In this entertaining 20 minutes presentation at the Lift Conference 2011, CEO of Hublot, Jean-Claude Biver talks about innovation, creativity, and his philosophy that can be
summarized by three commandments:
1. Be the first 2. Be unique 3. Be different
Unlike other presenters, he speaks without any visual aid which really draws all the attention towards his natural comical nature, making the presentation to be most entertaining.
He ends his presentation with a story that summarizes his 3 commandments by 'painting a footballer's hair red', which I assume at that time was uncommon, which I doubt. Anyway ultimately that had played some influence which earned the footballer* the opportunity to play his football in Italy.
Fun fact: Jean Claude Biver was the man responsible for Omega's huge success over the past 10 years, with one of his notable marketing techniques was his product placement strategies, notably on James Bond films. On a separate note, he so makes his own cheese.
*I did a search and found that footballer to be Atsushi Yanagisawa, a very successful player in Japan who played in Sampdoria...but failed to net a single goal abroad.
To improve pedestrian efficiency, the people at Improv Everywhere is suggesting tourists to commute on their designated walkways so they could do what they do, like randomly change direction and walk into things while looking up instead of ahead.
I reckon this is healthy and relevant for any urban society, especially for a city like Seoul with 22 million people. I guess this also acts to preserve the locality and identity of a place. It actually got me thinking about how this would have already been implemented in North Korean as visiting tourists are embarked on a full guided tour.
From a local perspective, as seen from the video, this would also probably invoke a certain value of pride to be proud of your own identity.
What looks ridiculous on first impression might actually hold true weight if thought through!
It's the midpoint of my first semester at SADI and I've been thrilled to be learning about different fields of design. Having learned new jargon coined by masters of the field such as Liz Sanders (MakeTools), Bill Moggridge (IDEO), Don Norman (User-centered design expert), and Engine and Cooper (both Service Design agencies), delivered through my highly esteemed professors all have provided great insights to to establish what the future holds being a designer in the 21st century.
The gist of it all really goes down to be distilled and I conclude that design is has gone way beyond from being functional to having to evoking a similar emotional response from every user that engages the intention of a design. We have to recognize that every user is different (understanding contexts and cultural aspects etc.) in which each individual holds different expectations to the design. The ultimate aim is to first understand what is it to be human and then gain clearer insights as to how to interact with them. Thankfully both users and designers are human, so there's a great leveling plane to begin with.
Such tools, frameworks, and methodologies are after all created by humans for humans, user to user. This is probably the best justifications for my cause to further my knowledge and education—to know myself better and to understand the user. The keyword is emotion and the two words I find the most powerful is love and passion, they are simply the greatest. For me I draw the energy from the people around me who personifies these 2 words from 2 parties:
Love: Quite literally, my love ones. They are my partner, family and friends Passion: The heroes of their trade and what they stand for. Because what they stand for—can change the world.
Quaker = Oats
Quakers are honest, frugal people
Quakers exude tradition
Print ads used to embed a symbol of death which are now banned. i.e a distorted image may be interpreted as death. Especially for tobacco and liquor products.
Know target audience. Sell children shampoo to parents who are going to buy it for them.
Tomato brand > Fresh World Farms > Literal and effective
Brand Elements > Rationale, Cultural, Experiential, Visual, Functional, Emotional
Jockey briefs has many sub categories to sell 1 product to speak to a broader audience. Classic (regular), Tech (performance), Reps (rhythmic), Zone (colours)
Nº5 CHANEL PARIS / Iconic structural packaging
Toilet duck packaging is unique and provides great functionality, but not feasible for production from the engineers perspective. The duck name is associated with the rubber duckie toy and evokes positive childhood memories, making household chores less painful.
Digging into further insights for my project, I thought to approach the subject (subway transportation) from the perspective of a public service, leading me to this video on Design Council UK.
Design helps create new citizen-focused products and
systems, helps in redesigning more efficient, lower-cost services and
improves people’s well-being.
Use design to
> Reduce cost
> Improve quality
> Give value for money
> Better experiences
Why design?
> Improve well-being of citizens
> Drive sustainable growth
Research helps identify key opportunities for improvement.
