design thinking has been hijacked.

It was pretty simple really... this whole design thinking thing. Then, rather unpredictably (at least to me), a whole bunch of people jumped on board that didn't have a clue... trying to use this 'thing' to move their careers forward.

But what is it really?

It's good to start out any academic conversation by establishing some definitions. Design thinking is super simple. There are a bunch of methods that help designers process, synthesize, and produce. These methods are pretty different and sometimes even unique to a design studio and a good designer's processes. Guys like Bruce Nussbaum and Roger Martin came upon some of these, thought they had value, and they started talking and writing about them. Being high profile business experts, people listened. Design thinking is simply taking these methods and applying them to non-design situations... you know, business, engineering etc.

But here's the thing... these are APPLIED methods. Yes, if you aren't applying any of these methods or processes you can't... let me repeat CAN'T be an expert on them. Further, you aren't going to be able to talk as an expert, write as an expert, or improve them as an expert might if you're not utilizing them.

So, not to pass an opportunity by... the theorists and the career minded MBA's and even a few articulate  engineers jump on board... (we gotta get into this design stuff guys... it's the next big thing!) and the whole thing moves in different directions with the loudest voices working to shift the definition and make it their own 'thing'.

The conversations is now so watered down, misdirected, and over intellectualized that it has no focus and really no meaning. Is design thinking dead? No, but the movement, and the most apparent conversations are. Design methods will still evolve, will stay relevant, and continue to be smartly applied in other areas... but I very much doubt those loud voices you hear will be part of any meaningful utilization. Why? Because they aren't designers and they aren't applying these methods to real work.

Weather

Not sure if you've noticed, but weather dot com has released a new version of their app that is spectacular. They've stopped trying to shoe horn features in. They've stopped trying to be something they're not. And they've got some first rate engineering.

The new app has just the right amount of information. It's organization and information hierarchy are excellent. And, the app is very fast.

Kudos for the focus and the restraint.

a focus group of one.

Not to long ago I had a dVP of engineering tell me, “you can’t tell me I don’t understand the customer or the customer experience”. I didn’t laugh, but chuckled a bit inside. He then told me that user experience design is part of engineering. I kept a straight face (I think).

Alan Cooper described this phenomena years ago in, “the inmates are running the asylum”. Alan, a developer by trade took a lot of flak for the book, but in the end, adhering to some basic principles implied within the text has proven  advantageous time and time again to those armed with the insights.

Engineers are typically much smarter and more technically adept than the mainstream audience targeted by consumer products. It’s nearly impossible to unlearn that expertise. It’s also really difficult to empathize in an abstract fashion. Even seasoned user researchers are reticent to prescribe general user guidelines across platforms and products. They continue to uncover important cultural and behavioral hurdles for design consideration.

One of the first rules of user experience or interaction design is to NOT design for ones self. Yes, I know there are a handful of successful products who’s inventor claims they designed for themselves and it ‘just took off’. These are the exceptions. There is also a movement within interaction design described as ‘genius design’ driven. This is, in theory, where the designer has so much domain knowledge that they know what customers need before the customer does. I’d contend that the customer is feeling the pain or wishing for the ability well before the designer is.... they just don’t articulate it in our forums. Genius design is effective in highly specialized and technical fields, but is not the norm.

The upshot here is the empathy towards users and customers is not a afterthought or of minimal effort. Real expertise is needed in gaining insights and in the synthesizing of those insights into actions and design direction. There is a growing knowledge base of process and practice that should be implemented... at least if you want to improve actual results in usage.

more thoughts on judgement.

Not everyone needs to be a leader, and there can be great comfort in being a follower. In fact, fast follower is a very under utilized strategy in the market today. The fast follower strategy allows you to closely monitor the market leaders, capitalize on their R&D investments, and stay or catch up. But like many strategies and tactics embraced by mbas, it’s often not thoughtful. The fast follower strategy is not the same as parroting.  It is not a blind outsourcing of critical thinking or judgement.

