Good article on product design over at Core 77, setting out why we shouldn't confuse the 'thing' with the experience it gives you, and that good design always starts with this experience.
Lessons for all our disciplines there then.
And as it concludes...
"When you start with the idea of making a thing, you're artificially limiting what you can deliver. The reason (the best examples of) forward-thinking product design succeed is explicitly because they don't design products. Products are realised only as necessary artifacts to address customer needs. What (they) all realise is that the experience is the product we deliver, and the only thing that our customers care about".
