And, to add my bit to the topic, I've spent a few years teasing out
some of these issues within the context of an industrial tools
manufacturer. Some of my initial musings that can be made public can
be viewed at:
http://www.chifoo.org/index.php/resources/resources_archive_complete/C7/
The
Ah yes, strategy. :)
At my company there are no Project Managers (insane, right?!) so we
IxDers are tasked with inital Project Management (ie. strategy).
Ignoring that whole can of worms, I think IxD can serve as the
initial strategists for a project and probably shoud, by definition.
Where the
Enjoyable reading and bookmarked!
From Andrew Otwell -
Finally and perhaps most importantly: what does a strategy look
like? Is it a diagram? A narrative document? A phrase that the CEO
repeats at every chance? A spreadsheet of numbers?
From mark schraad:
Years later, it is often hard to
And some related pieces to my previous post -
* The Experience Vision -
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/05/31/the-experience-vision/
* SpoolCast: Product Evolution with Adaptive Path%u2019s Peter
Merholz -
I am enjoying the perspectives shared in this thread. My previous post was
about multi-channel strategy and interaction design. There appears to be an
appetite for describing business unit strategy more broadly, so I thought
I'd wade in again.
I worked for many years at one of the world
On Jan 6, 2009, at 7:18 AM, Christina Wodtke wrote:
... you could even simplify that to Strategy is the plan for how to
On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Peter Merholz pete...@peterme.com wrote:
I'm wary of reducing strategy to just the plan, because, as we all know,
plans often (usually?) need
I think of strategy as the way to create a long-term advantage.
For a football team, it might be to tire a big and slow defense.
For an product company, it might be to differentiate itself in a
commodity market by offering high margin products. (Apple)
For a social software company, it might
Strategy is like the word design. That's a problem we should all be familiar
with. ;)
There does seem to be value in emphasizing a capital S Strategy, which is
what we are all referring to quite naturally, but not forgetting the small s
strategy which is the heart of it having value or not. It
I'm going to be overly simplistic for the moment b/c people are
getting very heady (even for me). As a designer I think of strategy
in two different ways.
1. Why? - The strategy conveys the why. Which in my mind relates to
all goals for the project.
2. Vision - Strategic planning in the design
Christina,
At the risk of pushing the off-topic thing too far, I read Atul Gawande's
Complications a couple of years ago and it was indeed excellent but I confess
to being surprised that it might have been highly relevant to design (or rather
that I missed that ;-)).
Would you mind
it's really pretty simple... its your plan, your methods and approach
to achieving the design goal. it can be as detailed or all
encompassing as you like.
if your design strategy is a layer below and dependent upon the biz
strategy, then cool. that's pretty normal. in fact... that is why I
Some of my thoughts on Strategy, which takes up about 40% of this designer's
time.
http://blog.semanticfoundry.com/expertise/strategic-design/
http://blog.semanticfoundry.com/category/strategy/
~ will
Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems
Peterme makes some excellent points worth considering about the nature of
strategy. Strategy happens over and over again, at multiple points in the
work of a comapny. You have a company strategy, a business strategy, a
product strategy and a design strategy. As Barbara said Strategy is the
plan
My gut response is: You need to know how to learn what you don't
know, and then use that information to make something that sells
enough to at least pay your stockholders.
That may be (really) overly simplistic and I haven't participated in
strategy before, but I think the details depend on your
Freehttp://scpd.stanford.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=loadcourseId=1284914
On Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:52 AM, allison alliwalk1...@yahoo.com wrote:
My gut response is: You need to know how to learn what you don't
know, and then use that information to make something that sells
On Jan 6, 2009, at 7:18 AM, Christina Wodtke wrote:
... you could even simplify that to Strategy is the
plan for how to
I'm wary of reducing strategy to just the plan, because, as we all
know, plans often (usually?) need to be changed once you start acting.
That's why philosophy and
Christina, great point on tactics.
I recently gave a presentation for an organization with a colleague
and we split the talk up into two sections strategy and tactics. It
was a natural approach. More and more in my work I am making the
distinction. Let's talk about strategic direction and
For me, this brings to mind a question I was asked once in an
interview. 'Have you ever recommended a non-software/computer solution
to a customer's problem?' This was asked with the knowledge that I
worked for a software development firm. Typically, by the time I am
involved in a project,
1 sentence for a strategy?
