One of the things that I typically don’t do with most of my posts is come back and edit and change. For some reason I always felt that in terms of internet etiquette that was bad form - that will change with these posts. These posts are not intended to be perfect out of the door. I will hopefully have done some meaningful reasearch for them, however they will be modified as time goes by.

The first post in a long and hopefully interesting series of posts on Cognisant Design concentrates on a small part of a much large product, specifically the key to my car. It’s honestly very rare for Google to disappoint me and not give me back some information about something I’m looking for.

One of the things that I touch a feel and fiddle with every single day is my car key and then I saw it mentioned on Objectified as well and it just struck me that this key basically encompassed a lot of what I am talking about with Cognisant Design.

###Functionality When is a key, not just a key? When it’s also the central lock as well, and the car trunk as well. Admittedly I don’t use the trunk feature much. The simple fact is that they buttons

Oh and they’re all equipped with immobiliser technologies - which basically translates to the car doesn’t move if you don’t have the key, which is a nice feature for those thieving bastards (I’m sure those same thieving bastards have found ways around it, but hey you don’t want to make it easy on them).

And then of course you’ve got the metal key itself, tightly tucked away for when you need it with the press of an incredibly inviting metal button, which brings us nicely to the next important point.

###Flip Action This is the action of the key flipping open from it’s hidden position. I guess this has been honed from millions of cards sold, but basically there is an undeniable weight to the key springing open. It clicks into place with a purposeful click. It’s like a samurai being drawn. The thing is it’s totally addictive, so you find yourself clicking it constantly.

The button that releases the key mechanism is curved at the top which again is just exactly the way it should be rather than a flat button. It’s details like this that only serve to enhance what is truly a great piece of industrial design.

###Weight This is one of the most prominent aspects I find. The weight to size ratio of a product is always something that drives home quality in a product. The current iPhone for example is very dense in weight due to the glass front and back. When compared to another smartphone from say Samsung, you get this feel of much more inherent quality due to the weight.

That same concept is in this key. While I’m sure they could have made it lighter, doing so would basically make it feel cheap, and I’m sure that was not what the original designers were aiming for here. Which brings us to part of the reason for making it heavy.

###The Metal Key The person who brought this to my attention was my brother. See he’s got a Mercedes A-Class which is the Mercedes equivalent of the Golf, small hatchback, with a bit of German design thrown in. The key on that car is this plastic thing with a few buttons at the top. Essentially it’s missing the point here, an aspect of which VW have got it so right.

Obviously the sturdiness of the key is also important to complete the overall package, and again the key is a nice metal rectangular block, that again feels weighty due to the metal base which it swivels on.

###Ergonomic Design The final part of this exploration is basically the ‘je ne sais quoi’ factor. The ergonomic design of the key is just so terrible inviting. The groove at the top, just after the buttons invite you to rub your thumb there every single time you hold the key. The curved edges allow you to quickly and addictively flip the key in your hand again and again. Even the little VW logo which is made out of soft silicone is calling you to feel and pinch and poke with your nail.

And because no proper article about something technical is really complete, here is a disassembly of the key in question so you can see what the details are like on the inside.

###Lawsuit Action in searching around for more information about the Smart Key, i stumbled on a bunch of articles, completely unrelated to the topic of the design of these keys, but thought it was interesting as it basically dealt with legal action in relation to these keys. Smart Key Litigation and this FAQ, also there’s this document directly from VW

###Follow up One of the things that I want to make sure these posts have is a certain amount of longevity. I’m not writing these posts for the sake of writing them, but rather because I want to highlight specific things in my life that are designed in the way that I want them designed, and to show some appreciation.

Unfortunately due to how the coorporate world operates, it’s sometimes very difficult to single out the team or persons responsible for a design, unless the achieve cult status in product design, in which case you end up with the question of how much they actually contributed and how much of this was their ideas.

That’s a topic for another issue. Rather than go there, I would rather like to find out more about something if i’ve not covered it here. If there are articles, links or books that describe the topic I’ve written about, I really want to hear about it. If you’re one of the people that actually worked on this and are no longer working at this company and don’t mind talking about the experience, again I would like to hear from you.

I guess in a round about way, I’m trying to put a spotlight on aspects of design that are not typically considered, or really given their due.