Category: Business Design

Whenever I feel downtrodden and powerless I channel my inner Edna Mode and imagine it’s me, not Elastic Girl, she’s whacking over the head…

Confront the problem!

Fight!

Win!

Why We Fail is available in eBook form at O’Reilly and all the reviewers there gave me 5 stars! Yay!

Paul in Austin writes:

The case studies alone provide an very interesting read to anybody who has some interest in technology in general.

Each case study has been thoroughly researched with plenty of references. The author also provides video clips to help the reader visualize the user experience of the discussed products.

In addition to user interface developers or designers, product managers and architects will also benefit from the methods for avoiding future UX failures described in the second half of the book.

BOTTOM LINE Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

Ken in Hoboken writes:

Too many books focus on success but I feel the best way to learn is by studying failures.

Prior to reading “Why We Fail”, the only other book I read along the same lines was “Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years” by Carroll & Mui.

I am an engineer, not a designer, but I often consult on projects where no UX person is hired, forcing me to assume that role in some fashion. I found this book to provide great insights that I would not have otherwise considered.

For example, as an engineer, I focus on meeting the user requirements, but the case study on the failure of the Microsoft Zune music player (Chapter 5) demonstrates how much more powerful the user experience is over the feature set.

I found it an eye-opening revelation in Chapter 9 that Microsoft’s many expensive failures is due to its practice of sweeping mistakes under the rug and never sharing experiences with their product groups.

Chapter 7’s discussion on ethics is a valuable addition to the material.

I highly recommend this book.

BOTTOM LINE Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

While I was researching my book Why We Fail: Learning from Experience Design Failures I spent some time reading about people’s experience with RealNetworks, particularly the RealPlayer, and wondering if they were worthy of inclusion in the book, particularly the don’t be evil chapter. At that point there was no smoking gun, no hard evidence that Real intentionally did the wrong thing.

But this week a story was published which confirmed my suspicions. It’s called The Graph That Changed Me. Here’s an excerpt:

One day my manager showed me a horrible graph. It was pretty simple: the graph was steady, then it dropped straight down, then after a short period, the line shot straight back up and stayed level again:

Artist’s rendering of why you probably don’t like RealPlayer much
“That’s what happens when we do the right thing”, he said while pointing at the drop, “and that’s how much money we lose. We tried it just to see how bad it was for our bottom line. And this is what the data tells us.”

“Wow,” I said, taken aback. My employer clearly had two options: “do the right thing” or “be profitable”. That was the position they had maneuvered themselves into through a series of bad management decisions.

That “series of bad management decisions” may involve a slippery slope of subtle temptations and minor rationalizations, not one big bad decision to be evil. But having been there I know it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of binary thinking. You can hear it in that story:

two options: “do the right thing” or “be profitable”.

Design thinking is abductive, inventing new options to find new and better solutions to problems. In the universe of all possible businesses, were there more options than just “do the right thing” or “be profitable”? Of course. We just need to be willing to try harder, apply our creativity, and make “do the right thing and be profitable” two constraints of the design problem.

Love this Steve Jobs story:

…Jobs turned around Apple and did it pretty quickly. He did two primary things as far as I can tell. First, he got his people into the top jobs and got rid of the executives who had been calling the shots before he showed up. And second, he brought focus to the product line, and thus everything else.

There’s this great scene in the book where Jobs draws a classic four quadrant chart, consumer and pro on one axis, desktop and laptop on the other. And he says “we are going to make one computer for each quadrant and we are going to kill all of the other product lines”.

This blog has been quiet for so long because I’ve been working on my first book, and it’s finally published. Why We Fail: Learning from Experience Design Failures is about websites and consumer electronics that were successfully launched and hailed as great designs, but failed unexpectedly when people used them, plus my attempt to explain why that happened and what people who make them can do to avoid failing.

John Cassidy penned a powerful piece for the current issue of the New Yorker titled, Mastering the Machine: How Ray Dalio built the world’s richest and strangest hedge fund. Part of Dalio’s success in creating massive financial returns while controlling risk stems from his financial wisdom, but the success of his 1000-person organization that runs their three funds has been attributed to how he’s created a culture of “truth and transparency” which helps them (among other things) avoid and learn from failure.

