A designer sprang into the frog New York studio the other morning with a little more energy than usual....

"I know why everyone says the iPod looks clean!" he exclaimed.

The iPod has become – in the minds of most of our clients – the example of great product design. Ask them why? Almost without exception, they'd answer, "I like it because it looks clean."

Of course, there are obvious cues such as minimalist design; the simple, intuitive interface; the neutral white color. But these attributes alone inadequately explain this seemingly universal perception of graceful hygiene. It had to be referencing a deeper convention in the social consciousness... so if a designer claimed that he had the answer, we were all ears.

"So... as I was sitting on the toilet this morning (this is of course where most good ideas come from), I noticed the shiny white porcelain of the bathtub and the reflective chrome of the faucet on the wash basin... and then it hit me! Everybody perceives the iPod as 'clean' because it references bathroom materials!"

A few seconds of silence followed... and were quickly punctured by enthusiastic laughter. Not because he had arrived at this insight by sitting on the toilet. Nor because the iPod references porcelain basins and chrome faucets. We were laughing because we knew that the designer responsible for the iPod – Jonathan Ive, VP of Industrial Design – came to Apple from a London-based design consultancy where he worked on a "wide range of products from power tools to wash basins."¹

Coincidence? Perhaps. What's important is that, consciously or unconsciously, the iPod materials reference a convention of "cleanliness" that everybody interacts with every day – a bathroom. We're talking about human perception, and the system of conventions that shape our perceptions. Perception is essential to the process of design.

Imagine your cell phone as a person. How would you describe him/her? Playful, charismatic, dull, unreliable, clean? The products we surround ourselves with all carry messages, and our perceptions are significantly shaped by their form, materials, and color. They are a non-verbal method of self-expression and social dialogue for people and brands. Products are not mere objects of facility; they're objects of communication.

Organizations need to strategically manage the meanings their products convey, by developing a "design language" that helps ensure that customer perceptions of a product are what the creators intend. Why is this important? Because the most common failure of products is not that they fail to communicate, but that they communicate the wrong message.