Generation Gap

摘要

DO YOU HAVE A SNAPCHAT ACCOUNT? Post regularly on Instagram? How about a You-Tube subscription? If the answers are no, no, and no, and you fondly remember the oohs and aahs when the next-door neighbors brought home their first color TV, you might want to gulp down some Geritol before reading further. That's because the next generation of designers is about to enter the workforce, and they have some different ideas about product design. "My teenaged kids don't even understand TV commercials," says Sam Sattel, senior marketing manager for Fusion 360 at Autodesk Inc. "They're used to Netflix. They're used to Hulu and Vudu. They want to watch what they want, when they want it, and for diem, cable television is about as old-fashioned as using a mouse." Yes, you heard that right. A mouse. According to Sattel, Autodesk recently introduced a group of elementary school students to the company's Tinkercad program, and every one of them ignored the traditional keyboard and mouse and reached for the computer screen, thinking it was a giant iPad.