Category: General Stuff

In no particular order, here are some brief blurbs on design-related books that I’ve recently read and enjoyed (chronicling the past 3 months roughly)…

 

The Connected Company by Dave Gray & Thomas Vander Wal

An excellent overview of how to evolve towards a “connected company” that is fundamentally a complex, adaptive system embodying the values of a “learning organization” and “social network” dedicated to maximum customer experience value. Gray’s beautiful hand-drawn illustrations are a perfect complement to the theories and anecdotes. The book overall is quite consumable with short summaries and easily graspable chapters. Definitely a keeper!

 

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works by AG Lafley & Roger Martin

A rare good book on strategy (not the usual business fad stuff), reflecting the authors’ “design thinking” orientation with a keen eye towards maximizing business value. The core questions of “where to play” and “how to win” frame the brunt of the book, with ample case studies and detailed diagrams worth careful study. This serves as a useful playbook and seems like a good complement to Osterwalder’s “Business Model Generation” as well.

 

101 Design Methods by Vijay Kumar

There seems to be quite a few of these “methods” books lately and this one adds to the mix nicely as a wonderful compendium of tools, models, methods, etc. based largely upon the Instititue of Design’s MDM program. Digestible brief overviews with color photographs and/or richly detailed process diagrams make this a compelling reference on any designer’s desk.

 

Designing Together by Dan M. Brown

Ah, creative professionals and their damn big egos and petty sensitivities! How to possibly teach them about managing tensions and conflicts back at the office, and evolve mature professional approaches dealing with difficult clients? This book provides a rather lengthy but useful overview of approaches and frameworks. While the intent is great, with great supporting content, I wonder if this could be distilled down to just a 50 page book, not 250 pages! Good reference for tough times, next to that bottle of bourbon.

 

Microinteractions by Dan Saffer

This is simply brilliant and required reading for every UI / interaction designer. Dan provides an excellent, digestible framework of “trigger + rule + feedback + loops” to serve as a lens for examining micro interactions in our projects and daily living as well. This is loaded with great examples and memorable anecdotes, as well as nice nods to history (like the origins of copy-paste). Another true keeper of a book, with long-term value.

Recently Apple introduced this rather emotionally poignant TV commercial, presumably as a salvo against intensifying pressure from competitors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr1s_B0zqX0

It is a summary of the core values of Apple as a company, brand, and hallmark of savvy consumer innovation expressed in vivid human storytelling of vignettes that capture the “love” for Apple as an embodiment of what’s next, yet what’s familiar and desirable, woven into daily lifestyle.

CEO Tim Cook cited this ad as a statement of Apple’s values (a visual manifesto, even) but also re-affirmation of their signature, “Designed by Apple in California.” (He left out the “Manufactured in China” part, but hey that’s another post for another day ;-) The ad is quite powerful and worth studying a bit. Yet again Apple fights “tech specs” with emotional appeal.

(Update: Apparently this particular ad has been rated as a “flop” with viewers. Hmm.)

Apple also released this beautifully expressive typographic motion piece conveying the same ideas with perhaps more design-centricity for a particular audience, UI design geeks ;-) This is definitely worth a few viewings and studying as well. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZmIiIXuZ0

As digital product designers, we’re thrown into complex, tense situations trying to make sense of it, including the audience, context of use, and core functionality. Via user-oriented methods we’re taught to not rely upon initial instincts but instead well-grounded “data”, to ward off the rapid fire attacks of suspicious engineers and skeptical executives anxious about their dollars’ applied toward something to guarantee a tangible ROI. Indeed, we must venture into this contest wearing a flak jacket of “data” to protect ourselves from random volleys of anxious emotions. But what does that mean, to have data?

The commonplace notion is “data” encompasses all those usability-lab tested numerical stats or click traffic or rigorous scientific formulae. Actually, there are other kinds of metrics—qualitative and quantitative—such as market share, audience growth, customer satisfaction, and NPS scores. Plus, with ethnography, affective research, and story-based methods, it’s clear that the boundaries of what constitutes data are broadening.

Indeed, just as valuable, is the data of one’s experience: the empirical, observational, and anecdotal types arising from watching and listening to people in their actual context, which adds richness in terms of the nuances of goals and subtleties of problems, beyond what web analytics can provide. Debra Dunn, of Stanford’s d.school (Hasso Platner Institute of Design), says that adhering to Web analytics “makes it very difficult to take bold leaps; it is more from engaging with users, watching what they do, understanding their pain points, that you get big leaps in design”.

Another type of data that shapes design decisions is the designer’s own evolved sense of judgment, perception, and informed intuition, after several years of working with clients/projects across diverse contexts. (Before you scoff, isn’t this true for veteran surgeons, lawyers, accountants, executives? Why not for designers?) For such seasoned, mature designers, this is a vital kind of data from actual field experience in leveraging past mistakes, lessons learned, patterns identified, and drawing upon that reservoir accordingly. The world’s best surgeons are no different in their practice and use of “self-reflective” experiential data to yield superb results. Instinct (in this sense) is simply refined, natural judgment.

Digging deeper, we see that underlying this bias toward “hard” quantifiable lab-based data is an assumption of proving isolated pieces of design solutions as truth, absolute and final.

This contrasts sharply with approaching design as a holistic demonstration of an idea for iteration and evolution in cyclical fashion, towards rapid learning. There needs to be greater appreciation of the fact that data is not truth, but is merely one point in the deliberation over what is appropriate for a context, shaped by healthy skepticism. A productive approach requires a liberal interpretation of data, acknowledging multiple flavors as valid and legitimate, for different phases of a project, given the various constraints and demands.