I wrote a draft of the strategy document for IxDA new community
platform and it was 6 pages. It starts with the context, moves quickly
through the value and purpose of the organization and then breaks the
strategy into 3 major themes with objectives, goals,
[note: I'm looking at this as someone who's done a fair amount of
engineering/project integration across disciplines, not as a designer.
So maybe strategic means something very different for me. If that's
true, it does for lots of other people outside the design field, and it
will have to be
For me the IxD strategy portion is about creating the narrative that
is the framework around the interactions and interfaces we design.
In the end interaction designers are the story tellers and the
interface and industrial designers are the production artists of the
theater that is the user
I have a section in my 2nd edition on what you need to know about business
needs and your business model, and how that affects your choices. I agree
that it is increasingly important (especially in our current economic
climate) for designers to understand their role in the business.
the long and
On Jan 5, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Barbara Ballard wrote:
Really, I think of design as tactics employed in product strategy. It
seems like execution to me, though that's certainly arguable.
This is exactly the mind set that I have spent the last 10 - 15 years
trying to correct, or at least
My thoughts are very much along the same lines as Fred's.
Business Strategy and Design Strategy are two very different beasts.
In my corporate experience business strategy leads and is part of the
RFP, pitch-creation, pitch process and rarely involves a UX
professional.
Design strategy happens
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:50 PM, mark schraad mschr...@gmail.com wrote:
Really, I think of design as tactics employed in product strategy. It
seems like execution to me, though that's certainly arguable.
This is exactly the mind set that I have spent the last 10 - 15 years trying
to correct,
a heuristic is a short sentence that represents a larger body of experience.
same for strategy-- your six pages should be summerizable to everyone
working on the IxDA can quickly make choices that pushes the IxDA in the
right direction. They can't carry six pages around in their heads.
How about,
I really dislike 10 word summaries of complex issues. Its most often
a disservice and inaccurate.
Abstracts work really well when done right (but rarely are outside of
academia). Keywords and subject headers can help... but If it is
important to you... take the time.
Mark
On Jan 5,
Of course, when you're really digging into a complex problem, it's a danger
to minimize it to an acronym.
But if you don't have a pithy, sexy, or scary meme-scale version that people
can *instantly* recall during prioritization sessions or scribble on a
postit, you run the risk of getting lost
Wilken's Law:
The effectiveness of research is inversely proportional to the
thickness of its binding.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36819
Wilken's Law:
The effectiveness of research is inversely proportional to the
thickness of its binding.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, Gladwell's book Blink even backs up this
idea.
Back to the topic now ...
-r-
Welcome to
Is 'The Tipping Point' as good as 'Blink'?
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Robert Hoekman Jr rob...@rhjr.net wrote:
Wilken's Law:
The effectiveness of research is inversely proportional to the
thickness of its binding.
I couldn't agree more. In fact, Gladwell's book Blink even backs
For me, strategy is inextricably related to leadership (or being a
design visionary commanding a design strategy).
So then the question might really be: what are the leadership
qualities needed to a) properly envision a compelling, valuable,
integrative design concept and b) enable its fruition
Some-time lurker, first-time poster. Haven't commented before because I'm
not a UX professional. But with 15 years of strategy experience consulting
to large and small companies and as entrepreneur, I'll wade in here. My
apologies for botching any protocols and being long-winded.
Chad, perhaps
Those are some of the best strategy questions I've ever heard. We tend to
work from product idea on, not from strategy. I do think at least a vague
understanding of strategy is important for designers. The problem of course,
is that strategy is such a wide encompassing topic.
In the same vain, I
on
this (for instance, how to charge).
Cheers,
Natasha
-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Dan
Saffer
Sent: Monday, 5 January 2009 5:44 AM
To: IXDA list
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Strategic Interaction
Nothing wrong with metaphors, Dave. In fact, I think we should be using
more of them to communicate ideas. :)
Cheers,
Jeff
David Malouf wrote:
For me the IxD strategy portion is about creating the narrative that
is the framework around the interactions and interfaces we design.
In the end
it's the same problem with Heuristics-- if you ONLY get the short version,
it is meaningless and doesn't stick. But if it is a shortcut to the longer
version, which has at least been shared if not (preferably) co-created with
a larger team, than it is invaluable.
