Logic+Emotion

2006 In Your Words

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Last week I asked this question:

What was the most significant event/aspect of 2006 in regards to marketing, advertising or user experience?

I was able to capture some of your answers in the PDF associated with this post.  I would have liked to use all of them, but I needed to keep this streamlined.  I think it captures a bit of the spirit we witnessed in 2006.  I modified some visuals to break up the quotes in this way:

2006: The year of...
PC (Power Consumer)
Connection
2.0
Business + Design
Video
Creativity
People

Thank you for contributing your thoughts and feel free to use as you like.  What's that?  You want to know what my answer is?  Well, it's not in the piece but here goes...

2006 was the year of re-discovery.  We re-discovered our interests and passions through sharing common interests with people who we related to but may have never met personally.  We re-discovered brands in ways that we hadn't known before.  We can interact with and engage brands on our level—in  a way of our choosing.  Maybe not all brands, but the ones who are reaching out to us.  We re-discovered a sense of purpose through creating, co-creating and expressing ourselves and our views, both personal and professional.  We re-discovered the joys of community, even if it's not the traditional kind (and we re-discovered how important the traditional kind really is).

Yup, for me 2006 was a year for re-discovery.  I've discovered things about myself through the experiences related to this blog and the people I've come to know through it.  2007 should be an equally interesting year.  More to come on that in the next few posts...

Creativity 2.E

The Evolution of Creativity is Underway.  Which Side Are You On?
Are you a Planner who thinks about design?  Maybe you are a designer who obsesses about the business impact of your designs.  Or you might be an Information Architect who thinks about motion, transitions, multimedia, and uses tools like storyboarding and visual scenarios.  Or how about a Developer who comes up with the “big idea”? 

If you haven’t noticed, creativity is evolving. 

The perception of creativity itself is slowly but surely transitioning into a mutated and adapted life form.  In the traditional world, a “creative” person usually meant someone with savant-like talents excelling in a specific creative discipline defined by fairly concrete parameters.  Copywriters wrote copy.  Art Directors directed art.  There are still talented visual designers who can make anything look good.  Brilliant copywriters who can come up with that magnificent tagline which stops you in your tracks.  And don’t forget about smart, methodical Information Architects who devote their existence to usability and being an advocate for the end user.

These skills, talents and abilities are needed—no doubt about it.  But what’s also needed is the evolution of them—the next iteration.  But what does this look like?  An Information Architect who completely grasps Human Computer Interaction but can also think fluidly—can do things like rapidly create prototypes, facilitate user testing, understand visual design and occasionaly write copy.  This kind of individual possesses a multi-dimensional creative brain that has evolved over time.   

This type of mind is capable of creating customer experiences which provide competitive advantage in a fast moving world where customers are increasingly calling the shots.   

In this world marketing/advertising/technology/and customer experience all blur together.  So what does this mind look like?  I have a perspective:

With consumer behavior evolving toward a more empowered status—the definition of creativity has shifted from one-dimensional skills to a four-dimensional type of creativity that blends logical thinking with creative problem solving.  Individuals possessing this “New Creative Mindset” blend Analytical, Expressive, Curious and Sensual qualities into their thinking process.  The result is a holistic approach to creativity that is effective across multiple touch points and experiences.

Can an Information Architect embody this kind of mindset?  What about an Account Director?  I think as human beings we are all capable of thinking like this.  But as designers, communicators, marketers and creators of experiences—for us, it’s even more critical to become multi-dimensional creative thinkers and problem solvers.  I’m not the only one talking about this.  Tim Brown from IDEO evangelizes “Design Thinking” and “T-shaped People”.  Both principals are related.  Design Thinking encourages Designers to think past aesthetics and design simple solutions for complex problems.  T-shaped people have a core competency but branch out into other areas and can do them well (thus forming a T).  And of course there is the new kind of collaboration that comes with this—where we combine people with diverse skill sets who often times speak very different languages but need to come together to make their collective and diverse skills work together.  This kind of collaboration sounds easier than it actually is, because when you get a few T-shaped people together, they tend to “play in each other's sandbox”.  Translation?  Ego’s need to be unlearned.  In short, it’s not just about T-shaped people. 

