Design of Everyday Things Excerpt - Chapter 7 DESIGN IN THE WORLD OF BUSINESS
(with reference to: https://gist.github.com/wataruoguchi/a2ea31084745dd6525cd80f09ceb9611)
the impact of competitive forces drive the introduction of extra features, often to excess: the cause of the disease dubbed “featuritis,” whose major symptom is “creeping featurism.”
the two forms of product innovation relevant to design: incremental (less glamorous, but most common) and radical (most glamorous, but rarely successful).
The design of technology to fit human needs and capabilities is determined by the psychology of people. Yes, technologies may change, but people stay the same.
Competitive Forces
Zeitgeist - a German word meaning “spirit of the time.” In other words, the time was ripe, the ideas were “in the air.” The competition emerged when time is right for all competing companies to deliver similar products or features.
FEATURITIS: A DEADLY TEMPTATION
In every successful product there lurks the carrier of an insidious disease called “featuritis,” with its main symptom being “creeping featurism.”
The problem is that after the product has been available for a while, a number of factors inevitably appear, pushing the company toward the addition of new features—toward creeping featurism. These factors include:
• Existing customers like the product, but express a wish for more features, more functions, more capability.
• A competing company adds new features to its products, producing competitive pressures to match that offering, but to do even more in order to get ahead of the competition.
• Customers are satisfied, but sales are declining because the market is saturated: everyone who wants the product already has it. Time to add wonderful enhancements that will cause people to want the new model, to upgrade.
Featuritis is highly infectious. You can see that tension playing out in music players - Portable devices get smaller and smaller with each release, despite the addition of more and more features (making them ever more difficult to operate). Some products, such as automobiles, home refrigerators, television sets, and kitchen stoves, also increase in complexity with each release, getting larger and more powerful.
Featuritis is an insidious disease, difficult to eradicate, impossible to vaccinate against. It is easy for marketing pressures to insist upon the addition of new features, but there is no call—or for that matter, budget—to get rid of old, unneeded ones.
Creeping featurism is the tendency to add to the number of features of a product, often extending the number beyond all reason. There is no way that a product can remain usable and understandable by the time it has all of those special-purpose features that have been added in over time.
In her book Different, Harvard professor Youngme Moon argues that it is this attempt to match the competition that causes all products to be the same. After all, products from two companies match feature by feature. This is competition-driven design. Even if the first versions of a product are well done, human-centered, and focused upon real needs, it is the rare organization that is content to let a good product stay untouched.
Most companies compare features with their competition to determine where they are weak, so they can strengthen those areas. A better strategy is to concentrate on areas where they are stronger and to strengthen them even more. . As for the weaknesses, ignore the irrelevant ones, says Moon. If the product has real strengths, it can afford to just be “good enough” in the other areas.
Good design requires stepping back from competitive pressures and ensuring that the entire product be consistent, coherent, and understandable. The best products come from ignoring these competing voices and instead focusing on the true needs of the people who use the product.
The focus is on simple, customer-driven questions: what do the customers want; how can their needs best be satisfied; what can be done better to enhance customer service and customer value? Many companies follow the traditional MBA dictum of putting profit above customer concerns.
the impact of competitive forces drive the introduction of extra features, often to excess: the cause of the disease dubbed “featuritis,” whose major symptom is “creeping featurism.”
the two forms of product innovation relevant to design: incremental (less glamorous, but most common) and radical (most glamorous, but rarely successful).
The design of technology to fit human needs and capabilities is determined by the psychology of people. Yes, technologies may change, but people stay the same.
Competitive Forces
Zeitgeist - a German word meaning “spirit of the time.” In other words, the time was ripe, the ideas were “in the air.” The competition emerged when time is right for all competing companies to deliver similar products or features.
FEATURITIS: A DEADLY TEMPTATION
In every successful product there lurks the carrier of an insidious disease called “featuritis,” with its main symptom being “creeping featurism.”
