Sydney designers unplugged: people, process, product



Murray Hunter, Director, Design+Industry, talks about the Ingenico project

This is the NPT2 – it’s viewed as the best in the world. It’s the outcome of the redevelopment of the original NPT1. It offers features which are unique in design – the shape, the style of the product, side mouldings which gave us colour break as well as future functionalities, as well as a smart card reader which could be incorporated in future versions. The range of products were carried across four models, one a counter top version, a second cable to base version and then two forms of mobile terminal.

The NPT2 was designed to give Ingenico a new look for their future range of products. There was also an expectation that we would achieve cost reduction. We did that by researching the product from the outset of the project - looking at manufacturing techniques - and through that we devised economies in assembly and production and that’s how we gained our cost reduction.

When we designed the NPT1, the original product, it was a lot more difficult. The client predominately spoke French, toolmakers didn’t speak English, we worked in 2-D, we’d fax though strips of large drawings on facsimile to the toolmakers and the client for approval - it was a lot different scenario. Now everybody speaks English, and files can be transported all around the world as complete digital annexes.

The biggest thing is the internet because we could design a product in 2-D or 3-D, it does make a bit of a difference, but the thing is the internet, we can send files and we can communicate so much more effectively.

When you see the product on the counter it’s a product which is highly appealing, it attracts attention, it provokes a response. From a functional point of view there were several elements we wanted to improve functionally. One was success in card reading – there’s nothing more annoying than a card reader that won’t read. The other is ease of loading paper rolls, through having different operators, some experienced and some inexperienced there can be a lot of difficulties loading the paper through a tortured path to the printer. We were successful in both of those.