It’s about how we work together to create something that people will want to use, experience and ultimately—compel them to take action. 

You could call this kind of collaboration—T-Shaped Creativity:

  I don’t think that any of this is very new.  It’s been happening for a while.  In my time spent at agency.com, we developed pageless prototypes, pushed technology like Flash + Ajax and created human-centered “web applications”.  But with the rapid and pervasive nature of Web 2.0 going mainstream—it’s becoming mandatory to be able to think and execute like this.  Need proof?  Take a look at this collection of thoughts + work from a recent grad of the IIT Institute of Design.  Notice anything about how he approaches his work?  He’s a “designer”, but aesthetics are only one small part of how he exercises his creativity.  In fact, this brand of creativity is more like creative problem solving vs. the way many people still traditionally view creativity.  And what about the teams?  Aside from this evolved creative individual, what kind of team is needed to drive the next generation of communication, interaction and marketing engines?  There’s not a clear answer to this question, but signs are heading toward smaller interdisciplinary teams composed of individuals possessing complimentary skill sets and overlapping talents.


So where does this all go from here?  If you feel like you fit the bill, you’re probably thinking about how marketable you are right now.  And remember, we’re not talking about a “jack of all trades” here.  “Creativity 2.E” is not about doing everything and learning every application under the sun.  It’s about being curious, empathetic, analytical, insightful and expressive all at the same time.  It’s about being willing to do anything to get into the heads of your customer/user.  It’s about adopting new tools, techniques and artifacts to help make your case for creating the right kinds of communications, interactions and experiences.  So what to do if you’re feeling left out? 

Resist the urge to become defensive and territorial—put that energy into developing an acute sense of curiosity and optimism.  Become like a child. 

Participate in the emerging media.  Start a blog, update your site or if you don’t have one—set it up.  Dive into the digital social communities and be willing to do what your customers do.  Try methodology that you might not ordinarily consider.  PowerPoint isn’t just for presentations.  Flash isn’t just for motion.  Move past boxes, arrows, colors, layouts, charts, funnels, and metrics.

Creativity 2.E is both old and new—and like evolution, will continue to change and modify over time.  The question is will we?

Sharing Ideas in Flat vs. Round Worlds

Sharing ideas in flat vs. round worlds Download flat_copy.pdf is more or less the story behind Logic+Emotion.  At one point in my career, I submitted an outline for a whitepaper expressing many of the ideas you will find on this blog.  You can guess where that idea ended up in the round world—nowhere (except maybe the round trash receptacle). 

But we are living in a FLAT world.

And this translates to doing things like sharing ideas with a network of peers to validate and refine ideation.  The “boss” in some ways has been removed. 

Logic+Emotion launched in February of 2006 with virtually no exposure. It simply was not on anyone’s radar.  L+E is currently ranked at #21 in the Top Advertising blogs and is poised to enter the Top 25 Marketing blogs as well.  This can only happen in a FLAT WORLD.  If you want to hear more about the L+E story, go here.

Adver-Marketing: Take a Deep Look INside

The advertising/marketing industry needs “change-O-vation” even more than innovation.

Caution: if this post sounds like a call to action—it probably is.  But with INside Innovation from Businessweek being launched this past week, timing is everything.  The light bulb went off for me in late 2000 regarding how I viewed creativity.  After years of being conditioned to think that the only way my work would be validated was by awards, I found myself working on a series of projects for i-shop agency.com which were focused not so much on accolades as much as using creativity to solve real world business challenges.  Our focus wasn’t all about a single “big idea”—it was about a series of “little-big ideas” all inspired by customer research combined with an “interactive product design approach” highlighting customer-centricity.

Fast forward to 2006.  Businessweek is celebrating it’s first edition of INside Innovation.  My advice to Adver-Marketers everywhere?  Do yourself a favor and ditch Adweek for Businessweek.  Or at the very least—add B-week to your list of reading material.  Why am I so adamant about this? Because in my opinion, the Adver-Marketing industry needs to incorporate a “creativity culture” as part of their whiz-bang “big idea” culture.  And again—let me clarify: 

When I say creativity, I’m talking about a HYBRID MENTALITY that thinks about data, business, customers, aesthetics, language, ideas, brand and execution—all at the same time.

