How does your company make design decisions?
by James Marzano on Mar.24, 2009, under Automotive UX, Mobile UX, User Experience
Metrics and numbers about design are just one way to understand the world, as an equal partner with our broader design understanding. Quantitative data doesn’t account for many things. Balance is always needed. Sure usability can help you measure efficiency and satisfaction levels but does your product deliver happiness or joy? There are lots of things numbers and quantitative methods don’t adequately account for. “The data is simply an aide to my judgment. The data never tells me what to do”, Alan G. Lafley.
The innovation crowd makes a fundamental mistake: that a complex market problem can be solved by a good analytical design. If you build the “process” right, and put the right “validation” and “methodology” in place, using more technology with more investment in the “process”, you’ll get a better product–wrong!In reality, winning a market battle requires a very complex equation of advance performance, marketing insight and appropriate design. We use the term “look & feel” often when talking about the right design approach. Both “look” and “feel” can not be quantified or learned in engineering schools. These terms are intuitive to the knowledgeable and obtuse to the novice. In reality the “look & feel” of a good product is a nuanced, multi-faceted approach to technical constraints, target demographics and trend-forecasting combined with a special sauce–the designer’s talent and intuition.
Such a complex formula for design success can not be resolved by analytical methods. Time and time again I see metrics and focus groups fail in predicting the outcome of a design effort. Many times excellent design work is butchered by analytics (Think GM for a minute…). Human culture is ageless, and excellent design always brings technology and our cultural heritage together. The Sony Walkman made music, an essential human need, portable. The Kindle (especially the new one) may become the “Walkman” of reading. With that cultural quality both products are a triumph of design over innovation.
The question is essentially “how do we make decisions about design?” The answer is: “not by analytics alone!” The making of a good design–say a great mobile phone design–is so complex that the only way is by relying on the designer’s intuition in solving this nuanced formula. If the issue is the reliability of this method, the answer is the designer’s track record in resolving such challenges. Some people have more talent than others–that’s a fact of life.
