Hauser Inc. looks at industrial design as a social science,

inventing styles for products that not only enhance looks

and functionality, they are actually easy to manufacture

A decade or more ago, determining how a computer would be designed was very much an afterthought, secondary to the function of the machine.

But the idea that form can enhance function is gaining acceptance, and Westlake Village-based industrial design firm Hauser Inc. is trying to take advantage of that change in thinking.

“I always wanted to create things,” said Stephen Hauser, who started the company 34 years ago in the bedroom of his Van Nuys home. “It’s the only thing in my life that I’ve ever understood right from the start, and applying that to products seemed like an ideal avenue.”

What makes Hauser different, according to general manager and Vice President Ron Pierce, is viewing industrial design as more of a social science, and less of a nuts-and-bolts engineering gig.

“We’ve always thought that you can’t design something that (the company) can’t manufacture,” Pierce said. “Believe it or not, there was a time, like in the mid-’60s, when that wasn’t the way the industry worked.”

‘PC of the future’

Company clients now include NEC Corp., Intel Corp., Nyko Technologies and Careside Inc.

For NEC and Intel, Hauser designed the Z1, a flat-screen, all-in-one computer that weighs less than 20 pounds and is cited as helping bring about the demise of the “big ugly box” school of computer design. The Z1 design was originally part of a forum hosted by Intel to show what the “PC of the future” might look like.

“It was visionary and pushing the envelope, yet it was practical enough that NEC could push it into production,” said Steve Whalley, an Intel manager who is part of the company’s “ease of use” project for desktop computers.

For Nyko Technologies, Hauser designed the Worm Light, a Nintendo Co. Ltd. Game Boy accessory. The tiny, adjustable light has a flexible wire coil that can be plugged into a Game Boy so it can be used after dark. It comes in five neon colors that match recent versions of the hand-held video game player.

Prices vary for Hauser designs, depending on the amount of research needed to complete the product “the actual design part of it is only about 10 percent,” Pierce said. Big-ticket projects that involve creating a corporate identity for a company could run more than $1 million.

Hauser has an entire division dedicated to anthropological research, which determines how consumers will interact with the product once it goes to market.

“We have to put people’s lifestyles at the forefront,” Pierce said. “Lots of companies go forward with research and development without understanding if people care, if people want the product.”

Role of design has changed

In the design of the Z1 computer for NEC, Hauser had anthropologists watch computer users in their homes to determine what design improvements could be made on a typical machine. They found that people wanted a computer that was visually unique and left a small “footprint” not taking up lots of space or having a mess of wires attached to it. “There had to be a way to easily upgrade it,” Pierce said. “Computer users didn’t want to be trapped in a dead end.”

That research led to the Z1, which can be set up right out of the box, with one plug for a power cord and another for a telephone line to hook up to the Internet. There is a back door that users can flip open to upgrade memory on the spot.

The research, testing and design of the Z1 took about eight months. Other products, like the Worm Light, can take up to three months to push through to market, while certain medical products can take more than two years.

“Over the past 30 years, the role of design has changed dramatically,” Pierce said. “We have to do more than design the product, we have to provide an entire solution.”

Hauser was founded in 1966. As the company grew, its headquarters moved five times and included a stint in an abandoned motel in Encino and an eviction from an office in Canoga Park because its workers were noisy. The current location is a 28,000-square-foot building in an office park on the Los Angeles County border.

When Hauser started his firm, the major challenge was explaining the concept of industrial design to clients. He didn’t have enough money to run advertisements (though he doubts they would have been effective anyway, because most companies didn’t grasp what kind of services he was offering anyway).

So he made cold call after cold call trying to explain his work and round up potential clients from around the country.

“People would say thanks, but no thanks, we’ve tried industrial design firms before and all that they came up with was products that we could never make,” Hauser recalled. “I would have to say ‘No, no, no, we’re different.'”

SpotLight

Hauser Inc.

Core Business: Industrial design

Year Founded: 1966

Revenue in 1997: $6.5 million

Revenue in 1998: $7.5 million

Revenue in 2000 (projected): $8 million

Employees in 1966: 2

Employees in 2000: 55

Goal: Make consumer electronics and medical technology that is more accessible and relevant to people’s lives

Driving Force: The need for new technology to keep pace with the changing consumer market