Back to 2000—once I became enlightened in the ways of this “New Creative Mindset” a strange thing happened.  I stopped going to advertising and marketing conferences.  The one conference I made it a point to attend was IIT’s Strategy series.  The first one I attended wasn’t even called that—it was called HITS (Human Interaction Technology Strategy) Download HITS_03.pps .  I think I was probably one of the only “marketers” to attend this conference.  The most recent one I attended is finally showing some signs of integration.  Clement Mok of Sapient dedicated his presentation to talking about marketing.  He’s raising awareness to the group of attendees composed mostly of designers, creative problem solvers, businesspeople and design thinkers.  Inspired by Mok’s approach—I’m taking on a crusade to do the same on the flipside.

Patrick Whitney

Clement Mok

Adver-Marketing needs a BIG FAT SLAP in the face.  People are REJECTING rhetoric and EMBRACING excellent experiences.

Not only do we need to be weaned off of the 30 second spot mentality (see Jaffe), but we need to unlearn many of our practices.  We need to stop asking people what they want—and start observing them in natural settings.  We need to avoid stereotyping “marketing segments” and start immersing ourselves in the lives of our customers.  I penned an article saying that Mok used the dirty “A word” in front of this group (Advertising) so I’m going to use the dirty D-word for my Adver-Marketing comrades who read this blog.  Design.

 

Offended?  Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.  But understand that I’m not talking pretty colors here.  Nor am I talking pretty Websites.  I’m talking about adopting an approach that allows time for immersion, for prototyping, for testing, for more testing, and for authentic messy collaboration.  Not the “pretend” collaboration that we see in the boardroom—the headnodding and yessing.  That’s corporate America.  I’m talking about the kind of stuff that you see on American Chopper.  The "F-you because we’re going to create something amazing" type of collaboration.  The kind that blends art and science.  So let’s think about trading in Corporate America for American Chopper.

Why am I picking on Adver-Marketing? Because corporate America is kicking our butts.  Key executives at companies like Nike, Apple, P&G, BMW, Target, Harley-Davidson are actively adopting much of the thinking you’ll see in this week’s INside Innovation edition—and I rarely hear people talking about this kind of stuff in Adver-Marketing. 

We’re all too busy looking for that next trend—not unlike a JUNKIE looking for that next HIGH. 

Adver-Marketers need to think like Designers.  The new breed of Designers.  The kind Businessweek is talking about.  We need to re-think our approaches.  We need to re-think our creativity.  We need to re-think how we approach consumers.  Scratch that.  We need to think about how we approach PEOPLE and what kinds of experiences we provide them.  We need to value the “new creativity” as much as we value the brilliant marketing guru or Creative Director.  We need to combine big ideas with creative problem solving.  We need a healthy dose of Change-O-vation, as much as Business needs innovation.  It’s a flat word for us too.

So here’s how I’ll end this.  Start by picking up the INside Innovation edition of Businessweek.  Read it from cover to cover.  Then consider the people INside your organization who think and work this way.  We exist.  Find us.  Talk to us.  Ask us about our thoughts on the impact of Design Thinking in both Adver-marketing as well as business.  Just listen.  In addition to all things 2.0—Adver-Marketing needs to understand that there is an evolving type of individual that is living and working among us.  We see things a little differently—and that’s not always a bad thing.

For an excellent collection of related links, please see Functioning Form (Defining Design Thinking).

T-Shaped Creativity

T-Shaped Creativity is a way of looking at a type of creative process situated at the intersection of Interactive Marketing+Experience Design.  This visualization looks simplistic—but in fact is difficult to pull off.  It entails getting the likes of Storytellers, Brand Strategists, and Experience Designers to coordinate activities.  Take away just one "building block" of the "T"—and the Interactive Experience is incomplete.
Read More @ Marketing Profs

Marketing Profs Daily Fix

I was recently invited to contribute to Marketing Profs Daily Fix blog—and my first piece was positioned as the feature (Delight = Brand + Experience).  I'm looking forward to writing about similar topics to the ones covered on this blog. 

