Great article about process of desiging good products. Q& A with profs from Carnegie Mellon. Vogel is a professor of design and Jonathan Cagan, a mechanical-engineering professor at the university. Talk about the "Fuzzy Front-end" and challenge of making opportunity of innovation, creating a new and useful product/artifact that is a step forward (innovative) not merely, it works: enginneering, or it looks cool: design
Link: http://www.fastcompany.com/online/60/chalktalk.html