Killer Products in the Market Ecosystem: The Role of Design in Killer Products

ABSTRACT

There is an obvious analogy between market space and the ecosystem. In this analogy, products might be regarded as species, market success as natural selection and so on. The market space has its ‘invisible hand’ in the same way as there are natural forces beyond control of humanity and we watch it in awe just as we watch – and try to predict – evolutionary processes. But we are not helpless with regard to the former and design is our best tool to intervene the market forces.

From this fertile analogy, this paper proposes to examine killer products, comparing them with the ‘killer weed’, Caulerpa taxifolia, a type of alga, generally used as aquarium ornamentation and accidentally released into the Mediterranean Sea. This seaweed prevents other plants from growing, leading to the nickname ‘killer algae’. Its success may be harmful to the ecosystem as a whole.

In this paper, several killer products and technologies are investigated, including the iPod, IBM PC, QWERTY keyboard and digital cameras amongst others. Whether killer species-products are unpredictable and uncontrollable is questioned. In short, the paper tries to summarize what makes a product ‘killer’ and the role of design in this process.

KEYWORDS:

• killer product
• disruptive innovation
• indispensable products
• analogical understanding

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melehat Nil Güları

Biography

Melehat Nil Güları was born in 1982, in Ankara, Turkey. She received'an honours bachelor degree in industrial design from the Middle East'Technical University (METU) in 2005 and began her masters studies'on the industrial product design programme at Istanbul Technical'University (ITU) in Autumn 2005. Along with her studies in the ITU,’she studied industrial design at Sheffield Hallam University, UK, and'received an MA certificate in industrial design. She has taken part'in influential projects and was an exhibitor in the Milan Furniture Fair'twice: the Mobile Mobilia project with the METU in 2004 and the'Five Senses of Istanbul project with the ITU in 2007. She has also'been part of the Fiat OSA (One Step Ahead) project and designed'conceptual cars for Fiat in 2004. Since July 2007, she has been'working for IKEA Turkey in the Department of Communication and'Interior Design Department.