These plugs are getting shameless aren't they?  I promise to track down some good links to atone for my sins.

R/GA vs. the 30 second spot

Robert Greenberg from R/GA continues his crusade to promote interactive brand engagements as the successor to traditional advertising.  And, he takes on the powers that be on their  own turf—Television (view the video).

In his soft-spoken way, Greenberg points out that the audience is shifting to where they have more control and that traditional marketing simply costs too much—and is difficult to measure.  Ad execs, should take this seriously as much of Greenberg's former predictions have come to pass.  R/GA embraced CGI post production in the early eighties—a bold an innovative move back then.  When the Internet first arrived on the scene, he converted the agency to the interactive medium in short order.  And their secret weapon?  Creativity.  Lots of it.

Paths to Experience Design?

Experience Planners?  Interaction Designers?  Information Architects?  Creative Directors?  Visual Designers? There seems to be a conundrum in the industry related to emerging roles, titles and how they are evolving and intersecting.  Especially if—like me, you work in the Interactive Marketing space.  In this space, we've been increasingly blending traditional creative skill sets with information architect-type skills.  But there is a lot of variation in these backgrounds—what used to be black and white is increasingly becoming Grey.  In an attempt to make sense of all this nuance, I've designed a graphic that displays different backgrounds and defines possible pathways as they move up the food chain.  Seems like many in the industry are struggling with this type of issue as we build up our "dream teams".  I'm looking for feedback here.  If this makes any sense. please let me know.  If I'm way off—do the same.  Thanks.

Power to the People IV

American Express is the latest to take the lead in transforming consumers from passive bystanders into active participants.  The 15 Second Clips site invites everyday people to upload a 15 second video clip that's entered into a competition co-sponsored by the Tribeca Film Festival.  The site experience is on brand, executed well—and the gallery allows you to view previous submissions.  And of course you can e-mail and even subscribe to an RSS feed of the latest clip submissions.  Nice example of engaging your customer, then allowing them to become part of a digital conversation facilitated by the brand.

Power to the People III

From Organic's 3 Minds:

GE invites consumers to think about prevention

By troy young

GE is pushing the brand in the right direction with the "Picture a Healthy World Campaign". This is smart B2B... take a stand on an issue that effects all of us. Get consumers thinking differently about health and prevention and GE's role in change.

Real people will power the World Health Day Times Square "road block"  (ie: GE takes over of most of the video real estate in the area... a first). Pictures and smart health tips can be uploaded on the campaign site or in Times Square kiosks.

Consumer powered Time Square promos (Nike, Kodak) are now standard practice. More at AdFreak.

Troy

Bottom Line Awards

For the second year in a row, Frog Design has partnered with Business 2.0 to conduct the Bottom Line Design Awards which rewards not just creativity—but results.  Among the winners are Google Maps, Target RX, m&ms and the Dyson Vacuum.  What's really nice about this kind of recognition, is that it stresses the practical value of creativity and innovation.  These are all examples of how Design is used to sell products and build brands and make people happy.

From the website:

Ask most people what qualifies as good design and they’re likely to name a line of couture, a groundbreaking skyscraper, or a sleek piece of modern furniture. But why not a pill bottle, a bag of M&Ms, or a really cool-looking coffin? In the second annual Bottom Line Design Awards—a collaboration between Business 2.0 and the venerable Silicon Valley consulting firm frog design—we look beyond the surface to take a more holistic approach.

 

This year's winners don’t just look great; they’ve revolutionized old categories or engendered new ones, while also making a positive impact on the bottom lines of the companies that created them. In fact, design aesthetic was but one of 10 metrics we used to rate each product. We also considered user experience, brand strategy, sustainability, innovation, risk taking, corporate strategy, business impact, cultural impact, and the element of surprise.

 

Our jury of nine experts from various industries chose from the nearly 100 submissions and nominations that came in this year. Here are their picks for the most noteworthy designs of 2005.

