Jared, Here here.
The lack of a clear business model - both cost and revenue components - removes one of the key directions provided by the business to the design team. Without it, we're shooting in the dark, basing our design decisions on altruism or a popularity contest. And it's just as important for us to be able to specifically target and address cost-centric issues as it is revenue-centric ones. We need to be able to speak to both types of design considerations. But it's not always a question of 'quality versus crap' except in the most general terms. Sometimes, its about creating a defensive position to stave off competition rather than delivering some measurably or demonstrably positive result to the business. It's worth reiterating, and reiterating. And then reiterating some more. Steve 2008/9/24 Jared Spool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Interaction design is hard enough to do when the business model is clear. > When the designer knows exactly how making a better design will increase the > value of the company, (thereby increasing the chances they'll get a raise if > they do a good job,) it's still hard to know what to do. > > All one has to do is look to Apple to see how this works. When iTunes 6.0 > came out in January of 2006, they introduced a feature called the > mini-store, which, for all practical purposes, bombed. ( > http://tinyurl.com/4snt6f) > > This past month, in iTunes 8, they reintroduced the same business model, > this time with a different interaction design called the Genius. It looks > like this new design of the old mini-store is going to be a big contributor > to Apple's next year of revenues. (How much? Well, they are now selling more > than 1 billion songs each year. The Genius functionality could easily add > another 20%-30% on top of that.) > > Some model, different design, huge increase in revenues. > > When the business model doesn't match the user experience or (as we've been > "discussing" in the insane-people's-death-match thread, aka "Facebook > Redesign") when nobody seems to understand what the business model is, the > designer can't know if they are helping or hurting the company by creating a > better experience for the user. > > Creating a great experience can be an expensive investment. Unless the > designer can clearly show the value of that investment, they'll be > constantly fighting the forces of reducing costs to increase profitability. > It's always cheaper to produce crap, so if you don't understand how quality > factors into long term profitability, crap is what will win. > > Designers that can't talk to value in the business model also can't explain > why they themselves should be on the payroll. > > This is why understanding the business model is essential to good > interaction design. > > [Sorry if you feel this was an obvious missive, but, from other > conversations on this list, I felt it's something that needed to be said out > loud.] > > Jared > > Jared M. Spool > User Interface Engineering > 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 > e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +1 978 327 5561 > http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks > > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > -- ---------------------------------------------- Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA Principal Consultant Meld Consulting M: +61 417 061 292 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com ________________________________________________________________ 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
