This week I have learned:
- about products. The usability of a product isn’t simply down to its design. It’s also down to the user’s expectation of what that product is.
So if I come to a car thinking it’s a horse, I’ll be disappointed, no matter how well-designed it is.
It’s all well and good “reconceptualising” a particular product category, but we know how to use the previous incarnations. So, for example, when I use Canva, I’m disappointed it’s not Photoshop because I know Photoshop.
Start your design process by thinking about the users’ category preconceptions.
Thanks to Roger Swannell for the conversation that got me to this place. - also about products. Product management is not great in most organisations. Ditto for User-Centred Design. In both cases this is hampered (and possibly to an extent caused) by a focus exclusively on the “end user” of a product which means that other types of user are ignored, or poor design practices are tolerated because it’s not the end user.
In B2B2C companies, for example, there are consumers (of various type) and Business users of various types.
Take Shopify, for example (Business Meerkat cards are available now if you want to see it in action!).
It needs to be designed to meet the needs of the users of Shopify sites who need to buy things. It needs to meet the needs of the Shopify clients who use the service to manage their online retail presence through it. And it also needs to be designed to meet the needs of other product teams within and outside of Shopify who want to integrate with it.
That’s a really complex web of users, all of whom have different (sometimes contradictory) needs and are all completely valid as users.
Too often, only the end shopper customer’s needs get assessed, integrated, and managed. - The Meerkat Cards arrived! I’m very pleased with the outcome, and look forward to trying them out in various ways very soon. If you ordered some on the pre-print offer, everything went into the post today.
- I think I need the long weekend. I’ve been staring at the same documents for too long.
- It does feel like I’m in a particularly creative phase at the moment. Long may it last.
- Cardstock continues to be a source of revelation and inspiration.
- Akai Stem Separation has arrived and it is witchcraft.
Next week: closing down a couple of things. In a good way.
The week in photos:
mmitII 