Power To The People

The Mass Marketing world needs a wake up call.  While many agencies have figured out that consumers place more trust and value in the information that they get from peers vs. marketing channels—the temptation to control the "campaign" is still alive and well.  There are plenty of examples on the Web of handing control over to the customer and letting them sound off.  Here are just two.  Jonga, a mash up combining content from Google, Nike and "Jonga TV" provides and invitation-only forum for enthusiasts to participate in.  USA Network encourages viewers to  show off their character by creating a profile complete with video, photos and consumer generated content.  One word of caution—consumers are more empowered and knowledgeable than ever before.  Try to fake this kind of facilitation and do so at your own peril.

AKQA + XBOX

Your Agency Just Designed Your Product
AQKA, a marketing agency with a knack for creating interactive experiences not only generates marketing campaigns for their XBOX client—they helped design the product.  This is not new news if you follow the interactive marketing industry, however—it does illustrate a trend that we'll probably be seeing more of.  The traditional role of an agency has been to persuade consumers to buy product—to take action—often by using effective storytelling techniques that connect with the consumer.  But lately marketing and advertising agencies are being tasked with creating the end experience in which the consumer interacts.  Some have called this consumer engagements.

Ogilvy didn't just create a wonderful campaign for Hershey Chocolate—they planned, architected, designed and helped build the experiential Hershey Store located in Times Square.  So what we are seeing is brand as the message, meeting brand as the experience with the same agency participating in both areas.  Stay tuned, there will be more of this to come as more players emerge over time.

Happiness + Right Brain Thinking

A little over a year ago, I came across an article titled "Happiness is using the brain the right way" Download happiness.doc .  The article was a really interesting piece—and more than a year later much of it seems to be coming to pass as we see left-brain and right-brained thinkers needing each other more than ever, while right-brainers enjoy more appreciation in recent years.  Below are some choice exerpts:

“a ''Conceptual Age" is upon us. Thanks to a combination of globalization, outsourcing, and technology, many traditional white-collar jobs are either disappearing or being shipped overseas. When coupled with a growth in ''nonmaterial yearnings," he says, that paves the way for a US economy in which an MFA will be a more potent credential than an MBA, and growing clout will be wielded by creators, inventors, and storytellers.”

“Human evidence for his argument was gathered before him in a conference room at Design Continuum, in the form of an individualistic array of design strategists, marketing coordinators, and ''envisioners," who think of ways that new products can fit people's needs.”

The article also features Dank Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind"

Motorola + Design

Weaving Design into Motorola's Fabric
    Terrific interview with Jim Wicks, Vice President of Motorola's Consumer Experience Design group.  The interview goes on in some detail to lay out how Motorola's culture has shifted due to an influx of creative thinking and innovative product design.  Jim doesn't give the latest products like RAZR or SLVR all the credit—but it's clear that the impact the breakthrough products have had are difficult to ignore.  The interview is fairly comprehensive—but if you value Experience Design, it's very much worth the read.  Here are a few choice highlights:

“The product is the brand. You build brand in our industry through the product and the experience. Those manifestations are tangible evidence of that change. It shapes what people internally and externally think about the company.”

“To me, innovation comes from a lot of different things. It could come from something completely unstructured or something structured.”

“A product by itself can't change a company. But, a product and a success can change a company. A product can start the change and can make people feel a part of that change.”

“Brand management is another example of where design is addressing complexity. We launched RAZR with the intent of it becoming an icon--not that I'm saying it is. But you can use the 'halo effect' of that kind of a product.”

“The design group includes the disciplines of advanced mechanical, user interface, industrial design, research, material sciences, and more. In the past, this group was integrated with a lot of our businesses, and it was about inventing things.”

“We have this diversity, we behave differently, and we design differently now versus three years ago. We don't think of design as a group out in an ivory tower that conceptualizes things and then figures out how to make them. Nor is it, "We've got a strategy, and we're going throw the technologists at it, and then we're going try to wrap it up and make it look good.”

Customer-Centric

This post is a sanity check more than anything else.  Most everyone in the business world these days seems to be saying "why yes—of course the customer is at the center of everything we do" which is often times followed by this statement "we need to be more innovative".  Yet so few organizations truly practice this.  The above graphic is sort of a mantra statement pulled from my personal site.  These days, I'm finding that as common sense as this seems—it's difficult to pull off.

