Paul Sherman wrote: > It ain't just about the pixels. Our field would be well advised to remember this.
Yup. My current ploy in courses and workshops is to place temporary (but lengthy -- days long!) bans on discussion of "things" (products, displays, documents, pixels, etc.). The conversation has to be about people: characteristics, behavior, attitudes, relationships, emotions, identity, social life, communication, life stages, complexity of life, and so on and on. Not that we should ban thing-talk altogether, because of course most of our work does somehow involve things. But we need a serious injection of balance -- less artifact, more human outcome. Our bundle of fields and crafts needs a soul injection. It's amazing how something like a temporary ban can highlight how badly we have the disease of, "I say 'user-centered,' but what excites me, what I really care about, relate to, study, and focus on every day is technology." (What if we set aside a day of the Interaction 11 conference to be ONLY about people?) Business conversations can have the same problem, of course: talking more about channels, pricing models, etc. than about how this all connects with people's lives. Here's a dose of balance from Clayton "Innovator's Dilemna" Christensen and his co-authors Anthony, Berstell and Nitterhouse. Here is OUR message of strategic design, clearly articulated by a business school professor, with few uses of the actual word "design." http://www.innosightventures.com/upload/JobsToBeDone.pdf Cheers, Marc Rettig Fit Associates, LLC On Dec 6, 2009, at 10:38 AM, j. eric townsend wrote: Jared Spool wrote: > How does one show value for quality? > How does one show value for technology? > How does one show value for service? > Answer those questions and you'll know how one shows value for design. Here's an example that's probably terribly uninteresting to most designers: post-sales customer support. Customer support is a huge cash suck for consumer electronics and software companies. A call to customer support answered by a human can easily cost $10, much more if that human has to be technically sophisticated and do more than follow a script. Let's say you're selling a video game or a monthly service for $50. A single call to CS just zero'd any profit. Multiple calls put you in the negative. If you end up having to "roll a truck" to the customer, you're probably in a world of hurt. If you can figure out a way to lower the cost of customer support using better design, you will get attention from execs. Find out what customer support is costing them across the board -- returned products, customer retention, phone bank and web site costs -- and show how you can lower those costs with better design. Maybe it's a better help forum, maybe it's a better phone tree, maybe it's better scripts for the CS reps. Sure, making the product better might lower costs in the next release, but that's speculation and not easily measured. Show that good design can cut costs in a well-understood and closely watched area of the business and maybe it will be easier to convince them of how good design can increase profits on the intake side of the business. -- J. E. 'jet' Townsend, IDSA Designer, Fabricator, Hacker design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
