Iterations of Data

There were two aspects of this video and interview with a John Hoke, Nike's Chief Design Officer. The first is that throughout every stage of their design process, Nike employees are constantly refining and updating based on the previous version; continuously iterating over and over to refine the product until the final form is reached. I think this translates to almost all forms of design: iterating over and over to refine a model until a certain threshold of quality, perfection, or functionality is passed. That threshold is probably much different for a mega-corporation like Nike when compared to an individual, but the principle is the same: take what you have and find some way to make it better.

The other aspect that stood out to me is the vast amount of work Nike puts into their data gathering. Now I'm sure the video has been edited to hell and the scenes were staged, but I think it is a fair guess that their actual process is at least similar to the footage they show. In the case of sportswear, gathering data about athletes, how they move, how they jump, the patterns of sweat and ventilation, etc., this is all necessary to inform their design choices for the products to be functionally effective. But the concept of gathering data to inform a design can be implemented in all aspects of design. And the better the data, the better the design can be.