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Warning: This article consists, largely, of a big, wet, sloppy kiss. If you think this may shock or upset you, or otherwise violate your expectations of v-2 content, feel free to pass it by. The world is full of crap product, presenting abundant opportunities for critique. For now, though: praise where it is so richly due.

Rarely do I get to review a product where any possible improvement is a matter of the margin, but the Dyson DC07 vacuum cleaner - and, I'm imagining, all the machines in this line - is just such a product, superlatively well-conceived and -executed, from its internal and user-facing engineering to its styling, packaging and advertising.

We've had one in the household for a little over a year now, and I invariably find both that it is a pleasure in use and that this pleasure creates an incentive to clean. Long-suffering spouses and significant others should join designers and marketers in paying particular attention to what I am about to say next: this machine actually makes me want to vacuum the house more often, and to spend longer vacuuming when I do.

Inventor James Dyson is something we just don't see all that much anymore, a single human being responsible for the conception, development and public introduction of a particular appliance - kind of a Dean Kamen with a more appealing backstory, better marketing sense, and none of the crypto-Objectivist baggage.

the first hit is always free

The reason is ignominious, and probably typical. It was clear to the executives of companies like Hoover that the Dyson cleaner, while offering its users superior performance and a highly-enhanced experience, threatened the foundations of the lucrative business model they had grown dependent on. And what business model is that?

The answer is something you have suspected for most of your life, but it's nice to see common sense so roundly confirmed: the appliance makers typically make very little profit on selling the machine. Where they get you...is with the bags. The proprietary-design, mutually-incompatible, hard-to-find-the-kind-you-need bags.

Dyson's innovative design freed the consumer from reliance on bags. Dyson's innovative design pleased customers but spelled headaches for manufacturers addicted to the bag-revenue stream. Said innovator was shown the door.

(Have I spent too long in technology if I see a clear parallel here with Sony's continual blunders with proprietary formats and eventual acquiescence, in the face of massive consumer non-interest, to more open standards?)

getting it

Beyond the functional, though, Dyson designed a feature into his machine that speaks to an even deeper intuitive understanding of the emotions surrounding the act of housecleaning: critically, he made the collection cylinder transparent.

When the vacuum is on, working, you see that it's working. Air whips through the chamber - a tornado in miniature, lifting all manner of detritus from the creviced terrain of the home. Switch it off, let the cyclone settle, and you get to watch the dirt accumulate, which is simultaneously nasty and very, very satisfying.

All the schmagootz that settles out of the air to foul domestic environments, the litter of dust bunnies, stray hairs and random scraps of paper we all know all too well? Imprisoned there in its gleaming cylinder, helpless before your mockery. You know just how much cleaner you've made your environment, or, conversely, you are offered a validating insight into just how little dirt there was to capture in the first place. If every domestic appliance gave its users such graphic confirmation of the efficacy of their efforts, you'd see a lot more housework.

Top this off with a branding and marketing campaign that gets just about everything right, right down to crisp typography and a color palette that inverts the heard-but-not-seen verities of its segment, and you have a recipe for market dominance. Yes, even at $500 a throw: it's clear that people are coming to appropriate conclusions regarding TCO.

but i quibble

Generally speaking, full-size vacuum cleaners can be classified either as upright types or canister models. On the DC07, Dyson has tried to split the difference, with mixed results.

The handle (see picture at above left) can be decoupled, withdrawn from the hose sleeve, detached from the body of the machine, turned around and recoupled, whereupon it turns into a more-or-less standard wand tool. If this sounds like a complex operation, it's not, particularly - but it is ungainly. The result is that I only do this once out of every four or five times I actually use the machine.

The way in which the wand tool is integrated with the machine is too clever by half, and is actually a little difficult to use.

Finally, the process by which the collection cylinder is disengaged from the body is not immediately apparent. There's a trigger that the user pulls to dump the canister's contents, and the first time I needed to empty the machine I mistook this trigger for the canister release. The result was a little frustration, a sudden pile of dust on my feet, and a rising cloud of the finer, lighter-than-air stuff. No lasting harm, but the process could easily enough have been made clearer. (For what it's worth, I've never made the same mistake again.)

action, reaction, satisfaction

I take a certain pleasure in this, on a couple of levels. I'm delighted that so many other people are obviously getting to share in the simple but hugely satisfying pleasures the Dyson cleaners afford their users. Here's a rare example of a company and product that have gone from zero to lovemark (and design classic) in no time at all, as a testament to the hard work and ingenuity involved.

But beyond that, it's lovely to think that good, thoughtful design is finally appearing in areas previously dominated by the dreariest commodity offerings, and in which the consumer had little choice but to clutter their life with ugly, unappealing objects.

Wouldn't it be great if James Dyson's singular success was merely the leading edge of a wave of smart, sensitively designed tools for the everyday? I can hardly overstate how much more congenial life would be if all the things we rely on were this well-considered.