It takes a great deal of time and energy to observe, research and understand what another company is doing. So often the critical information behind an action is camouflaged from outsiders for obvious reasons. The tendency to read a book such as ‘Good to Great’  (a really good read btw) and apply remedies as recipes can be catastrophic. Any grafted solution must be verified and measured against your specific situation. In so many cases the differences are large enough to render the recipe nearly irrelevant. One of my favorite professors used to classify these as ‘type 3 errors’... solving the wrong problem.

The other critical element in these endeavors, is the removal of concern for one’s reputation and public image. I’ve had the opportunity to watch this in action recently in very high profile arenas. The presumption that because you are in charge, you are the smartest (whatever that means to you) person in the room only adds to potential errors. If you truly do hire people smarter than you, then you should put trust in that investment. As a leader, you certainly need to own the judgement. But that doesn’t mean that the research and consideration prior to ‘the decision’ should be your’s alone. 

Years ago I had the opportunity to spend quality time with a very smart man. Barnett Helzberg took over a family retail business in the midwest and grew it into a giant. I learned a tremendous amount in the days I spent with Mr. Helzberg, but the most powerful concept I came away with was his pension for being the ‘dumbest guy in the room’. Mr. Helzberg hired smart people and he trained them well. He aligned them with his core approach to business and delivering value. He put his confidence in them and empowered them. Hiring ‘people smarter than me’ wasn’t just a managerial posture for him. 

Bold decisions and market leading actions are not without risk. Thoughtful and strong follow-through is a critical component of successful judgement, but I think the mistake I see most often in business is the result of arrogance and ego driven decisions.

the nature of transactions and facebook

Does the world need yet anther diatribe regarding the Facebook IPO debacle? Probably not, but here I go anyway. Facebook's IPO failed because of greed and a fundamental misunderstanding about transactions.

My transactional understandings are rooted in a simple concept in sales in called "win win". A transaction should be equitable to all involved. And, in any successful transaction all parties need to come away with something of worth. Inherent in any transaction is what we call a 'deal', or the worth of engaging in the transaction. For the moment we'll refer to this worth as 'profit'. I'm likely stretching your understanding of 'profit', but bare with me. 

Profit is that range between the most you might give up under any circumstances, and the least possible. HIgh service, reputation, warranty, etc… these are all part of the inherent 'profit'. If Seller A the only one offering a 'thing' for sale, they might be tempted to charge the highest price known for that 'thing'. This would be Seller A not sharing profit. You, the purchaser, are not likely to favor this arrangement and will be less than willing to come back and repeat it, unless you have no other choice. For the retailer, discounts and coupons, are first a way to garner your attention, but secondarily (and very importantly) they are a way to show you that they are willing to share the profit with you. Their first goal is to get the sale. The second goal is that you remember them favorably towards the next transaction. Pretty simple right?

As an interesting point of reference, a transaction in which part A holds all of the cards, and extracts ALL of the profit would most likely be a singular transaction with little or no chance of a voluntary follow up transaction. A mugging would be a good example of this type of transaction.

Back to Facebook. The investment bankers, lawyers, and executives in charge of the Facebook IPO failed to make an accurate assessment of worth, and/or, got greedy. Offering stock at the apex of success does not offer investors the opportunity share in much, if any, of the profit. Short term gain is why many people invest in IPO's. For Facebook shareholders, there is none. The only difference between Facebook and digg.com right now is public access towards ownership of a dwindling asset. 

the melee and confusion over 'responsive'

So… the hot thing in the web the last few months is a book called ‘responsive web design’. It’s a good book, very tactical, applicable in may instances. So why do I bring this up? Because like many things, it is getting distorted, misinterpreted and in some ways both under and over acknowledged.

