Hi, I would wholly agree with the methods and procedures that you prescribe throughout this mail and think that there are some very strong points for those in the start up / design stages to follow.
Yet point 5 flies in the face of so much established knowledge it seems as though its been thrown in to check if people read that far. With out the need to list the backdrop of various papers that show the strength in getting the views of more than just the design team. You seem to have put a glib statement in and offered weak rational as to why you view it as the case. Regards, B Hendy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thomas Petersen Sent: 14 September 2009 22:46 To: [email protected] Subject: [IxDA Discuss] What are your principles for making digitalproducts/services I would like to hear what principles different people use when making digital products. Here is a the most fundamental of mine: 1. Start simple, stay simple. It cannot be said enough. Less is more - much more, and there is a very good explanation that it pays to understand. If you do less you can measure more. If you can measure more you can better experiment with what works. Most products are simple, based on simple insights. Make sure that you stay true to that idea as you develop until you know you have done everything possible to test it. Don't add new features and think that it will help, it wont, not yet. When Zyb was designed in 2005 they made sure to make their product as focused around the administration of mobile data. They didn't change until they had tried out different possibilities to see what worked. http://000fff.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/021.png 2. Build to integrate. Think about whether your product could be a good extension to already existing products/services. That way you are tapping into the already existing digital ecosystems out there. This will make it easier for people to adopt your product and provide you with a trust factor that you have a very hard time obtaining on your own. 3. Don't confuse change with improvement. One of the biggest challenges when record artist produce their albums is the fatigue from listening to the same riffs over and over. It's one of the reasons why many of them have a problem listening to the album when it's finally out. Startups as intense and time consuming as they often are can be similar. It's very tempting after a couple of months of looking at the same interface over and over to want to change it. Don't submit to this whether you are a manager, designer, & developer. stay on target. You are making this for your customers not yourself and they, unlike you haven't seen anything before. 4. Don't do everything that is possible only what is necessary. Constrain yourself. A good product has limitations. It doesn't just succumb to every temptation that comes along. Focus on what makes the product the product and only add features if you get clear signs that it is needed. Most users will have to learn your product anyway so don't try to impress them with features that might be cool but that is simply not elemental to your success. I-Tunes have many flaws, Basecamp from 37Signals leaves a lot to be asked for, but when all is said and done, their products are rock solid and there is no feature like the solid feature. 5. Don't do usability tests or focus groups. I could write a whole book about why usability test and focus groups are bad for you and your customers but I wont. Instead I will offer the following few observations. Most products are fairly simple and most of the testing can be done in house. Most usability tests are not even close to reflect any realistic version of the environment your product will end up in. The mistakes that you might find are not going to be those that will determine the success of your company. Many usability tests consist of max 10 people which is simply not a significantly high enough number to make any decisions based on. The single best solution is to start simple simple and make sure you can measure how people use your product. If people are having problems you will find out soon enough and you will find out where it matters. 6. Think how, not what The feature war is over, actually it's been for a long time. So much can be gained from thinking about how to make the features that you have stand out and ad value. If you can solve it on the back-end then do it. When I started working on the Nasdaq Market Replay application I soon realized (as most people probably did) that market data is kind of like a sound sample. Once that insight was made we approached stock info like we would music. This meant that you could trim your stock sample and replay it like a piece of music. http://www.adobe.com/resources/business/rich_internet_apps/?ogn=EN_US-gntray _sol_ria#nasdaq ________________________________________________________________ Reply to this thread at ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45640 ________________________________________________________________ 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