The problem is that after the product has been available for a while, a number of factors inevitably appear, pushing the company toward the addition of new features—toward creeping featurism. These factors include:
• Existing customers like the product, but express a wish for more features, more functions, more capability.
• A competing company adds new features to its products, producing competitive pressures to match that offering, but to do even more in order to get ahead of the competition.
• Customers are satisfied, but sales are declining because the market is saturated: everyone who wants the product already has it. Time to add wonderful enhancements that will cause people to want the new model, to upgrade.
Featuritis is highly infectious. You can see that tension playing out in music players - Portable devices get smaller and smaller with each release, despite the addition of more and more features (making them ever more difficult to operate). Some products, such as automobiles, home refrigerators, television sets, and kitchen stoves, also increase in complexity with each release, getting larger and more powerful.
Featuritis is an insidious disease, difficult to eradicate, impossible to vaccinate against. It is easy for marketing pressures to insist upon the addition of new features, but there is no call—or for that matter, budget—to get rid of old, unneeded ones.
Creeping featurism is the tendency to add to the number of features of a product, often extending the number beyond all reason. There is no way that a product can remain usable and understandable by the time it has all of those special-purpose features that have been added in over time.
In her book Different, Harvard professor Youngme Moon argues that it is this attempt to match the competition that causes all products to be the same. After all, products from two companies match feature by feature. This is competition-driven design. Even if the first versions of a product are well done, human-centered, and focused upon real needs, it is the rare organization that is content to let a good product stay untouched.
Most companies compare features with their competition to determine where they are weak, so they can strengthen those areas. A better strategy is to concentrate on areas where they are stronger and to strengthen them even more. . As for the weaknesses, ignore the irrelevant ones, says Moon. If the product has real strengths, it can afford to just be “good enough” in the other areas.
Good design requires stepping back from competitive pressures and ensuring that the entire product be consistent, coherent, and understandable. The best products come from ignoring these competing voices and instead focusing on the true needs of the people who use the product.
The focus is on simple, customer-driven questions: what do the customers want; how can their needs best be satisfied; what can be done better to enhance customer service and customer value? Many companies follow the traditional MBA dictum of putting profit above customer concerns.
New Technologies Force Change
Technology is a powerful driver for change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Sometimes to fulfill important needs, and sometimes simply because the technology makes the change possible.
Technology changes the way we do things, but fundamental
needs remain unchanged. Over time,
the ways by which we interact and communicate change with technology. But because the fundamental psychology of human beings
will remain unchanged, the design rules in this book will still apply.
How Long Does It Take
to Introduce a New Product?
Technology changes rapidly, but people and culture change
slowly. Change is, therefore, simultaneously rapid and slow. It can
take months to go from invention to product, but then decades—
sometimes many decades—for the product to get accepted.
Much of daily life is dictated by conventions that are centuries old, that no longer make
any sense. Even our most modern technologies follow this time cycle: fast
to be invented, slow to be accepted, even slower to fade away and
die.
There is another problem: the general conservatism of large companies.
Stigler’s law: the names of famous people often get attached to
ideas even though they had nothing to do with them. The world of product design offers many examples of Stigler’s
law. Products are thought to be the invention of the company that
most successfully capitalized upon the idea, not the company that
originated it.
Old technologies become legacy, then new designs based on new technology need to provide backward compatibility. Tradition and custom coupled with the large number
of people already used to an existing scheme makes change difficult or even impossible. This is the legacy problem once again: the
heavy momentum of legacy inhibits change.
Once a standard is in place, the
vested interests of existing practices impede change, even where
the change would be an improvement. Dvorak keyboard
layout is indeed superior to that of QWERTY, but not to the extent
claimed. Studies in my laboratory showed that the typing speed on
a QWERTY was only slightly slower than on a Dvorak, not different enough to make upsetting the legacy worthwhile. Moreover, in the case of
QWERTY versus Dvorak, the gain is simply not worth the pain.