The over arching goal of all IA, IxDA’s, UXA’s etc is to match the experience we help to create with the context of use and to some extent the expectations of the user. Back before there was something called interaction design, I used to hire industrial designers. Not because I was doing industrial design, but because they, more than any other school of design understood context. And in the 15 years that I’ve been working in this space, it’s been an constant effort to be more contextually aware.

Responsive design is not a thing. It’s not really even a set of tools or methods. It’s simply a book title. It is a book about trying to embrace context across the many devices that now have access to the web.

At the executive level there is always a danger of over simplification. New executives often use catch phrases as levers to promise progress… SEO, agile, and user centric are recent examples of this. I doubt many at the VP level of fortune 500 companies have taken time (or should) to read the book. So logically, the have an abridged definition. That definition is often optimistic as user experience folks struggle to achieve in alignment with product or engineering regarding their user experience aspirations.

So when you’re talking upwards in your company about ‘responsive’, what do you think they hear? More often than not, the key words heard will be ‘more efficient’, they’ll also hear ‘one-size-fits-all”, they hear ‘cheaper’. The responsive book is not targeting and should not be targeting any of those. All of that work is about making the experience better. Our customers rarely need mobile tools while setting at their desk. And they likely don’t need every feature on their handset.

Here are four simple constructs for developing web experiences for a range of devices and context.

~ Design to scale for multiple screen sizes. (yep, pretty obvious)

~ Consider the interaction differences between key/mouse, and touch devices.

~ Prioritize based upon the context of use.

~ Include or exclude functionality thoughtfully across devices anticipating the context of use.

There is not a lot of magic or need for ‘special sauce’ in the mobile space these days. A good, well educated user experience architect (UXA) will have deep understanding for context of use and will take care to thoughtfully investigate, empathize and consider these uses in the design. This is what good interaction design is.

The predictable state of retail.

Standing in line last night at a big box store (that sells office supplies), a curious sequence of events had me thinking how desperate all of this seems. I was there to buy a simple cardboard box. In the transaction, I was asked if I had or wanted a warranty card. I was then asked if I wanted to get a deal (2 for $10) on printer paper. As my transaction came to a close, I was handed three pieces of paper. My receipt was expected, and a coupon for my next visit was also somewhat expected, but the coupon for a local shoe store was not. How does all of this relate to my visit for a cardboard box?

The trend towards infinite expansion of offerings, and 'anything for a buck' promotions reminds me a couple of other industries... notably the airlines and long distance calling. You've probably noticed that long distance calling is now free, and airlines have resorted to silly things like charging extra for snacks and your luggage.

There is always someone who will work for less. That's not a disruptive business model. That's competition. Retailers need to focus on what they do well. They deliver immediacy, they deliver a human touch point, they allow you to try on that blouse, and they offer an opportunity for customer service. These are core attributes that brick and mortar stores offer over and above most any dot com. Focus on what you do best, and scale to meet demand.

Why you should not have a mobile UX team.

A radical thought? Maybe, but it’s worth considering. Silo’d teams may make sense for technology solutions, but not for user or customer centric work. Should you have a dedicated mobile engineering group? Maybe, but this thought is primarily focused on UX.

In this era, successful products rarely come from pure engineering efforts. That is the ‘technology first’ approach of a bygone era. That doesn’t mean that have a first rate engineering team isn’t important. It is as important as it ever has been. What it means is that the real tactical advantage in competitive markets is a focus on customer needs. It always has to come first…

but back to the first point…

What we thought about mobile just 12-18 months ago is now old school. Yes, some people still make lists on their desktop and send it to the phone, but that is now latent behavior. If you want to capture the early adopters (who by the way will be your loudest advocates when you’re successful) you have to think differently. Mobile needs to be an integrated strategy, not separate and definitely not an after thought.

But here is the real trick to mobile. Very little of it is specialized. If your mobile strategy and design crew don’t really really understand the context of use… then they probably should not be designing in the user experience realm anyway. Context… which is key to understanding mobile, is a core insight for ANY designer working in this space.

