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.
World Builder
by James Marzano on Mar.11, 2009, under Futurescape, User Experience
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
Design Flaws That Ruined Gadgets
by James Marzano on Mar.09, 2009, under User Experience
Seth Porges over at Popular Mechanics has published a nice little list of some design flaws in current gadgets that are unacceptable. I like his rules (usability guidelines) that he publishes with each example…
- No Product Shall Harm Its User
- Products Shall Not Have Unintended Actions
- Avoid Overloading on Functions
- Handheld Products Should Not Be Slippery
- Touchscreens and Lag Do Not Mix
Some gadgets have famously bad designs. The N-Gage gaming cellphone looked like a Chocotaco, and it was nearly impossible to silence the Furby’s sadistic squeals without removing its batteries. Thankfully, the days of major companies releasing design trainwrecks are mostly over. That’s not to say that every new gadget works the way we want it to. Far from it. Rather, these days, you’re far more likely to find a product that almost does it right, but is still plagued by some singular fatal flaw that causes it to be buggy, frustrating, or even physically painful. Here are five recent gadgets whose designs failed in some simple way.
5 Design Flaws that Ruined Otherwise Smart Gadgets >>
Microsoft’s Vision of 2019
by James Marzano on Mar.04, 2009, under Design, Futurescape, User Experience
“Microsoft gave a public showing of its futurologist vision of 2019 the other day at the Wharton Business Technology Conference, and it’s set the interwebs a-quiver with excitement. But if you have a bit of time to think about it, it’s actually not very visionary at all.
Gizmodo’s Jason Chen loved it, quoting Arthur C. Clarke’s famous Third Law: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The Industry Standard’s Paul Boutin suggests “More important than whizzy interfaces, the videos promise much more extensive collaboration, instant information retrieval, and multimedia communication.” And “2019″ has appeared all over the place because it’s from Microsoft, and that’s a name that carries almost limitless clout.
Which is why it’s surprising the video is actually so uninspiring.
The references to Minority Report are unmistakable: Transparent “air screens” with gestural controls, handheld computers with see-through screens that you can hold over a larger display to “capture” the info. Everything is touch-controlled, with gestural inputs and with seamless wireless information transfer from one device to another–the concept of a “file” is conspicuously absent–and that’s very Tom Cruise. There’s also much use of color e-paper with a touch-surface, and modular cellphones with interactive touch-sensitive exteriors and screens. Location-based services show up, with the “corporate visitor” chap being located (presumably by some smart RFID/GPS/LPS tech in his phone) and directed to his destination by smart-display floor tiles.”
Links:
Article by Kit Eaton @ Fast Company
Microsoft Office Labs: How will emerging technology improve our productivity in the years ahead?