Design is beyond changing visual appearances but to change outcomes. i.e. improve quality of service, increase reliability (through consistency). Design also increases staff morale.
Redesigning services changes the platform on which services are delivered.
Design is a process of creation, evaluation, selection, and arrangement — James L. Harrison
Design is not a noun but a planning, doing research, thinking and making a decision of a direction. Design is defining problems and a problem solving process — Steven Tolleson in Design Methodology
Consider activities. Think about the verb rather than the noun. i.e. when designing a chair, think about reading, eating, resting, instead of legs, arm-rest etc.
UX Framework
Physical > Size, shape, colours, materials
Cognitive > Language, symbols, controls
Social > Information interactions, trusting members
Cultural > Values shared, beliefs shared, supportive organization, accepted habits
Emotional > Interested, happy, calm, friendly
User Experience Design is a interdisciplinary collaboration (including the user)
<Process Positioning Map, Institute of Design, IIT>
UXD Process (manufacturing) is a con-current engineering process involving product design, software development, mechanical and electronic engineering. BECAUSE our product life cycle is getting shorter and shorter.
<Design Innovation Process, Institute of Design, IIT>
Dieter Rams is probably the 20th century god of design having providing us with the '10 commandments' to us designers. He is truly one of my most admired living designers of our time along with Milton Glaser and Wally Olins.
10 Principles of Good Design
1. Good design is innovative
2. Good design makes a product useful
3. Good design is aesthetic
4. Good design makes a product understandable
5. Good design is unobtrusive
6. Good design is honest
7. Good design is long-lasting
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail
9. Good design is environmental friendly
In the video interview below, Dieter Rams talks about his opinions on the use of colour which I cannot agree more. He also said:
"Design should not dominate people, it should help people. That's what's important."
Our current generation are Digital natives
Our parents are Analog natives > they are digital immigrants
Tap into their native environment
***Process map
Adapt > Conduct > Communicate
—
Liz Sanders (maketools.com)
Product >>> Experience
Conceptualization and Visualization space
Visioning Workshop (bulls-eye chart)
Co-creation and new landscape design (IIT Institute of Design)
Approach
Expert Driven 80s
User Centrered 90s
Co-creation 00s
Empathetic design
Critical Design > You create something and then observe what happens.
Codesigning teams are expanding to include all stakeholders, particularly in the front end of during the design process.
Design is taking increasingly collective forms. The new domains of collective creativity will require new tools an methods for designing and researching
Hypothesis of design
Deep Knowledge Outcomes (through research)
Latent > Present but not visible
Tacit > Understood without being openly expressed; implied
—
Consider service design for disability market (deaf, mute, blind) or elderly market
—
Assignment 5
Develop 3~5 personas for your project with the following steps:
1. Identify mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive user segments for your project
2. Group them with their distinguishable characteristics (their ultimate goals, values, behavioral patterns, desire, or lifestyle)
3. Name them with distinguishable names.
4. Describe persona with their goals, attitude, behavior, context, desire, photo, goal, and problems
Reading reference for next assignment
Indi Young, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy
This is again a reminder for the purpose of building strong brands. Brands sustains businesses. In Lovemarks (Roberts, K 2005), it is identified that human beings (consumers) are powered by emotion and not by reason. The most powerful emotion, Love is believed to be the foundation for creating new kinds of emotional passionate relationships that brands need. To gain love, brands needs to earn Respect—Performance, commitment, honesty, service etc. are the most basic values that businesses must endure.
"The idealism of Love is the new realism of business. By building Respect and inspiring Love, business can move the world."
— Kevin Roberts
Reference Lovemarks, The Future Beyond Brands, Roberts, K 2005
“It’s (branding) not about consistency, it’s about creating stories that make
sense.” Stories are the way we connect with people and create
relationships. If we think of brands as people or personalities, they
need to be magical storytellers. As humans, we thrive on all of the
emotional connections we have. We get passionate about them. It’s the
stories we tell and hear that trigger those connections."