So arm your user experience team with tools, thoughts and the freedom to think beyond the desktop and in the mobile space. It’s what they want to be doing anyway.

Customer Service

from the description on Crunchbase regarding Tony Hsieh of Zappos:

"He eventually joined Zappos full time in 2000. Under his leadership, Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to $840M in 2007 by focusing relentlessly on customer service."

very telling.

Should we treat our bosses like we treat our kids?

There comes a time in every person's life when we need to realize that parenting is about doing what's best for the kid over the long haul. Yes we want them to 'be' happy, but making them happy day in day out is not. Teaching them to love themselves is the key... than and only then can they find happiness. Parenting is often about doing the hard thing... or more... about making your child do the hard thing.

In 'free agent nation' Daniel Pink pontificates about the average tenure of the corporate employee being very shot in comparison to our parent's era. Does this mean we answer up to extend or amplify our career? After all... we may not really be invested for the long haul. We may see ourselves with a five year stint... the company will go on... and I've got to gain as much ground as I can in those five (I'm exaggerating because my boss is likely to read this) years.

I think I am old school. I thin operating from the perspective that 'I can always get another job' is appropriate. It puts you in a position to answer hard questions, serve the bad tasting medicine and in short, do the right thing.

How relevant is the big stage?

Unless you are very early in your career, or intend to live your live in the cocoon of large corporations, the prudent strategy is to adopt a different criterion. For the majority of customers and users, large corporations are losing relevancy. The corporate culture is one of 'play to not lose' and risk mitigation, rather than innovation. You must have this sort of experience on your resume, but it can be a negative factor in building a significant body of work, particularly as a designer. The first rule to know is that you should look for a great boss... rather than a great job title or description. The second is to determine whether the role provides one of the following: the ability to do great work... and the room to do work that matters. If you can get both, you are doing really well... for most of you, just getting in a position for one of those will be difficult. Have high standards for these criteria and don't let go of them. The opportunities are out there.

You’ve been tagged

So you're driving south on the Edens parkway and it occurs to you that there might be an event in downtown Chicago. You know, the kind of event that has a definite start, a hard stop, and fills parking lots. You wonder… “how is the traffic and do I need an alternate route?” You grab your iPhone and pull up Google maps and turn on the ‘show traffic’ function. You’ve just become a sensor. You are reading your own data and so are all the other iPhone Google maps users.

In a recent New York Times article entitled, “The Data-driven Life”, Gary Wolf chronicles examples of individuals using a closed loop feedback system (often their phone) and some basic hypothosis and A/B test strategies to uncover cause and effect in their daily lives. From the benefit of herbal remedies to the impact of sleep habits to asking, “why do I run faster on the weekend?” What this fine article does not do is address the aggregate data gathering that is ongoing using those same tools. It is a data gathering process that you only sort of opt into. The upside is that it could present a fantastic data set for uncovering social behavior that helps us better understand ourselves. The only real question is who owns the data, and who benefits from its analysis.

So next time you head out the door and pop you cell phone in your pocket… think about what you will be doing for the next few hours. And, imagine that little tag that surrounds the ankle of the pigeon pestering you for food scraps in the park. You have one too.

Beyond the research…

You’ll find my take on research pretty simple. We, as designers, don’t do or have enough of it. All you need to do is look at the percentage of products that fail miserably in the marketplace. Successful products (those that are profitable for over three years) are less that 10% of those introduced. In any sport that is miserable.

We should stop doing (that type of) research when conditions are stable (not changing) and we find no new information.

So, what else is there?

The answer is always the same - know more about your customers. Spend five years working the store floor. Spend months in observation labs watching usability studies. Immerse yourself in a tradeshow for three consecutive days. Build data driven personas. All of these add to your base of information. Reading, of all things, a book on running I came across an interesting approach.

