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:
- 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.
- 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?).
- Research your audience and your competition, focusing on the points having higher leverage
- In the context of those leverage points, iteratively generate ideas, present your research and sell your design recommendations
- Design it!