in Europe) know these contraptions: the evil device you have to pour your change into to get a hot shower. And off course the thing usually shuts down just when your hair is full of soap (and you're all out of coins). Well, not with this friendly swedish version. It warns some time before shutting down by blinking a light, so you get a chance to hose down just in time. Too bad they hung it behind a non-see through shower curtain, so you're unable to actually see the brilliant warning light at all. You can always trust the guy who installs it to mess up a great product.

Find out how people use their mobile phones through in-depth reports, video diaries, blogs and links on the Mobile Life website, by the Carphone Warehouse. The researchers set out to answer some interesting questions:

How has the mobile phone changed the way we live? Has it made our lives better or worse? Are we a happier, more fulfilled society?

The video diaries are an ethnographic study in which people lived without their mobile phone for a week. Can you imagine yourself doing that? Very interesting approach though, to make people aware of their use of their mobile phone: you don't know what you've got until you've lost it.

Key findings of the report

• 92% of mobile phone owners cannot get through a typical day without using their phone
• 9% of 18-24 year olds – around 400,000 people – admit they are addicted to their phone, so they no longer feel in control of how they use it
• For people 18-24 years old, their mobile phone matters more to them than television
• Most people aged 18-40 say mobile phones have improved their quality of life. However, mobile phone-owners over 40 are evenly divided
• People aged 18-29 tend to use their phones more to send and receive texts than to hold conversations
• Two out of five people have lost the use of their mobile phone at least once. The main reason was that the phone was broken

(via Bright)