Ah, there’s the rub—interpretation. All data is subject to human interpretation, and humans, as we all know, are imperfect! As Jared Spool famously said at Interaction’09 conference awhile back, “Any piece of data can be whipped to confess to anything”. In the end, data is used either to support or repel one’s argument. Indeed, design is an intensely deliberative human activity, grounded in debate–even manipulation—toward some reconciling of viewpoints into an outcome. That’s the real battlefield of ideas contested in action among business, engineering, and user experience. Data helps enable and shape a conversation towards shared optimal resolution, not conclusively finalize it. It’s the peaceful coexistence with professional judgment and experience that makes such decision-making more effective and perhaps even right.

 

 

 

I don’t manage a team of direct reports. Yet as a Principal Designer on a strategic in-house design team, I do serve in a valued leadership capacity of influence, role modeling behaviors and approaches, for peers and junior staff alike. Having worked over 10+ years in Silicon Valley, I have observed what works (and more importantly, what doesn’t) amid a range of contexts, including startups, studios, global innovation agency, and major software companies. I have continuously tried to reflect such observations on how I perform as a design leader. It’s not easy, but definitely an eye-opening journey ;-)

So, below is my summary on how to guide the creative, innovative power of designers within an organization, leading them towards inspired excellence, not just managing the minutia of process adherence.

** Trust and respect are paramount: These concepts form the basic fabric of an elastic working relationship of partnership, that can weather many a storm of disagreement and disappointment, which will be inevitable when guiding the creation of something profoundly novel, and even scary, to others. They also serve as the bedrock of positive collaboration, where ideas can scaffold towards what is desired and needed. Without trust and respect, your designers will disappear and any hope of a design culture will be utterly lost…possibly forever.

** Transparently engage collaboration: No black boxes! See-through glass walls & open doors are the key to success, where everyone feels like a real contributor and partner in the design process. I realize Apple and some others don’t function this way. I’m mainly speaking about corporate settings where “design” is a very novel, perhaps feared or distrusted species in the company ecosystems, to alleviate any suspicion or doubt. Everyone must feel welcome and respected, to smoothly collaborate. (Related: don’t mandate collaboration as a “police action”…It has to be a cultivated desire that is sought after. Non-designers in particularly should feel “enrolled” into the dialogue, joining it, not coerced.)

** Challenge designers with relevant, meaningful problems: Designers of nearly all stripes and patterns and temperaments crave juicy, hearty, interesting problems of real impact–from conceptual next-gen studies to fixing the anachronistic “save” icon for today’s Millenials. Designers want to prove themselves and take their skills/experience to the next level through new domains, user types, tools, and styles, not just serving as a “service group” chopping up icons for tomorrow’s PPT review. This is part of respecting designers for their value, inspiring them to tackle what’s real.

** Replenish and reward, generously: Design is hard work. Really fracking hard, for all the various reasons of politics, team dynamics, tech constraints, market whimsies, etc. You need to recognize the tremendous effort put forth, with public acclaim and valuable rewards, from a cool t-shirt to movie outing to pay raises. (or all of above!) Some may like a simple gesture, others may need more (I’m still waiting for my boss to give me a Porsche ;-) But this is clear: Nobody likes to be taken for granted, especially those who struggle to invent solutions yearning to burst forth from their minds and hands, facing critical skepticism every step of the way until users smile in delight.

Also a big part of this is factoring “reflection time” for designers to stand back, absorb, and process, not mechanically forcing “death marches” to get a design spat out. This helps replenish the mind, eyes, and hands– the essential elements in coherently creating the best solution. A burned out designer with Photoshop (or wielding a Sharpie) is not a happy situation, trust me!

** Support learning and cross-pollination: Most designers by their very nature are naturally curious and want to know how something works, how to make their designs better, how to gain stronger skills and advanced tools. There’s something special I think about the design community and their consummate obsession for conferences ;-) From the social exchange of unique ideas, to the inspirational fodder of bold visions, to the enrichment of practical skills via workshops…it all helps foster a learning culture and progressive mindset necessary for a thriving design culture. Relatedly is cross-pollination, something that’s again inherent to how most designers operate, to help target the best ideas for a problem.

** Create a space that inspires & enables: Designers need both physical and cognitive spaces to explore ideas, shape out concepts, collaboratively AND individually, as needed. It’s a balance of work styles and personalities that evolves in the course of a design project. Movable furniture, lively imagery, natural light, writeable surfaces, tackable walls, fodder for inspiration (magazines, games, movies, posters, etc.), and even radical departures from the norm like a “secret room” with atmospheric mood…all of that can help spark novel thinking. Also needed are structured spaces for serious discussion with non-design stakeholders. It’s not an “either/or” but a “yes, and” flavor of thinking when it comes to space design to enable design success to repeatedly happen.

And one more thing… Don’t ever call designers the “creatives”. Creative is an adjective, not a noun. You’ve hired professionals who are designing the future of your company, delivering products, services, and experiences that will engage with your upcoming markets. They are PARTNERS in delivering excellence, not some “wacky creative” who snickers every time they hear “420” (although that’s often true too, sigh). Check the useless stereotypes at the door, and embrace the collective wisdom of multiple, conflicting, empowering perspectives about what’s useful, desirable, and valuable towards making the best decisions for the team, company, and customer. Because at the end of the day, the company exists for one reason: to create and deliver value to customers. Designers rightfully have a place in that collaborative endeavor, so make the most of it!