“Good enough” triumphs again.
Two Forms of Innovation:
Incremental and Radical
People tend to think of innovation as being radical, major changes, whereas the most common
and powerful form of it is actually small and incremental. Although each step of incremental evolution is modest, continual slow, steady improvements can result in rather significant
changes over time.
Being first
does not guarantee success. (First Mover advantage?)
INCREMENTAL INNOVATION
Most design evolves through incremental innovation by means of continual testing and refinement. In the ideal case, the design is tested, problem areas are discovered and modified, and then the product is continually retested and remodified.
Pitfalls? The technical term for this process is hill climbing, analogous to climbing a hill blindfolded. This method is the secret to incremental innovation. This is at the heart of the human-centered design process discussed in Chapter 6. Does hill climbing always work? Although it guarantees that the design will reach the top of the hill, what if the design is not on the best possible hill? Hill climbing cannot find higher hills: it can only find the peak of the hill it started from. Want to try a different hill? Try radical innovation, although that is as likely to find a worse hill as a better one.
RADICAL INNOVATION
Radical innovation starts fresh, often driven by new technologies that make possible new capabilities. A second factor is the reconsideration of the meaning of technology. This redefinition can collapse together many industries. many people seek Radical innovation, but most radical ideas fail, and even those that succeed can take decades or centuries to succeed.
AS TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE WILL PEOPLE STAY THE SAME?
People might become cyborgs: part biology, part artificial technology. All of these changes raise considerable ethical issues. The longheld view that even as technology changes, people remain the same may no longer hold.
THINGS THAT MAKE US SMART
One argument is that technology makes us smart: we remember far more than ever before and our cognitive abilities are much enhanced. the instant the technology goes away, we are left helpless, unable to do any basic functions. We are now so dependent upon technology that when we are deprived, we suffer. We have become dependent upon our technologies to navigate the world, to hold intelligent conversation, to write intelligently, and to remember.
Does the fact that I can no longer remember my own phone number indicate my growing feebleness? No, on the contrary, it unleashes the mind from the petty tyranny of tending to the trivial and allows it to concentrate on the important and the critical. Another argument is that technology makes us stupid. No. Technology changes the task we do. Human plus machine is more powerful than either human or machine alone. "have people and technology work together in new ways to create value." (Brynjolfsson, 2012.) The real powers come from devising external aids that enhance cognitive abilities. Some assistance complements abilities and strengthens mental powers.
The Moral Obligations of Design
Design has reflected the capitalistic importance of the marketplace, with an emphasis on exterior features deemed to be attractive to the purchaser. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.
NEEDLESS FEATURES, NEEDLESS MODELS: GOOD FOR BUSINESS, BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Design Thinking and Thinking About Design
INCREMENTAL INNOVATION
Most design evolves through incremental innovation by means of continual testing and refinement. In the ideal case, the design is tested, problem areas are discovered and modified, and then the product is continually retested and remodified.
Pitfalls? The technical term for this process is hill climbing, analogous to climbing a hill blindfolded. This method is the secret to incremental innovation. This is at the heart of the human-centered design process discussed in Chapter 6. Does hill climbing always work? Although it guarantees that the design will reach the top of the hill, what if the design is not on the best possible hill? Hill climbing cannot find higher hills: it can only find the peak of the hill it started from. Want to try a different hill? Try radical innovation, although that is as likely to find a worse hill as a better one.
RADICAL INNOVATION
Radical innovation starts fresh, often driven by new technologies that make possible new capabilities. A second factor is the reconsideration of the meaning of technology. This redefinition can collapse together many industries. many people seek Radical innovation, but most radical ideas fail, and even those that succeed can take decades or centuries to succeed.
AS TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE WILL PEOPLE STAY THE SAME?
People might become cyborgs: part biology, part artificial technology. All of these changes raise considerable ethical issues. The longheld view that even as technology changes, people remain the same may no longer hold.