In Southern Africa, live a small tribe of bushman called the Kalahari. They have an interesting approach. It goes something like this (my online reference points inline).

“Even after you learn to read the dirt (site metrics and analytics), you ain’t learned nothing. The next level is tracking without tracks, a higher level of reasoning known in the lit as ‘speculative hunting.’ The only way to pull it off… …was to project yourself out of the present and into the future, transporting yourself into the mind of the animal you’re tracking.”

This is at the core of what persona building is really all about. It’s similar to method acting. If you can lose a little of yourself in the process of putting yourself in the heads of customers… you will gain some insight. This is far different that introspection or “designing for oneself.” But again, all of this must be data driven.

“Visualization… empathy… abstract thinking and forward projection… When you track, you’re creating casual connections in your mind, because you didn’t actually see what the animal did… …with speculative hunting, early human hunters had gone beyond connecting the dots, they were connecting the dots that existed only in their minds”

You will find, when reading from the library of design, and in particular interaction design, references to “genius design”. This term, coined by Dan Saffer, is not really about a designer who is a genius. What I think Dan means is that the designer has become so intimate with the nature of the customer/user, that they can get inside that role and design for them fluently. It’s an interesting place to be. I have only known a couple of designers who could really pull this off in my career. It takes extreme dedication and a skill set that I almost think you have to be born with. It’s a state we should all aspire to, and a competence we should never assume we have.

NOTE: In no way am I trying to imply that we are hunting those we design for. We are only interested in anticipating their shopping and lifestyle needs so that we can serve them better.

Reference: Born to Run, Christopher McDougall

Women in hats

There are few better opportunities to contemplate the convergence of form, function and fit that a winter day in Chicago’s fashion center. While the utility of the hat may seem obvious, the complicated thought process in choice can be easily under estimated.

Obscuring or enhancing one’s hair is always a consideration. Some, will fight the need for a hat… others embrace it. For men it may be an over worked form of camouflage. For the record I really can’t stand those flat brimmed fabric hats that aging rock&rollers seam to favor these days and hey guys… ball caps are for the weekend. Top hats are fun, stocking caps, representing the essence of minimalist utility can project youth, danger and sport.

Texture, shape and color seem to vary tin order to fit the ensemble… and rarely does it seem that function is driving those attributes for women. Sometimes I think the nuisance of the hat is a portion of its allure.

The point being, if you happen to be struggling in your quest to fully explore the ‘why’ of a product, consider the hat. Consider the whys of the hat. Consider the whimsy and the purpose.

One piece at a time…

When I was a youngster, the first introduction to music I can remember was being in my Dad’s shop with the radio on. I recall a lot of Johnny Cash. One song I remember in particular was about a guy that worked in the Cadillac factory and decided he was going to get his car by taking a part home every week in his lunchbox. Over the years he built his car… and it was made of Cadillac parts, but it was certainly not the car of his dreams.

Similarly, you can build a product by starting with a feature list, but the results will show. Having a strategy that includes a core purpose and measurable objectives will keep your product focused and translate into useful attributes. Basing that strategy on user insight and market vision will significantly add to the cohesiveness of the product and its probability of success. There are few shortcuts in strategy that pay off.

Is your career holding back your work?

Not a lot of subtlety there. Most of us work for money. Many, many folks get into business, whether corporate contributors or entrepreneurs… for the money. Some work with the intent of getting rich. What I often find in the design filed is a more altruistic… more pure mission. “To make a contribution”, “to make things better”, “to do great design” are things I hear a lot. My personal favorite is part design and part business… “to create value in the marketplace”.

often stressed that the mission of a business cannot be about profit. He posited that profit must be a given for the business to survive, and that the purpose, the mission, of the business should be great… it should be a higher calling. To me this is a bit like saying profit to a business, is like breathing to a human. As an analogy I think it works pretty well.

