I caught a commercial for some Braun product this evening, and became intrigued by the mention of “German engineering.” I can’t remember the product, and I’m not sure it matters, but it occurred to me that Braun thought “German engineering” to be a selling point.

This got me thinking about the evolution of design thinking and the struggle against the idea that advancements in technology (or engineering) define product worth in the minds of consumers versus advances in product worth through interaction.

Will we ever watch a commercial that claims a product was created with “[Country of your choice] interaction design”?

At this point in time, obviously, this won’t happen, as no one knows what interaction design is—including interaction designers. Perhaps that’s not important. Though it is interesting to think about whether design will ever be comparable to engineering in terms of worth in the eyes of consumers.