Bill Buxton on the left in the photograph has published his book "Sketching User Experiences; getting the design right and the right design."
I was fortunate enough to read a draft and was very uncritical of its content because I really connected with the message.. A great deal of work has gone into since that draft and I am delighted to have the published work in my hands. There is a really thought provoking Case Study entitled "Apple, Design and Business" which is an erudite exposition of the interaction of Design (Culture), Technology and Business that went on across Apple's portfolio of product's and a more detailed examination of the iPod's success itself.
Bill has done an excellent job of visualising the Apple share price and the introduction of the various iPods (and elswhere the in the book same for other MAC innovations). Bill draws 14+ very interesting observations that are worth highlighting so I am repeating them here (you can read Bill's expansion of the points in the book):
1. It took three years for the iPod to become an "overnight success."
2. The iPod was not the first product in this space.
3. Apple was its own competitor.
4. Apple has arguably the best-designed product but that is relative.
5. Style and fashion are really important.
6. It took four generations of the basic iPod before it tipped.
7. The success of the iPod depended on a much larger ecosystem.
8. Jobs turned the Gillette model on its head.
9. Growth in revenue does not keep pace with growth in sales.
10. There was some (a lot?) of luck involved in Apple's success.
12. Le bon Dieu ast dans le détail (Gustave Flaubert)/God is in the details (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).
13. Holistic design not only requires an ecosystem, it feeds one.
14. From the design and management perspective, the iPod is a different class of product than the iMac.
He concludes by stating
"I am being generous here, largely because it is hard to argue withthe iPod's success. However I believe that some of the design flaws in the device's user interface could- and likely would- have been caught if the user interface's designers had been involved earlier in the project.
Regardless of any shortcomings, it is clear that the iPod was an ovewelming business success. Less obvious, but perhaps more important is the following observation:
I am hard pressed to think of one part of Apple that wasn't critical to the success of the iPod.
The company had to be firing on all cylinders, with all the parts going in more or less the same direction. Sure there are some superstars among the protagonists. But despite that, and in keeping with the theme that runs throughout this book:
Everyone is essential, but no one person or group is sufficient on his or her own."
So go and read the book... in the meantime consider this:
I spent 15 years worrying (with others) about how to deliver excellent packaging that reflected and enhanced the product it contained. In other words packaging is from the point of view of the person who may buy, the most tangible manifestation of the total product.
My packaging boss once commented that "there is no person in the whole of this company that, sitting in their office, would question whether you should have knocked and entered the office. They would merely wonder why you had come and what contribution you needed."
If we reflect on this we can see that a packaging system has to be designed for the consumer, manufacture, competitiveness and sustainability. But it is the total package that determines the success or otherwise of each new product, or service. The total package covers both the functional and emotional needs of the consumer throughout their contact with the product (the consumer experience) and covers the communication, technologies and packaging system.. which describes most products (and services). The Design Pyramid allows us to "play" with these factors in a hierarchy of needs based on Maslow and so determine the relative importance of affordances we may be proposing to build into the product. How these affect the operation of the multi-functional, cross-organisational activities of the companies, departments and people that are creating the new "package" leads to the mantra:
"Together we are better."
The tools and processes that I am describing in these blogs come from the lessons I have learned on a journey through many innovation projects spanning a number of industries. These lessons support Bill's 14 points, but especially 13. which is about holistic design... the very reason I led the development of Design@The_Edge tools and processes.
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