On Mar 13, 2008, at 3:07 AM, Lada Gorlenko wrote: > ...I reckon that many big companies would have at least several > weeks -- if not several months -- of design cycle on most major > projects.
I work with a lot of Fortune 100 companies consulting on projects and I would suspect that companies that are interested in bringing in groups like ours are more enlightened, or at least giving lip services to the power of design. My experience is quite contrary to this assumption. More often than not, we're fighting for ANY dedicated design time. Our belief has changed about the greatest value we bring to a company - our biggest value is getting groups to slow down, be thoughtful and gain a shared vision for a product. When we are assigned to projects, we often hear some variance of "We need to hit the ground running." Our question to them is, "Which direction." > Of course, there are always exceptions (even Microsoft did > Zune_v1 in 11 months from scratch to shipping), but I doubt they are > the > dominant case. > In my experience, this is the rule, not the exception. > HOW the final concept is selected is much more > interesting. You can't recreate success by recreating a process. There > is a little devil in the selection criteria, too -- and that is what > Apple is not going to tell us. Again, I disagree. The right solution is pretty simple once the success criteria is set and developed as a mantra. If the group takes the time to define the success criteria and define exactly what they want, they know it when they see it. The first and most visual example that comes to mind is Hawkins at Palm carrying around a block of wood, when the good idea fairies fluttered about telling him what the Palm needed to be successful, he'd pull out his block of wood and asked, "Where does that fit on here." He defined what would make a successful product and stuck to his guns. That takes discipline. Discipline that I don't see in most organizations. > > > If you are in a design shop or a small software company, things can be > very different, I agree. But it's a different story altogether and it > would be unfair and impractical to compare work practices of small and > large companies or in-house design and consulting. > Why? > >> We've speculated about Apple's design process in the past. >> This is the most information they've proffered. > > That's a good point. It's about secrecy, not the process itself. Apple > is brilliant at their marketing strategies. Keep things secret and it > will heat up curiosity and anticipation. Of course, when a > fingernail of > the precious design body is revealed, it makes a Big Bang! I would say that, until lately, Microsoft has been a much better marketing company than Apple. The free buzz that Apple gets from its secrecy is an artifact of good design. > > > By all means, I have always been an advocate of shared knowledge and > discussions on how different teams succeed. It's just once again > slightly annoying that everything Apple does triggers that default "my > God has spoken, I am enlightened" behaviour. Look at the details of > the > God's gospel; they are new because we didn't know them about Apple, > not > because we didn't know the process as such. I suspect most on this list could name a number of companies they'd be interested to hear more about their process. It would all come down to the person believing the company has show an ability to release consistently good products. Your previous post was partially correct, the assertion that were the name changed and this article wasn't about Apple, that folks wouldn't be interested. If, say, Phillips released the same article, I'd be interested (GE, Toyota, Google, Patagonia, etc.) Let's say Buick released the same article, you're right, I wouldn't have wasted my time reading it. I guess my question is, why is that a bad thing? ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
