Dyson could have created a more vital product than Airblade

James Dyson’s Airblade. What is it for? I now know how Dyson’s Airblade works (DW 5 October), that it cost £10m to develop and that it took 20 engineers to create it, but I am not sure what it is for. What was the brief?


With his legions of designers waiting in the wings, Dyson seems to have relied on a eureka moment, or ‘happy accident’ as he calls it, before deciding what his latest product was to be. I would have thought a well-researched product brief would have been a more purposeful route to a new global product.


A major need in the area of human hygiene remains, as it has for some time, to prevent the spread of bacteria, including E coli, in areas associated with food and personal hygiene. Drying ‘wet hands’ with an expensive product is a poor response to the problem.


Research into a product that removes transient bacteria, provides freshness to the hands and conserves water resources is surely the starting point.


Michael Dowd, Designer and managing director, Dimensions Displays, London NW1

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