Hope in Industrial Design; ID, Out of the Shallows
TL;DR
There is hope in Industrial Design. After decades of being reduced to "the surface team," it's time to reclaim our role as experience designers, memory designers, and meaning designers. Nova's approach starts with asking "why," engaging directly with users, and designing for lasting impact, not just the moment of purchase. At Nova, we believe that design is and always was meant to do more, to be more. This isn't wishful thinking. It's a plan.
Why we became designers
Do you remember why you became a designer? Maybe it was sketching cars as a kid. Maybe it was taking apart your first toy to see how it worked. Maybe it was that moment when you realized that the objects around us aren't just things. They're the language through which humans understand and shape their world.
Somewhere along the way, many of us lost that thread. We became the "surface team." The stylists. The color pickers. The “sprinkle on top”. And if you're feeling that disconnect, you're not alone.
Whether you're disillusioned with the current state of industrial design, looking forward to a future career in ID, or considering collaboration with a design team on your next product launch, Nova's Founder and CEO, Jeanette Numbers, has a message for you: "Hope isn't a wish." It's a call to action, a recognition that the future we envision is not a given, but something we must craft today.
In a recent article published in the Summer 2025 edition of IDSA's INNOVATION magazine, Jeanette shared her origin story and laid out her vision for the future of our field.
Today, we're diving into the key insights and asking the question:
What if industrial design isn't dead? What if it's just been skimming the surface?
Industrial Design is at a crossroads
Industrial design once thrived at the intersection of people and possibility, but has since lost its footing after a series of identity crises. In today’s breakneck culture, we as designers often become stuck in a rut of creating the next pretty object that will sell.
The culprits? Shrinking budgets, aesthetic sameness, and the reduction of design work to quarterly metrics instead of generational impact. Meanwhile, other disciplines claimed territory that once belonged to ID, absorbing concepts like empathy, systems thinking, and storytelling
The attention economy has trained designers to prioritize selling over meaning, creating objects that captivate in the moment rather than objects that become part of someone's life.
"We lost the pulse. The humanity. But for me, that pulse was always the point. Because design was never just surface styling. It was a way to understand people, to connect, to communicate."
— Jeanette Numbers
The shift has been profound. Instead of measuring success by whether an experience stays with someone, we measure it by the initial transaction.
The result? Designers have become what Jeanette calls "the surface team. The stylists. The color pickers. The edge polishers. The sprinkle on top.
From automotive interiors to product design
Today, Jeanette leads Nova in shaping digital and physical experiences in health, wellness, medical devices, and consumer products, but her story as a designer began in the automotive industry. Her fascination with the smallest interactions between the human and the car as a machine intertwined with her love of examining the relationship between people and their tools throughout our history.
This fascination evolved into something deeper: an interest in how people adapt to changing environments through tools, and why humans make, keep, modify, and pass objects down through generations. For Jeanette, design history isn't abstract. She's drawn to ancient tools worn smooth by countless hands, and to artifacts like the handprints at Chauvet Cave, painted 20,000 years ago.
She describes one simple object that hooked her: a smooth granite stone with a metal handle, designed to be heated and used to warm beds through cold months. Its proportions and edges reflected generations of use and refinement.
“This same human connection, the full, lived experience, is what pulls me deeper. I see design not just as a response to the now, but as a language humanity has always used to understand itself and shape its world. It’s anthropology. It’s culture made tangible.”
-Jeanette Numbers
This perspective reframes what industrial design can be. Not just commercial product development, but a discipline rooted in understanding human culture and experience.
Starting with ‘Why’: Nova's approach
This philosophy shapes everything at Nova as a design firm focused on human-centered product design. Before we dive into a project, we take the time to discover the fundamental reasons behind the challenge, informing how we approach it.
Why does this challenge exist?
Why does it matter?
Why will users care?
Jeanette describes Nova's methodology as "matriarchal, not in hierarchy, but in care, in deep listening, and in a sense of generational responsibility." Conversations begin with values rather than deliverables, uncovering what truly matters before sketching a single concept.
And this approach delivers measurable results.
Case study: Embr Wave
When Nova partnered with Embr Labs on the product design and development of their wearable anxiety and temperature-control device, the team didn't just refine the industrial design. They conducted in-home research to understand the real tradeoffs users were making between aesthetics, comfort, and function.
The results speak to the power of human-centered design:
220,000+ devices sold
$50M+ in cumulative revenue since launch
5-6 hours average daily engagement per user
20M+ hours of thermal relief delivered
168% improvement in hot flash control (Johnson & Johnson study)
As Jeanette notes in her article, "This isn't just commercial success. It's proof that when design serves human needs, people integrate it into their daily lives."
When users feel heard
Some of Nova's most impactful work stems from engaging directly with users during user research. Listening to deeply personal stories about family, health, and experiences with healthcare providers has highlighted the simple truth that we all want to be heard.
Research participants often arrive guarded and leave in tears. Not because of fancy features, but because someone finally listened and made them feel seen.
"That's not just hope. It's our purpose. It's our value. And it's the most human kind of progress we can design."
– Jeanette Numbers
When we lean in with empathy, we get answers to questions we never thought to ask. At Nova, we strive to make people feel heard, and we take those insights back to our clients, informing each and every design decision along the way. The result is a user experience that creates a profound and lasting impressions that resonate on a human level.
Reclaiming experience design
One of Jeanette's most provocative arguments: The soul of UX was born in industrial design.
Industrial designers have always created "sticky moments," those meaningful interactions that keep people coming back. We've designed for memory, delight, and habit long before it had the name "user experience." Your hand finding a car's shifter without looking, or a dial with exactly the right resistance? That's industrial design understanding human cognition, behavior, and emotion.
"We are not just product designers. We are experience designers. Memory designers. Meaning designers."
– Jeanette Numbers
The article calls on industrial designers to reclaim this territory through action. By taking ownership of the entire experience, from first touch to hand-me-down, from new to beloved. As Jeanette writes: "Industrial design is not a garnish. It's a declaration."
We don't design for a moment, we design for memory.
Hope as action
Jeanette's advice is straightforward: Use your design education, curiosity, compassion, and humanness. Go beneath form and function, into the heart of why something matters.
Because hope isn't soft. "Hope is discipline. Hope is iteration." It's how we act when the path isn't clear. It's how we plan for justice, resilience, and delight.
The responsibility isn't to the product. It's to the people it serves, the systems it moves through, and the future it shapes.
Jeanette poses two critical questions:
Do you want to be known for a shiny object, or for a moment that changed someone's day?
Do you want to ship something, or shift something?
And so Jeanette challenges the notion that industrial design is dying.
What if the real work lies deeper, in the cognitive, emotional, and ecological dimensions of human experience?
For industrial designers and industrial design firms alike, the call is to return to the anthropology of making.
"Because when we reclaim design as a human discipline, not just a commercial one, we don't just make better products. We make better futures. That's not a wish. That's a plan."
–Jeanette Numbers
Interested in working with Nova?
Let's talk about how human-centered design can transform your product vision.
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