Marina Willer of Wolff Olins London @ 2011 Brand New Conference in San Fransisco
The outline for the ADX408 final assignment is captured in the points below:
> Create a new product, service, and/or brand communication concept for healthy living based on experience based design framework and process
> Define healthy from consumers point of view
> Consider using 4 pleasurable products model
> Consider enhancing brand experience
> Must include 'Branding Elements' (experiential, functional, rational, cultural, emotional, visual)
> Outcome must be based on conclusive research
Matching Concept 4Ps
Product
Plane
Place
Promotion
—
Prof Lee mentioned the term Market Myopia and suggests that designers have to look at the market has to be as large as possible to gain larger profits. The example of Harley Davidson and Honda was used, suggesting that Honda found success with affordable motorcycles targeting at a broader market.
From a brand perspective, I would argue that Harley Davidson's focus towards it's target market has enabled them to become an 'inspiring brand'. I would imagine that it will be difficult to have the same traits of masochism and individualism if they had branched out to the mass market. Maybe they did with an entirely different brand? Ultimately business is about making money.
—
Societal/Ethical Marketing is about providing product benefits with a long term perspective in mind. i.e. Social enterprise TOMS shoes. How can McDonalds consider long term 'consumer convenience'?
—
New Product Development (differentiation)
> Idea Generation
> Idea Screening (screen criteria) Technical feasibility, Commcerial feasibility, Consumer welfare
> Idea Evaluation/Concept Testing (research)
> Development
> Marketing Strategy
> Commercialization
Fun fact: 3M = Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing
Elements of Good Design
> Creative/Original
> Aesthetic
> Functional
> Feasible
> Economical
> Fashionable
> User friendly/Ergonomic - Human Factors
> Consumer Well-being/Welfare
—
Assignment 1 1. Explain the idea (design) 2. Target Market (why?) 3. Promotion Strategy (how it's being sold)
Designer/Marketing perspective
Something new and innovative
Product design awards: IDEA, iF, reddot, Good Design Award
3-4 slides / 5-10 minutes presentation — due 29/03
User Experience Design (UXD) is how a product is perceived, learned and used.
Richard Anderson's keyword survey on the definition of UXD
Usability, Consumer experience, User centered design, Customer experience, User interface, Interaction design, Experience design, User satisfaction, Customer satisfaction, Ease of use, Experience, Customer journey, User Interface design, Human factor, Interface design
What is important is the entire experience, from when i first hear about the product to purchasing it, to opening the box, to getting it running, to getting service, to maintaining, to upgrading it. Everything matters: industrial design, graphics design, instructional design, all the usability, the behavioral design.
—Don Norman, 2000 HCI
UXD from 3 perspectives
Desirable by the User / Feaibile by the Engineer / Viable by the Manager
Ease of Understanding / Ease of Use / Pleasure of use
To provide the pleasure of use in the product or services. There are many researches of Emotional Usability
UXD is the Holistic Solution that provides Total Experience to users while they are accessing a product or services in various touch points.
UID: The overall process of designing the interaction between a user and a device IND: Designing of tasks and behaviors IA: Organization of information that is logical and understandable Usability: Measuring of ease of use a system or applications HCI: The study of interaction between people (users) and computers
Human Factors Engineering (Ergonomics): The study of optimizing the interface between people and objects or systems they interact with SD: Intergrated design of solutions or services between users and h/w, s/w, online and offline within a context
Market trends
From Technical, Functional + Emotional
Products should be loved (Steve Jobs)
Lovemarks by Saatchi & Saatchi / Kevin Roberts
In order to create the customer's royalty, companies provide the best user experience to them. Brand strategy is not enough to do that.
— a new product > Trademark > Brand > Lovemark
— To create the lovemark for the maximized UX Design
1. Make a product myserious— great stories, past, present future, myth, icons, inspiration
2. Using sensibility
3. Create intimacy between products and customers. Creates commitment, empathy and passion
Target audience should not be drawn towards classification of age groups, gender etc. but towards activities (or tribes).
—
Brands can be identified by their sounds. Here's a good example below:
Self-Documentation is a powerful method for observingprocesses over a long period of time, or for understanding the nuances of community life when the researcher can’t be there. Records of experiences, such as journal entries, allow the team to see how participants see their life, community, and relationships.
