Q. The eternal question facing vacuum-cleaner buyers everywhere is, should I buy an upright or a canister? Which do you think is better?

A. It used to be in the genes. If your mother had an upright vacuum cleaner, you ended up with an upright vacuum cleaner, and if she had a canister, you’d end up buying a canister. Nowadays, there really is no difference. It’s what you like as a user. Do you like pulling something or do you like pushing something?

Q. Your latest product is a Dyson that travels on a big ball instead of wheels. Where did the idea for that vacuum come from?

A. We always noticed how un-maneuverable upright vacuum cleaners are. Our competitors use four wheels. It makes you do a lot of "sawing" to clean the carpet. With the ball, I can twist my wrist and go anywhere. It’s the same kind of freedom you have with a mouse on a computer.

Q. Mike Rutter, a former vice president at Hoover, once said publicly that he regretted his company didn’t buy your technology when you offered it to them so they could have kept if off the market. Were you outraged by that comment?

A. It outraged me, but it does happen. What I found more revealing about that was that they weren’t interested in developing new technology for their customers. I found that much more shocking.

Q. You’re an ingenious inventor and a wonderful designer. You could have applied those talents to anything, but you chose vacuum cleaners. Why?

A. I quite like choosing unattractive things. Cars are glamorous and computers are glamorous, but it was the vacuum cleaner that annoyed me more than anything. That disgusting bag that clogs immediately when you start to use it. It’s just deeply unattractive, and you don’t want to use it.

Q. How much of a risk was it making a Dyson vacuum cleaner with a clear dirt catcher?

A. Every manufacturer, every retailer we went to, said you will never sell a vacuum cleaner where you can see the dirt. Nobody wants to see the dirt. It’s disgusting. We got quite unnerved just before the launch and we did some market research. And the market research said that nobody wants to see the dirt. But we decided to ignore it because we liked seeing the dirt.

That’s the trouble with market research. It can’t transcend the normal, what’s expected. The exciting breakthroughs very rarely happen because they don’t get past market research.

Q. What companies do you feel do a good job of marrying engineering with design?

A. What I’m interested in is developing technology to get better performance. To be honest, there aren’t that many examples of that going on.

Q. An inventor in Spain recently introduced a washing machine that uses fingerprint scanning to prevent the same person from using the machine twice in a row. The idea is that mom shouldn’t be burdened with doing all the laundry. Do you have any plans that will encourage a more equal distribution of vacuuming chores?

A. We don’t need to. They already share our Dyson vacuums.

We know that if a couple buys one of our Dyson vacuums where the husband didn’t do the vacuum cleaning before, he’s 45 percent more likely to do the vacuuming after buying one.

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