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 almost Aristotelian, pure fashion. There are many examples of IxD
that aren't suited to business, but none that aren't suited to strategy.
When I think of strategy in the context of our design work, I think of
three things:
- philosophy
- vision
- planning
Philosophy asks, "What are you about? What do you stand for, what is
your approach?" This is akin to branding, and figuring out your brand
personality, your characteristics. Whatever it is that you will be
designing needs to be informed by some underlying philosophy.
Vision asks, "Where are you headed? How will you know you're
successful?" This vision is an articulation of the philosophy that
motivates action. Think "Made To Stick". A philosophy is insufficient
for driving design, particularly something as complex as interaction
design. Vision provides the north star that guides your efforts toward
a successful outcome.
Planning asks, "How will you get there?" I find that in most
discussions of strategy, planning is overlooked, with people more
interested in talking about positioning or competition or other big
picture items. But when I've seen products fail, it's often because
there was bad planning -- the go-to-market strategy was flawed, either
too ambitious or not ambitious enough, resulting in the release of
products that either aren't yet ready for prime time or woefully
behind the pack. Perhaps the single most useful technique we teach at
Adaptive Path's UX Intensive Design Strategy day is the Product
Evolution Map, which brings rationality and sensibility to the
standard product roadmap.
--peter
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