Ticket Design wins Silver award at International Appliance Design Awards 2007, USA

Advanced Telematics – A vehicle tracking device designed by the Ticket team is a silver winner in the electronics category. The bronze winners are Fujitsu Lifebook A6010 Notebook Computer and Globalstar GSP 1700 Satellite Phone.

The purpose of Appliance Design's annual design competition is to honor those designers who have excelled in meeting the modern challenge of harmoniously melding technology and industrial design. This is the first time an Indian Company has won this award. Appliance Design (formerly known as Appliance manufacturer) is a 52 yr old design magazine reaching out to global design teams and this is the 20th year of the awards.

The telematics product has already been awarded the Business World - National Institute of Design (NID) Excellence in Design Award 2006 earlier this year in January.

The judges noted that the winners demonstrated that they are serious about industrial design and showed their seriousness by attention to detail and an innovative approach that sharply differentiated its product from competitors. A common element found among the winning products was the ability to make technology more accessible to the user

Using the telematics system a consignor/ truck owners can track their trucks anywhere in India on a map from any Internet connected computer. The device uses the global positioning satellite (GPS) and the mobile phone network to achieve this. Indian truck drivers speak different languages, cannot read or write, leads an insecure life being on the road driving day and night. The design takes care of these needs as well that of the fleet owners. The product uses ergonomic icon based controls for an intuitive user interface.

The product was built around the electronics was driven by industrial design and well complemented by the development team at Tata Motors.

An independent panel of three industrial design experts judged the entries. Evaluation of the entries was based on four criteria: appearance, human factors, innovation and technical merits. It is noteworthy that, last year Silver Award was won by Sony Ericsson for its W600 Walkman Cell Phone. Other winners in the competition include iPod Alarm Clock, Kitchen Aid, Bosch, Maytag, and Sharp for their respective products.

Full story about the awards will be in the June issue of the Appliance Design magazine.