THINGS THAT MAKE US SMART
One argument is that technology makes us smart: we remember far more than ever before and our cognitive abilities are much enhanced. the instant the technology goes away, we are left helpless, unable to do any basic functions. We are now so dependent upon technology that when we are deprived, we suffer. We have become dependent upon our technologies to navigate the world, to hold intelligent conversation, to write intelligently, and to remember.
Does the fact that I can no longer remember my own phone number indicate my growing feebleness? No, on the contrary, it unleashes the mind from the petty tyranny of tending to the trivial and allows it to concentrate on the important and the critical. Another argument is that technology makes us stupid. No. Technology changes the task we do. Human plus machine is more powerful than either human or machine alone. "have people and technology work together in new ways to create value." (Brynjolfsson, 2012.) The real powers come from devising external aids that enhance cognitive abilities. Some assistance complements abilities and strengthens mental powers.
The Moral Obligations of Design
Design has reflected the capitalistic importance of the marketplace, with an emphasis on exterior features deemed to be attractive to the purchaser. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.
NEEDLESS FEATURES, NEEDLESS MODELS: GOOD FOR BUSINESS, BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
- Planned Obsolete? Consumerism? Out-of-date features entice people to change. Do we really need new products to replace old ones? What's the environmental cost for new products?
- Another model for sustainability is the subscription model.
- The design of everyday things is in great danger of becoming the design of superfluous, overloaded, unnecessary things.
Design Thinking and Thinking About Design
- Designers need to make things that satisfy people’s needs, in terms of function, in terms of being understandable and usable, and in terms of their ability to deliver emotional satisfaction, pride, and delight. In other words, the design must be thought of as a total experience.
- In today’s environmentally sensitive world, the full life cycle of the product must be taken into consideration. What are the environmental costs of the materials, of the manufacturing process, of distribution, servicing, and repairs? When it is time to replace the unit, what is the environmental impact of recycling or otherwise reusing the old?
- Design consists of a series of wonderful, exciting challenges, with each challenge being an opportunity. Like all great drama, it has its emotional highs and lows, peaks and valleys. The great products overcome the lows and end up high.
- Realize that even details matter, that the designer may have had to fight to include something helpful. If you have difficulties, remember, it’s not your fault: it’s bad design.
THE RISE OF THE SMALL
- the power of individuals, whether alone or in small groups, can unleash their creative spirits, their imagination, and their talents to develop a wide range of innovation.
- individuals can share their ideas, their thoughts and dreams. They can produce their own products, their own services, and make these available to anyone in the world.
- What drives this dream? The rise of small, efficient tools that empower individuals.
- Add to these capabilities the ready availability of inexpensive motors, sensors, computation, and communication. Example: 3-D printers - Designers will publish their ideas and plans, enabling entire new industries of custom mass production.
- I dream of a renaissance of talent, where people are empowered to create, to use their skills and talents.
- with the rise of the small, with new, flexible, inexpensive technologies, anyone in the world can create, design, and manufacture.
- With the rise of global interconnection, global communication, powerful design, and manufacturing methods that can be used by all, the world is rapidly changing. Design is a powerful equalizing tool: all that is needed is observation, creativity, and hard work—anyone can do it. With open-source software, inexpensive open-source 3-D printers, and even open-source education, we can transform the world.
AS THE WORLD CHANGES,
WHAT STAYS THE SAME?
With massive change, a number of fundamental principles stay
the same.
- Human beings have always been social beings. Social interaction and the ability to keep in touch with people across the world, across time, will stay with us.
- The design principles of this book will not change, for the principles
- of discoverability,
- of feedback, and
- of the power of affordances and
- signifiers,
- mapping, and
- conceptual models will always hold.
- Even fully autonomous, automatic machines will follow these principles for their interactions. Our technologies may change, but the fundamental principles of interaction are permanent.
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