On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Dan Saffer <d...@odannyboy.com> wrote:
> So when I ask, what should interaction designers know about strategy? You
> respond...
My history with strategy has been kind of strange. I saw all sorts of
people talking about strategic design, strategy, and whatnot, and I
thought that I wanted to be strategic too. All the cool kids were.
But the more I learned about strategy, the more I realized I didn't know.
Fast forward a few years, and I decided to get an MBA. Even after
taking three classes in strategy, I *still* didn't know what all of
the aforementioned "cool kids" were talking about.
After embarking in a study of strategy in various contexts including
military, I have finally defined strategy:
Strategy is the plan for how to compete.
I keep it that short in the interests of memorization and brevity. But
there are lots of levels of strategy. You have to figure out what
"you" is, and what you are competing for. Corporate strategy is
deciding what lines of business to be in to compete for investment &
market cap; available tactics include mergers, acquisitions, and more.
Business strategy is how to compete for advertising or customer
dollars against similar businesses and substitutes for your business
services. What services should be offered? What customers should be
targeted? What is the core value? Should we enter this new service
area with either the same customers or the same process?
Differentiation or low cost?
Product strategy, in this framework, is how the product or service is
going to compete. Good interaction design? Features? Simplicity? Flow?
Beauty? Distribution model? Market segments?
Really, I think of design as tactics employed in product strategy. It
seems like execution to me, though that's certainly arguable.
Each of the above are loosely coupled, with product strategy for
different services being tightly coupled with each other. Each "lower"
level influences the level "above", especially since there are are
many lines of business that corporations are in, and many services
that a business offers.
So, what does an interaction designer have to know about strategy?
First, it's a rare designer who has influence over business strategy.
So the designer must generally work with the business strategy, not at
cross-purposes. A Wal-Mart product must not be feature rich to the
point of being high cost. A discount ISP must not induce customers to
believe they can call customer care 10 times per month. An
advertising-driven web site must have plenty of quality advertising
opportunities.
Second, IxDers can have significant influence over product strategy,
though working with others. They must know this, but also be able to
communicate in the language of product strategy. They can especially
influence direction through user research, which is similar to but
distinct from market research. But they can not be the sole source of
product strategy.
Third, product design, along with business processes and service
design, can be the glue that holds together all of those product
strategies. We can work across products, and create a more unified
whole. I think this essentially is "strategic design". And if it
doesn't get planned, it'll happen on its own.
Fourth, we need to understand strategic marketing or marketing
strategy. These folks talk about products and product features to
offer to market segments. Each group can teach the other something
valuable, and each also looks across the various product strategies.
We need to be able to talk their language, understand how they
segment, and articulate differences in research techniques and
personas, and why each are valuable. We need to not fight with these
folks, but collaborate with them. We need to understand when to invest
in their research, when to invest extra in separate design research,
and the differences between purchasers and users.
I don't think that beginning IxDers need to know the above, but I
think anyone with 3+ years of experience should understand it.
~~~~
Barbara Ballard
barb...@littlespringsdesign.com 1-785-838-3003
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