R/GA+NY Times

One of my favorite interactive agencies, R/GA was covered in the NY Times Download rga.pdf .  It's a great piece and does a nice job of describing what makes the agency and the man behind it (Robert Greenberg) tick.  Here's a snippet:

"Consumers are so swamped by pitches
that many simply tune them out. And the
more affluent among them exercise enough
control over how, where and what they shop
for that, with the flick of their fingers, they
can bypass unwanted advertising.

Mr. Greenberg, the chairman and chief executive
of R/GA, wants to engage them in digital
conversations that are so entertaining,
involving and valuable that they won’t want
to ignore them."

Saab Aero X

Cool Car.  Cool site.
Need proof that a site needs to be as cool as the product?  See Saab Aero X.  Where to begin?  First off, the car design itself is gorgeous and clearly pays homage to the "Born From Jets" tradition.  But the site is almost as breathtaking—featuring a slider in place of navigation for the entire experience as well as hot spots that provide more details in rich fashion.

The animations and rendering of the automobile are the true stars.  Using the slider, you can play and re-play sequences that show off the car's sexiness.  That's a good word for the experience.  Sexy.

Microsoft iPod Package

Unfortunately, this is so true.  Creativity is often squashed by a "design by committee" mentality.  Video makes a good point at the expense of Microsoft.

Thought of the Day

“Today, a product is no longer just a product—it is a set of often personalized and interconnected interactions that define a total brand experience.

By understanding how people interact with their world, we can create products and services that reflect this experience and better meet the needs and demands of your customers.”~Harry West, Design Continuum

Mappr

Like Flickr?  Try Mappr.
Mappr is a neat little app that pulls photos from Flickr and displays them visually according to a Map of North America.  You can broaden the number of photos you see and control the size.  It's all wrapped up together in a nice pageless interface.  Worth playing around with.

Designer Speaks

If you ever have to work with a Creative Director like this—run away.  Run far away.

Google + Measure Map

Almost As Addictive As "Googling"

Google continues it's quest for world domination by either innovating—or knowing when to acquire someone else who is.  The recently announced addition of Measure Map serves as proof.  Developed by Adaptive Path, Measure Map is a neat little app which allows you to track performance to your blog and measure it in all sorts of ways.  On a personal note, I met one of the team members who is finishing up at the Illinois Institute of Design in Chicago.  My guess is that he's got a bright future ahead of him.  It will be fun to see where this effort ends up.

Nike Free

A Site That's As Cool As The Product
This Nike site has been around for a while—but it's a nice example of demonstrating how a site could and should be as cool as the product it is marketing.  In this case, it's an athletic shoe that is so lightweight, so fitted—that the experience is similar to running barefoot.

From the beginning, the site accomplishes this with a direct tie to the campaign—but then as you interact with it at a deeper level, it rewards you with gobs of "behind-the-scenes" content including videos and interactive nuggets that get into the science and design of the shoe.  In short, it's an innovative product and what Nike is doing is inviting consumers to view "under the hood" and experience how a product like this comes to life.

Seth Godin's Funnel

Seth Godin is known for many things—but his true gift is articulating thoughts in a clear and simplistic way.  That's why Flipping the Funnel Download flippingfunnelPRO.pdf —is such a rewarding read.  Seth does a really nice job of capturing the strength of transforming consumers into active participants that can do a better job of marketing any product or service than most professionals.  The trick?  Get them engaged.  Seth Writes:

What if we flip the funnel and turn it into a megaphone?
What if you could figure out how to use the Internet to empower the people who like you, who respect you, who have a vested interest in your success? I call this group of people—your friends and prospects and customers who are willing to do this—your fan club.—"Turn strangers into friends.  Turn friends into customers.  And then... do the most important job: Turn your customers into salespeople."

Seth goes on to use interactive social networks such as Flickr, Squidoo, and blogging in general to illustrate his point.  So, he's essentially jumping on to the Word Of Mouth (WOM) bandwagon—which  is nothing new.  But he tells a story about it that is pure Godin.

