Lou dropped off a loaf of this amazing no-knead bread that’s all the rage among home cooks these days (recipe). It was and continues to be delicious, and as I munched through the crunchy exterior into the large crumb I pondered Lou’s search for a no-knead information architecture. My brain loves reducing complex processes to heuristics to make life simpler, so I’ve been looking for the equivalent for my job: no-knead product design. After chatting with some Overlappers tonight, here’s my first pass:

1. Determine what ingredients make up the competitive advantage of your product/business (e.g. brand, marketing, sales, etc.). The objective here is to keep from trying boiling the ocean with design.
2. Look across the customer lifecycle of your product(s) and find where you can/do have more leverage to improve performance with better design (awareness? conversion? retention?).
3. Research your audience and your competition, focusing on the points having higher leverage
4. In the context of those leverage points, iteratively generate ideas, present your research and sell your design recommendations
5. Design it!