Category: General Stuff

Ask a Prod Manager or Engineer when a “design is due” and the response is usually “yesterday” or “tomorrow”, with little hint of sarcasm. The fact is, that is utterly useless info and counterproductive to deep multi-disciplinary collaboration towards solving problems in a meaningful way that actually matters. Indeed, such a glib approach to time is a grim sign of professional disrespect and ignorance of what it is that designers need and value most: TIME!

It takes time to sufficiently gather the core business & technical requirements, and extrapolate priorities for further investigation and define prelim research and design studies.

It takes time to frame the problem, generate initial concepts, explore directions and iterate accordingly, with feedback.

It takes time to gather that feedback and review and respond accordingly. With multiple rounds if needed, per problem scope.

It takes time to reflect upon designs created, in whatever level of fidelity, to step away and revisit with a fresh eye/mind the next day…This is especially true for visual hi-fi solutions whose nuances and subtleties across screens/devices can have serious consequences downstream with graphics production.

Because it takes time, Design as a process phase and professional activity has to be properly accounted for in a product development schedule, plain and simple. A schedule has a sense of expected duration, with key moments of review/delivery/feedback itemized, an overall movement towards completion. It is in effect a narrative of the process, with multiple moving pieces/players coordinating against that narrative. Without a scheduled-in place for design, it will be dismissed as mere cosmetic lipstickery, with styles/graphics slapped on as an afterthought, without addressing flow/interaction/architecture/service issues. And if not enough time is properly allotted, that is exactly what will happen, like it or not. Design in effect becomes a meager farce, not the enabler of positive change. And believe me, no designer worth her salt wants to do that, but will be forced to if necessary, sadly. “Tomorrow” is not a schedule, but proactively coordinating a planned way to engage with designers can help PMs and Devs achieve a well-developed product that serves tomorrow’s needs.

Recently this past spring the Bay Area held the annual running of the “Escape from Alcatraz” Ironman Triathlon, which some good friends performed and successfully completed. It’s an incredible, arduous experience from the looks of it (and NO, I have zero intention of running it! :-)

But I couldn’t help notice the parallels between that intense competition and the multi-layered tasks of an interaction designer for digital products/services. While those triathletes had to master (and rigorously, strenuously train for weeks! whew) the serial sequence of swimming, bicycling, and then running…a successful software designer should ideally flex their muscles in information architecture (navigation/organization/data modeling), interaction design (behaviors, affordances, feedback loops, flow/states/errors, etc.) and visual design (expressive rendering of content/functionality with color/type/grids/graphics). And perhaps in the order as well. The IA provides the logical underpinnings, thus and is often the toughest to shape and command–stormy seas at work, with politics, functional silos, vague notions of user goals. (Real triathletes will see the parallel to the notorious “sand ladder”, as the brutal transition from abstract models to tough gritty UI issues). The interaction/flow fleshes out the product, which takes some pacing and timing as you struggle to climb up and around thorny sequence and behavior issues. Finally, in the final stretch is the visual style to round out the aesthetics, information display, and communication aspects.

And of course, all this maps to the rhetorical trinity of logos/pathos/ethos and other popular interpretations of designer triads of skills/focus. To perform well (and sustain a level of vigor, passion, drive) designers must constantly train and practice in those three core areas (in addition to business and technology and social/cultural areas–yet another triad of skills needed!)…Are designers really decathletes?? So many skills and knowledge bases needed! But let’s start with three.

What is innovation? Lots of things, of course. In one sense, an innovation is really the emergent perceived outcome as captured by three simple phrases your customer should be uttering after a positive encounter with your product/service/system:

1. “Wow”— The well-designed encounter is stimulating, exciting, dramatically new & different, engaging and compelling in some sensual, phenomenal way (visually, aurally, behaviorally, etc.)

2. “Thank You”— The product/service provided some convenience, removing some pain from prior encounters with clumsier solutions. There’s a heartfelt sense of gratitude. Thanks for being so easy, intuitive, meaningful to me and my life, helping me do what i want…instead of making me fight you and getting frustrated or angrily defeated in the process.

3. “Of course” — The innovation does something in a way that, when your customer thinks of it, really isn’t all that crazy or radical…in fact, it’s just common sense! It feels sensible, natural, and perfectly appropriate. Duh, of course the interaction should be like that. How simple, elegant and clever all at once. But it just fits.

If you can get your customer to say these three phrases (whether out-loud or implicitly to themselves) reflecting genuine emotional and thoughtful engagement, then it’s probably fair to say your innovation has hit the mark!

Preaching to the choir I know, but nice to see it stated…by the founding editor of LifeHacker ;-)

“That’s the thing about Apple marketing. They don’t talk about how many gigabytes of memory or how many CPU cycles or how many apps (much). They aim for your heart, and show you how technology can make your life better during its most important moments”

http://smarterware.org/6190/lessons-from-apple-on-advertising-and-aesthetics

All about emotion, vision, story and personal meaning…If we’re not inventing and persuading at that deeply humanistic level, you become a me-too commodity. Just be human. It’s really that simple! :-)

What’s a digital concept car? Borrowed from the automotive world, a concept car is a highly refined and vividly realized manifestation of a design intent, typically bold, striking, compelling expression of where to take a product or portfolio line into the future. It’s a statement of visual, behavioral, and emotional possibilities for an implied product (or set of products). However, a concept car is NOT the final product, nor may it necessarily become productized.

The purpose and rationale of a concept car is primarily provocative exploration, identifying and pushing the boundaries of constraint & possibility, and in doing so achieving an evolved sense of who we are as a company–what do we value? What do we not value? What do we aspire to become? Where do we wish to go?

Concept cars can serve as the vehicle (pun intended :-) for shaping novel directions that inform existing product development efforts, not a “pie-in-the-sky” dream that never materializes or pure lab experiment. This is brilliantly captured in BMW’s latest ad in which the announcer says “Some may call this a concept car. But it’s not a new car. It’s every car we build”, meaning that almost all qualities (formal, technical, artistic) make their way into existing lines, as an ongoing progressive evolution…a multi-disciplinary conversation really.

Core to such concept cars is the primacy of guided, focused vision (not committee led arguing), empathy for customers leaping ahead existing models, and highly realized prototypes–vivid, detailed, performant. The vision drives the concept car. Literally.

It’s vision-centered design in its ultimate form, hopeful and yet grounded…and always pushing the limits of constraints, contingencies, and possibilities. More details soon…