Experience Marriot

The Marriot Experience. Online.
Experience is becoming one of those words that serves as a catch-all for for anything that pushes execution past mediocrity.  However, there's "Experience" and then there's an "Experience".  So what's the difference?  Simply put, an "Experience" earns the label only when it exceeds an individual's expectations at both the rational and emotional levels.  In the case of products and any area where interactivity is involved, an Experience can be achieved when it displays exceedingly high marks in the areas of usefulness, usability, and desirability.  Need an example?  See Experience Marriot.  Nuff Said.

Choosing Innovation Firms

Shopping For Innovation
Interesting article that covers some relatively new thinking that the business world is embracing.  Companies are actively seeking out agencies and firms of all sizes skilled in creativity, design and innovation.  So what does this all mean?  If you are on the agency or consultancy side, and have a body or work that's both innovative and strategically creative—then it's good news for you.  However, it also means that clients are wising up to what innovation really is—and what to look for in a partner.  So if you don't practice what you preach—you just might lose a potential client.

"Design can be brought in as a service, but it's important to remember that it's a creative service. Designers are smart and talented people who typically do "think out of the box" (a phrase more derided inside the design community than outside, yet still requested in more initial meetings than you can imagine). So although your desired outcome may be very specific, the designer's process to delivering your outcome will inevitably involve challenging its very foundations. Here's an illustration:

Q: How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Does it have to be a light bulb?

In real terms, this can be the difference between asking a designer to create a new vase, versus asking for a new way to display flowers in the home. The first problem statement already converges on a solution--perhaps prematurely. The second opens up new design opportunities, new target markets, and ultimately potential new revenue streams."

 

Jacob Nielson + Flash

Jacob The Purist
In October of 2005, "Usability Guru" Jacob Nielson updated useit.com with The Top Ten Web Mistakes of 2005.  In it, he has this to say about the use of Flash:

"Flash should not be used to jazz up a page. If your content is boring, rewrite text to make it more compelling and hire a professional photographer to shoot better photos. Don't make your pages move. It doesn't increase users' attention, it drives them away; most people equate animated content with useless content.  Using Flash for navigation is almost as bad. People prefer predictable navigation and static menus."

Clearly Mr. Nielson is widely respected for his views, but I take issue with this one.  In recent years, there has been so much intelligent use of Flash that is reflective of the maturation of the medium.  Here's an example of Flash navigation that contradicts the  generalized statement that Flash for navigation is bad.

Sure, Jacob has a valid point that Flash can be misused—and there are certainly examples of that to back up the claim, however as we move into Web 2.0—Flash, Ajax, Flex and other technologies are increasingly being used in intelligent and compelling ways.  Not sure what sites Jacob has been looking at these days—but he needs to dig a little deeper.

Kobalt Shop

Shopping 2.0

There's a new breed of "commerce" sites out there (more like shopping experiences that mimic the real world).  Kobalt Shop is one of them.  It's in the same genre as Shop Composition.  Essentially, what these sites do is elevate online shopping closer to what people experience offline.  There is a de-emphasis of page-by-page interactions (imagine if your checkout clerk paused several times for 2-3 seconds during your checkout).  Fluidity and a natural flow replace unnatural page loads.  Stay tuned, there will be more examples of this coming soon to a browser near you.

GoogleMaps + Craigslist

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
I've been a fan of this collaborative effort for some time.  If you have not checked out Housingmaps—you should.  It's a great example of merging two great experiences into one.  The map engine powered by Google is delicious by itself, but then you get the benefit of directly linking into Craigslist's Data—photos and all.  Yum.  Makes me want to put my place on the market.

Amazon Music Store

The Future Amazon Shopping Experience?
Lazlo Systems has teamed up with Amazon to prototype this music browsing/shopping experience.  It's worth playing around with—combines drag-n-drop functionality with a "pageless" interface reminicent of the TJ Maxx shopping cart combined with a dash of the Xbox "blades" design.  It will be interesting to see if this eventually takes off.  The interface better mimics a true browsing experience.  The search feature works great and your always one click away from managing your cart or other features without ever losing your place. 

It's like going down to the local Best Buy, getting in line and having someone save your place while you add more items.  The prototype can bee seen here.