My summary of the key characteristics as described in the article:

• Discussing issues by citing evidence and experience rather than mere educated guesses
• Expressing opinions in a transparent way, and giving forthright feedback to anyone else in the organization
• Removing the emotional reaction to mistakes so people understand clearly why they happened and can logically discuss how to avoid them next time

And one quote from Dalio:

What we’re trying to have is a place where there are no ego barriers, no emotional reactions to mistakes…. If we could eliminate all those reactions, we’d learn so much faster.

As reported in FT:

“We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership … tough-mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits,” said Mr Immelt, who succeeded Jack Welch, one of the toughest leaders of his generation, at the helm of the US conglomerate. “Rewards became perverted. The richest people made the most mistakes with the least accountability.”

Several executives, especially in financial services, have apologised for their companies’ role in the crisis but Mr Immelt’s remarks went further, linking bad leadership to growing inequality.

“The bottom 25 per cent of the American population is poorer than they were 25 years ago. That is just wrong,” he said. “Ethically, leaders do share a common responsibility to narrow the gap between the weak and the strong.”

Full-text of speech

A few years ago I wrote an essay on “Strategic Delivery Points” to try and show how great product/service design, customer service, and other points where we deliver service to a customer can actually be a strategic advantage. There’s nothing new about this idea, of course, except that the emphasis on this approach is more important now more than ever, and why we read so much about design in the business press. Where before the product design or customer service was the responsibility of a low- or middle-manager, executives are now focusing on it.

Does that sound like hyperbole? Stop rolling your eyes and read this:

Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, admitted that Windows Mobile isn’t losing market share because of sales or marketing or distribution or feature set, but that, “Our experiences aren’t as rich as they need to be.”

This one is better:

“The engagement with our users wasn’t there. One of the things we’re focused on is relentlessly improving the user experience.”
— Owen Van Natta, a former Facebook executive who replaced Chris DeWolfe as chief executive of MySpace six months ago

Interesting — we’ve now got CEO’s talking about the strategic importance of user experience.

So who’s advising them?

“Meanwhile, Nokia’s attempt to match the iPhone, with the N97 launched in June, has failed to impress. Credit Suisse analysts gave the N97 a score of 63 out of a 100, compared with 91 for the iPhone.”

Credit Suisse? Yes, I’m sure they can hire for UX expertise, but when thinking of core competencies is a bank the one you go to for UX expertise? Or even for a quote in the Financial Times?

People, fill this gap.

So we all know that at the heart of creativity lie constraints. And one constraint I love is money.

I thought of this today as I read about a friend’s company who spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on legal fees just for their domain name. Maybe that was money well spent, but from personal experience I know legal fees are one of those line items that is almost always expensive, difficult to predict, and difficult to control once set in motion. For a start-up, this problem can be turned around into a creativity driver to say, “Here’s how much similar companies say they wished they had spent on legal fees. We’re going to stick to that. Let’s figure out how.”

Note that this is different than merely setting a limit on how much to spend. A simple cap could still allow for business-as-usual behavior that doesn’t generate any new solutions: “we did what we usually do until we ran out of money.”

A real design approach would involve experimentation.

With prototypes for solving legal problems.

Working with lawyers.

Measuring the costs of iteration and the opportunity costs.

I haven’t heard about anyone doing this yet; it’s one of those ripe areas for true business design innovation.

There was a New York City IxDA event at Roundarch last night that challenged 10 teams of designers to invent the portable electronic ink magic paper of the future. In addition to the usual functional stuff, fun ideas emerged like using it as a yoga mat, a DDR mat, or modules that could be connected together to make various sizes.

There wasn’t enough time to do a lot of critique of the designs, but it was fascinating to see how each group of 3-4 people self-organized. One group compared their process to speed chess — each person took a short time to iterate on the design and then ‘hit the clock’ passing the baton to the next person. Two groups talked about working together to define the problem and environment, then working independently on separate tasks. One of these groups actually moved apart physically.

The composition of the groups of course was pivotal. One father of a 3-year old was inspired by his son’s toys. A business analyst on another team ensured specific requirements were achieved.

And the methods varied too. Most accepted the advice in the brief to prescribe and describe scenarios, but others just picked a strong theme like “magic” and riffed on this pleasingly, having the device learn your gestures and automatically load images from a camera. It was a great reminder to me that the questions you ask determine the conclusions you reach.

You need a great design to please your customers, and a great business model to pay for the design, so we’re offering classes on both topics to help user experience practitioners, managers, and entrepreneurs thrive in New York City.

For 10% off any class, enter the code NBS when registering. If you plan to attend with friends or colleagues, contact me for a bigger discount: victor (at) smartexperience.org.