Hierarchy of Needs

Brookstone is a company known for its gadgets, many of which are fun and clever, or poorly designed and crafted. Take for example the video pen. It's function as a ball point pen is perfectly fine, a little chunky, but it fulfills its function. As a recording device, the consumer reports are iffy. If it works at all, it works poorly, with distorted audio and shaky video, and often breaks. It's function is barely met and its reliability is awful. But the simple design flaw is that you cannot write and expect to get a decent video at the same time. The movement of the pen would also move the recorder. What's really interesting is that the pen and the recorder part are separable, making me wonder why they were ever joined into one product in the first place. With this product, Brookstones may have ignored functionality, reliability, and proficiency and jumped straight to creativity and usability.

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