We owe our engineers a pat on the back for the part they have played in creating, designing, implementing, and perfecting these new technologies. Technologies that many people take for granted works because of good digital design. Digital cameras, wireless networking hubs, and digital voice recorders all work because of digital logic. Video game consoles and game boy technologies would be absolutely unthinkable without digital design wherewithal. Even cars come with digital circuitry. Next-generation smart technologies such as wired kitchen appliances, home electrical systems, security systems, and entertainment systems, are also becoming commonplace in many countries, testimony to the vast strides we have taken to improve consumer technology for the better.
Critics of digital design usually make two main claims about the way digital design has failed the modern consumer. The first camp claims that digital technologies have made life more complicated. Pointing to the frustration they feel when their computer crashes, or when their car breaks down, these people claim that digital design never quite works the way it should. Some of them may even have a point, but must at the same time bear in mind that our field is in its infancy. Keep in mind the extraordinary leaps we have made in a relatively short period of time. One need only bring to mind the supercomputers of the early 1970s to see that in 30 years we have been able to develop microprocessors...
The second camp of detractors claims that digital design is weakening product integrity because of the lack of standardization. Any consumer who cannot use their cellular phone in Europe or who has three different types of memory cards or who can't hook up their AppleTV with their new plasma monitor will know that improved standards would certainly make life easier.
or would they? Standards might end up squelching new product development by limiting what new products can be brought to market. Products that need to conform to standards developed a year ago may be suppressed; the market would therefore go haywire and competition would be squelched. We also live in a global community in which standards are almost impossible to be universal.
Digital design has made our lives not just easier but better. Computers, phones, digital cameras, PDAs, and game consoles are just a handful of products that have benefited from investments in digital design and product enhancement. Many of the world's great engineers are transferring digital design know-how into medical technologies that can save lives, or military technologies that can take lives. Digital design deserves recognition because engineers are becoming increasingly dependent on the digital underpinnings of the tools they use to create products for the next generation. In spite of the flaws in the system, digital design works.
