Tuesday, July 31, 2007
7 Lessons from the iPhone
One of the things we always use as a guiding principle for creating products is that the user comes first, the technology second. That doesn't mean technology isn't important- it is. It just means that technology in and of itself doesn't mean anything to the user. Technology is only meaningful to the extent that it fulfills an unmet need. This sounds obvious, but the truth is that it can be hard to keep the technology wolves at bay. It's all too easy to succumb to featuritis and throw more and more technology at a problem without ever actually solving it.There's a great post over at poetpainter that looks at this struggle through the lens of the iPhone development process, distilling it down into seven lessons. Check out the slideshow below (RSS readers click here for the slideshow).
Labels: links, product development
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Back from YPulse Mashup
Demetrius and I spent a few days in San Francisco last week attending the 2007 YPulse Mashup. In the words of YPulse founder and organizer Anatasia Goodstein:The 2007 Mashup is produced by Ypulse, the leading independent blog for youth and teen media and marketing professionals and Modern Media, which builds, produces and markets highly-engaging business events for leading media brands and media entrepreneurs.
We had a great time, and learned a lot. The two-day event was divided up into a variety of lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions, all centered on how teens are talking and living online. We don't do a lot of interactive work, but we do work on tons of products for Gen Y consumers, and we figure that we need to have a detailed understanding of their world- and online is definitely a huge part of that.
One of the most interesting pieces was the teen entrepreneurs panel, featuring half a dozen teenagers that founded companies like myYearbook, Emo Girl Talk, and Scriptovia. They offered As I suspected, the teen panelists all said that they use email exclusively for business communication, and use MySpace, Facebook, or texting for personal communication. You can read more details on that at the Yahoo recap of the panel.
Other interesting pieces of the conference included Melanie Strong, US brand manager for Nike iD discussing their online strategy and Nike iD's role within the company's portfolio as a whole; an "Old School to New School" panel featuring representatives from various old-school print empires like Harper Collins and Hearst talking about their transition to online presences; and the keynote the discussion on "convergence culture." It's way too much to summarize here, but if you subscribe to the YPulse podcast, I'm sure there will be some clips up shortly.
Thanks for Anastasia at YPulse for putting together an amazing conference, as well as all the sponsors, panelists, and attendees that made it happen. We hope to be back next year!
Labels: branding, links, marketing
Friday, July 27, 2007
Ted: my kind of airline
I flew through Chicago today on my way home to Cincinnati, and got my first taste of Ted, United's newish spinoff. The verdict? It's a bold, captivating start down the path towards recreating the air travel experience.The branding at the terminal was surprisingly fresh and engaging. I'd seen some of their print and online ads, but hadn't ever actually flown on the airline. First of all, the name "Ted" was a stroke of genius. Like BP's new branding, it puts a more human, accessible, and friendly face on the airline (something the industry as a whole is in dire need of), while still subtlely recalling the United name. Well done. It's all reinforced with nice environmental graphics that say things like "Ted's the name, smiles the game" and "Chicago is Ted's kind of town." The typography is just Helvetica 85 in white over solid yellow backgrounds, but I think that works, given the brand's down-to-earth, approachable, and straightforward character.
A few free-standing signs reminded everybody that "Ted is part of United." At first I thought this was too much, too obvious, but after thinking about it further, I realized that it's a great solution. They need United for the credibility that brand brings to the table, and they need to tie Ted to United somehow. Like the environmental graphics, these signs that simply state the facts are a great way to reinforce the character of the brand: why make it more complex than it needs to be? That kind of transparency is a welcome change of pace.
I'm excited to see some of these huge, old-school companies like BP and United begin to embrace more informal, fun, and accessible branding. The next generation of consumers responds best to this kind of communication. They're tired of stilted, phony, branding and marcom. They're engaged by brands that treat them as peers, with no hype, overstatement, or overt sales pitch. Ted is the beginning of an airline that fits into their world.
Friday, July 13, 2007
How Not to Talk about Design
In design and business, we learn to speak a new language to communicate our ideas. But some of the stuff we say sounds pretty ridiculous when you take a step back and think about it. We've betrayed our high school English teachers in an effort to sound convincing and intelligent. Most importantly, we can run into big problems because of simple mix-ups in communication.With some help from the Kaleidoscope team, I've compiled this list of some of our favorites examples of how not to talk about design.
"I don't disagree with you, but..."
This double-negative is my personal pet peeve - it's bad grammar and incredibly passive-aggressive. Making statements like this sabotages communication in favor of being nonoffensive. This stems from the fact that we designers take our work too personally. To do great design, we should realize that critique is meant to be constructive and not a personal attack.
"As long as it functions well and looks great, our clients should be successful."
Product design is only a small part of a business. When we get caught up in aesthetics, we forget about all the other opportunities for success and failure when it comes time to market, manufacture, and fulfill the product. Styling and functionality are important parts of a product, but not the only things that matter.
"Ideally, we want cats to buy our product. But let's not alienate any dogs."
This is an amusing example, but we're often challenged to design products that appeal to opposing groups of people. Usually, 90% of the market is cats and 10% is dogs. It's hard to let go of those dogs (they're so cute!), but doing it will allow the design to go uncompromised towards giving our cat consumers what's right for them.
All in all, when we get caught up in sounding impressive we sacrifice a lot of what we mean. From now on, I'm committing to clear and concise language. I hope you'll try to do the same.
Labels: design management, product development
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The inward-facing brand
Branding discussions usually focus on brands as they're perceived by consumers, but the truth is that the inward-facing dimension of a brand can be just as important.First, let me define "brand." The best definitions I've come across are from Zag, by Marty Neumeier.
When a brand faces outward, it's...
A person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.
When a brand faces inward, it's...
A strategic filter for questions like “What should we do? What should we make? Who should we make it for? Who should we hire? How should we behave?”
Companies that spend a lot of time, energy, and money on that second dimension of their brand are the ones that ultimately build the strongest brands. Consider two examples:
Apple
John Moore over at Brand Autopsy reports that Apple is giving an iPhone to all their full-time employees. He applauds the move as a brilliant piece example of "marketing to employees":
I am a huge proponent of companies spending marketing money on employees. It's simple. Astonish employees and they will, in turn, astonish customers.Kinko's
While I'd argue that Kinko's brand isn't nearly as strong as it once was, I saw a lot of really effective internal branding efforts when I worked there about 10 years ago. One campaign in particular really stuck with me- in fact, it's my mantra for client relations to this day. The campaign said that the answer to any question from a Kinko's customer is always, "Yes- here's how." It's so simple, but so effective.
Going to a quick printer like Kinko's is oftentimes a frustrating experience. Sometimes it seems like getting the simplest things done there takes forever and means dealing with some jerk behind the counter that fights you every step of the way (recall the Chapelle Show sketch).
Printing is a pretty technical field with a lot of considerations, and customers often ask for things that aren't practical, but nobody likes to hear "no." That's why "Yes- here's how" was such a great piece of internal branding. Need business cards tomorrow? We can do that, here's how. Want 1000 color copies in two hours? I can make that happen, here's how. The "here's how" part usually means making some kind of compromise (like rush fees or using a pre-defined business card template rather than designing something from scratch), but that's fine- the ball is in the customer's court. If the customer decides against it, they're the one saying "no." You're an enabler, rather than the jerk in the Chapelle Show sketch.
Branding is a leadership challenge
Making a new identity, slogan, website, or other piece of consumer-facing branding isn't that hard. I'm not saying it's easy, but we know how to do it. The really hard part is getting everybody inside the organization to believe in it, to internalize it, and in turn evangelize it to the consumer.
Labels: branding, design management