For the individual it is a little different, but not much. You can’t blame a person for having goals and being career minded. We all want to advance. Career advancement brings more power and that brings the potential to do even greater things. It also brings money and security, things we all want to provide for ourselves and for our families. But should you carrier be the thing that infuences you daily decisions the most? Probably not. By doing great work, on should assume that as a result, your career will advance. If you don’t believe this to be true, then you should probably find a new place to work. If you put your career ahead of doing great work… say making great products, then your employer should probably find different help. I know it might seem as though I have over simplified. But it does seem very simple to me.

Innovation… what it is not

In most cases innovative thought and break through ideas first come from the folks that are intimate with customers and their needs. Thorough understanding of the situation and the technology are next. Immersive expertise is paramount. Smart people with insight are very very helpful. But smart people from outside the domain… rarely drop in and provide brilliance. Innovation is rarely instant… it comes from hard work.

Thoughtful and purposeful

Design should be purposeful. What I mean by that is it that needs to be thought about from the audience perspective and in light of the projects goals. Cool is not necessarily better. What works for project 17, probably won’t work for project 27, even though the two may me similar in scope.

Take a look at this blog (the one you are reading) for instance. I have received council and critique that this blog is kind of plain and clearly not designed. It is in fact very precisely designed. It is plain for a reason. I have no aspiration of conversion. I have no goal of expanding my reach. If you read this blog regularly you likely seek substance over style. You likely appreciate the utility – the efficiency of delivery. If you’re mostly attracted to shiny objects then you likely won’t be back here anytime soon. I’m pretty ok with that. There are plenty of places that provide visual sizzle and this is not one of them.

Think about lifestyles and demographics. Would not everyone want to look cool, wear black and live in Manhattan? Of course we all know the answer. High design and cutting edge design is really fun and I for one love it. But it does not serve anyone to apply it when the audience will be unreceptive.

All three dimensions of design; form, function and fit, must be considered. That one seems lacking from your perspective, does not mean it wasn’t considered.

Search engine optimization…

I have this theory that as soon as the search engines (yes, mostly google) have indexed the web enough, they will no longer need the convenience of portals. They will then reduce the transparency how crawlers work and make it much more difficult to optimize a site for them. It only makes sense… the search engine becomes you own personal and customizable portal… but I digress.

Every day I get little reminders of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). Bu today I got a startling example of what happens when you do absolutely nothing about it. I was searching for a small cabinetmaker in Maryland. It’s a very small shop – and that is partially why I was looking for them. They were actually listed third in the results. Not bad, until you looked at number two. In the number two spot was a listing that took me to a discussion forum. Within that forum, a very nice person had compiled a list of 20 or so cabinetmakers with a similar specialty. Suddenly, I have a full list of this guy’s competition. Surely this is not good for him in any way right?

So, some 10 years since my small design firm in Kansas (maybe our location caused us to try harder) began working to help clients optimize their sites so that they could be better found on the web… there are still people with web sites that have no clue. So much opportunity lost.

What is “smart”?

The word is everywhere. In interviews, in meetings, and in process I hear the reference. What does it mean when someone says “she is really smart”?

Smart can be a lot of things. Smart can mean that a person knows a lot. Lot’s of knowledge frankly, is not always helpful. Applying the appropriate part of that knowledge to the problem at hand is quite useful. This part of smart is also a split category. Some smart people have read a lot. Some have done a lot. Knowledge without application is less than optimal. Experience without a core understanding of theory or reasoning can be problematic as well.

Smart can also mean that the person learns or figures stuff out… is a problem solver. That is also very useful in many, many situations. The third type of smart is really more an issue of judgment. These people are often notable because they seem to know what to do in certain situations. They may utilize “smarts” from either of the first two categories… or not.

Of note… is something that is perceived as smart, but may not be. A quick confident answer is often seen as smart. Be very careful with this one… it is primarily behavioral, and as such a learned skill. This one can get you into big trouble.