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 not realize that the yahoo _search_ group bought both to get insight into how they were solving retrieval problems. Flickr went on to be the biggest online photo sharing site, the jury is still out on if Delicious is a "success" or not in traditional terms.
Business value can be garnered in a variety of ways (usually always ending up in money.) Good user base, UGC created, rich demographics, lots of users. Montezation will come, but sometimes doing it too early can kill a good product. You may disagree with these points of view, but this is a critical aspect of strategy,a nd one designers MUST understand to be effective. What is your business tryign to accomplish? Are they growing thier user base? Are they driving paid subscribtions? Do they need page views? This *directly* affects design decisions. if you live an die by page views neato ajax interfaces that never reload may kill your company and then you are out on the street. Everyone is there to move the needle, and that means YOU, design boy. On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Peter Van Dijck <[email protected]>wrote: > 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 do think designers should also understand at least the > basic of business. That is, making money. > > Peter > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:20 PM, Andrew Otwell <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > 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 more?") I > don't > > think that's what Dan's asking for here, and IMO those topics don't > belong > > in an introductory primer to IxD. Those are also topics that have been > > covered in depth by the consulting industry in general. > > > > Here are some things I've either always wondered about, or learned about > > only through osmosis or just asking a lot of dumb questions: > > > > - How is it that a great idea for a product or service might not be > > appropriate for a company at a certain point, or at all? Or, how does > > strategy think about complementary products or ideas? > > - How are competitors analyzed? What characteristics of competition > might > > suggest a product or service would be successful, or fail? > > - How are markets determined? When is it best to be a first-mover vs. > > fast follower vs. "best of breed"? > > - What does pricing have to do with all of this? Pricing is a serious > > black art (some might say "shot in the dark"), but when does free vs. > > cheap > > vs. expensive matter, and what are the advantages of each? > > - How are ideas and innovations worked into an overall strategy? Often > > "strategy" seems to mean "we have a great idea for Widget 2.0", but how > > does > > strategy affect the less-tangible process of innovation and development > > inside a company? How is the sausage made? > > - 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? None of these? Most of the > time, > > when you ask "and how does this fit into the overall strategy", there's > > not > > going to be a plain-language answer. In the absence of clarity, what do > > you > > look for to figure out what the strategy is? > > > > Andrew > > ________________________________________________________________ > > 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 > > > > > > -- > me: http://petervandijck.com > blog: http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/ > global UX consulting: http://290s.com > free travel guides: http://poorbuthappy.com > US: (+1) 201 467-5511 > Belgium: (+32) 03/325 88 70 > Skype id: peterkevandijck > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
