Fred Wilson’s post on What Drives Consumer Adoption of New Technologies and the 300+ thought-provoking comments to the post provide some great insights on why iPhone, Facebook, Wii, Blogger, Twitter and others became the most popular consumer technologies in recent years. A neat framework is proposed that a technology needs to be sexy to get people to use, social to get them addicted and truly useful to keep them. One of the most repeated themes in the discussion: the technology must be extremely easy to use and focused on doing one thing really well. We couldn’t agree more - too many companies try to do too much and don’t pay enough attention to product usability.

Apple products, both hardware and software, have been lauded for their great design and innovation. Their secret? According to this interesting Gizmodo article the heart of Apple’s design philosophy draws heavily from design legend Deiter Ram’s work on Braun products from the 1950s and 60s. Have a look. The similarities between the Braun and Apple product designs are uncanny.

Dieter Ram’s time-tested 10 rules for good design are:

1. Good design is innovative.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
4. Good design helps us to understand a product.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
6. Good design is honest.
7. Good design is durable.
8. Good design is consequent to the last detail.
9. Good design is concerned with the environment.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.

How do your product and user interface designs stack-up? Here’s an application of the rules in a review of the new Kindle 2.

Of course, it is possible to take everything to extremes. Check out this very funny Onion News video about the new Macbook Wheel  computer design.