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:25 PM,
Peter,
You make a good point in that understanding the business goals are
important, but not all businesses are in the short term in it to make money.
Some, like Flickr and delicious built up valuable business intelligence that
led Yahoo to acquire them. If you don't live in the valley, you may
Yes. Outliers is good also. If you love these, try Better and
Complications by Gladwell's pal Atul Gawnde. HIGHLY relevant to design,
despite being about medicine.
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 4:05 PM, Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.comwrote:
Is 'The Tipping Point' as good as 'Blink'?
On Mon,
I will chime in and say that Andrew Otwell's comments are probably the
most appropriate for the 2nd Ed of D4I, given the primer-like nature
of the book.
I think it might be harmful to equate strategy with business as
many are doing here. I think the magic of D4I is approaching IxD in
an
Better and Complications sound like this book I read along time
ago:Conversation
With Neil's
Brainhttp://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Neils-Brain-Thought-Language/dp/0201483378
I agree, totally goes hand in hand with design.
I think Outliers strikes my attention most.
This thread kind of makes
I am enjoying this thread a great deal. Thanks to Dan for starting it! I
look forward to seeing what you come up with on this topic in your new
edition.
Some background: I do strategic UX consulting for clients who create (often
complicated) applications for thinking work (e.g. a scientific
On Jan 5, 2009, at 8:54 PM, Jacob Burghardt wrote:
I am enjoying this thread a great deal. Thanks to Dan for starting
it! I
look forward to seeing what you come up with on this topic in your new
edition.
I'm going to cut and paste this thread into the book and be done with
it. ;)
Dan
I'm starting a revision of my book Designing for Interaction.
http://www.designingforinteraction.com
In the second edition, I'd like to include a chapter on Strategy, that
is: how to decide WHAT should be designed and WHY.
So when I ask, what should interaction designers know about
Like most answers here and in other places, it depends. Is this
strategy for a project or a business?
It depends on who is responsible for strategy in both your company
and at the client's. Is it just you, someone else or a team?
What's the situation on the client's side? Is it the person
If you really want to do good, you should make the chapter about how
to educate the people you work with in charge of business strategy
about IxD and why it is important for a product. And what parts of a
product should get focus.
Whomever is already doing business strategy would be best equipped
The extensive discussion that I, Luke Wroblewski, Bob Baxley, and Dirk
Knemeyer had on Design Vision back in 2006 covers a lot of our
career-long observations, lessons, and experiences on the subject of
Design Vision and the need for strategic leadership by designers:
You can get the whole
Hi Dan,
When I think of strategy as applied to IxD, I think about how behavior
will affect the overall experience. Also, what is the strategic
purpose of the conversation. Is it singular, a one time thing or is it
(or can be) perpetual. I was just talking with someone about their
online
Dan,
I respond%u2026 Do you mean what should Interaction Designers know
about Strategy as a practice or about the strategy of the project
they're working on?
If it%u2019s big %u201CS%u201D Strategy I believe Interaction
Designers should have at least a firm grasp of what%u2019s going on
with
On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Neil Cadsawan n...@cadsawan.net wrote:
Like most answers here and in other places, it depends. Is this
strategy for a project or a business?
I think Neil's differentiation here is a very important one to make and I'd
like to elaborate on it a little. It is
You did not specify you application of the word strategy... but I use
four basic frameworks for design strategies. They are as follows...
a) filling the order.
This is almost a non-strategy, but it really has to be mentioned as
the lower common denominator. The scenario is: the client or
So when I ask, what should interaction designers know about strategy?
You respond...
The other answers seemed to focus on strategy for a design firm (how do we
get and retain more and better clients) or strategy for selling design to
clients (how do we convince clients to value our services
Awesome thread everyone. We should talk about this more often.
Dan
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
Interaction designers need to know the basics - that strategy can (and
should) provide a framework for whatever you are designing. When
defined early and inclusively, it is a tool for aligning teams, a
touchstone for evaluating solutions and provides a benchmark for
defining success.
More
Dan,
In addition to the excellent responses you've already received from Mark,
Tania, Andrew, Fred and others, I would include the need to understand the
concepts of differentiation and positioning (in a business sense) and the
ways in which interaction design can contribute to corporate (or
55 matches
Mail list logo
