Technology today has made life ten times easier then what it used to be. Be it air conditioners, remote controls, automatic doors, highways. Mankind has almost completely transitioned to machines from manual labor. But many a times, these machines make our life much more chaotic than organised and lead to annoying everyday problems. We end up getting stuck between revolving doors, can’t figure out what more than half the buttons on the remote control mean and the list goes on. But who is really the one to blame for all this madness?

Engineers and scientists have done a commendable job, in creating products which aim to solve our needs. But what’s the point of all this technology, if we can’t understand how to make use of it?

Often, we struggle and give up. We make use of what we can understand in the machine. For example, if we don’t know what a particular button does in a remote control, we try using it no more than twice and give up. This is a waste good technology, effort and time.

This is where designers come in. They bridge the gap between the manufacturer and the consumer. Any machine, or product that can’t be used optimally by a consumer is a result of bad design. Design is omnipresent, in various forms and identities. The presence of good design can go unnoticed, but the absence of it certainly makes our life hell.

Take the Indian highways for example. Almost every toll-collecting booth has a person standing in between the driver and the collector, because the distance between the two is far too much. Same for parking tickets in malls and complexes.

So here’s a list of some innovative product designs, which aim to make our daily routine easier, and much simpler.

1. The ABC keyboard

by Iaroslav Neliubov

USP: The keyboard has a complete touch surface and can be configured to any language with customised keys.

What’s cooler is that the colour of the keyboard can be changed according to your own liking. The keyboard also works fairly well for the left-handed. It has built in memory for storage files.

Image Courtesy: Yanko Design

2.Tandem Storage Space

by Geoffrey Graven

USP: Storage, space and comfort, all in one.

The Tandem chair, allows you to sit comfortably, store everything you need in the shelves below. It’s compact, and occupies no more space than a normal chair.

The top of the chair is rotatable to 360 degrees, and transforms into a workstation quite effortlessly.

Image Courtesy: Geoffrey Graven

3. Yardian

by Yu-Shu Hsieh

USP: Water and watch your garden at the same time.

The Yardian acts like a security camera for your lawn and also waters it simultaneously. It gives you footage in real time, to watch over it. The camera is completely waterproof and cannot be harmed by rain or bad weather. Yardian’s advanced cloud servers regulate the irrigation system to water your lawn, optimising water usage based on weather as well as your city/state’s water restriction permits. This helps in water conservation. Functionally and financially sound, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Image Courtesy: Yu-Shu Hsieh

4. Itut – iPod Shrine

by Thivend Stéphane

USP: A coffee table with an iPod dock and speakers

Inspired by the Egyptian triangles, this table is also known as the Horus. The table has an iPod dock and some amazing speakers. What else could we want?

Image Courtesy: Thivend Stéphane

5. Enchanting Doorlight

by Kun-hee Kim, Kei Shimizu & Nguyen-vu Dang

USP: Navigate your way through the darkness.

This door handle has an LED light in its handle, so you can open doors, and navigate your way out. The system uses the locking-motion of the handle to harness and charge the lithium batteries of the flashlight.

Image Courtesy: Kun-hee Kim, Kei Shimizu & Nguyen-vu Dang

6. Ikea Jyssen Wireless Charger

by Diana Africano Clark, Anders Arnqvist, Pernilla Danielsson, Laura Almenberg, Fernanda Barbato, Jingjing Yao, Fredric Ghatan

USP: a wireless charger that can be attached to any piece of furniture.

While wireless charging has been around for a while now, Ikea brought it into the mainstream market by creating a wireless charging pad which can be installed to any piece of furniture.