Most of us have probably come across the Piano Staircase in Sweden by the Fun Theory (initiative of Volkswagen). But have you seen the High 5 Escalator?
The part that grabs me the most is the smiles put on commuters faces after seeing or giving a high 5 to Rob. This simple interaction presents a great opportunity to develop a tourist experience into a very memorable one.
Because roughly 7-10% of all males suffer from a colour deficiency. Designers should consider this fact during the designing process.
To me Universal Design is about being sensitive to all users, but first of all, designers need to know about users. Because being a user doesn't mean that everyone is just like you.
So far, my thoughts on what I wish to work on is to develop a new traveling experience for tourist visiting Seoul. The Seoul Metro subway was identified as an area which opened several opportunities since the subway is the most convenient and common mode of transportation in Seoul.
The immediate thought coming to mind was to apply a Service or Universal design approach. Investigating existing point-of-sales and implementing new way finding systems are the default applications; but since my passion geared more towards Branding, I have been toying with the idea on apply a different approach to see if this may be a plausible solution.
Branding consists of many parts with marketing being one of them. For many reasons, the core reason for branding for coporations is simply to make money. Why? Because older methods are no longer applicable today. Traditional market research may have proved to be show positive results but how much resources would that require? Are there different methods to make money? Yes.
A principle in Branding is to be #1 in your category (Ries, A 2005). In other words, you cannot be the #1 brand without championing your category. i.e. you cannot create a Red Bull and be #1 without being the best energy drink. To cut the long story short. My thoughts are to consider tourism (the industry) as the market and apply a new concept using Branding to solve the brief.
The target audience has been identified and that's the tourist. So what if I identify a new category, creating the 'new tourist' and become the champion of this category? Applying diverging principles a tourist, what could I discover now?
Reference The Origin of Brands: How Product Evolution Creates Endless Possibilities for New Brands, Al Ries 2005)
Bill Moggridge addressing Service Design and Vision prototyping (from 5:30)
Prototyping and idea or service can be delivered through story-telling, it's about narrative i.e, cartoons, storyboards, video or film.
—
Assignment 4, Week 4 (Chapter 4)
> Hunt statement for research > Identify specific user research methods that you want to conduct fir your project and then describe things that you can learn from the research outcomes
The Long Wow—Achieving long term customer loyalty systematically impressing your customers again and again.
Framing the problem/situation—make it simple and narrow
Problem Set—Naming the things to which designers will attend and frame the context in which designers will attend to them.
Find the problem > Frame the problem > Apply skills
Gather information — Views from clients, stakeholders, colleagues, teammates and others who may have thought about the situation are essential.
Information may be gathered through— Traditional research, Design brief and stakeholder interviews.
What is your design strategy in 30 words? ENHANCE TOURISTS TRAVELING EXPERIENCE IN SEOUL THROUGH BETTER EXPERIENCE TAKING SUBWAY TRANSPORTATION.
—
Elements of Design Brief
> Layout reasons for employing the designer
> The starting point to gather information
> Brand considerations, Technical contratins, expected timetline and deliverables, detailed goals of the project and contact information of major stakeholders > Designer generated as a result of stakeholder interviews, traditional research, and competitive analysis.
> Capturing and communicating what was learned during the initial information gathering period.
> Brief could raise questions as it solves.
> Pricing
> Visualization and Visioning
Existing culture, products and innovations and the ways of living are key factors that should be considered during the process of creating or enhancing experiences. This includes people's behavoir, pattern of living and working, shared cultures, concerns and beliefs. This helps shape the context of the user to gain a clear understanding of the overall approach.
"It is itself a world of experience that in turns shapes other experiences and can help us understand the changing expectations people have of the experiences provided by goods and services."
— Press, M & Copper R, 2008, The Design Experience, p 74
Human interactions (emotions) provides a positive enhancement/impact. Experiences always contain a sensory component—See, smell, touch, taste.
Experience design follows the principles of User-centered Design.
Holistic view on an audience interacting with their surroundings (fixing where "the ball was dropped")
Tangible and intangible aspects of a product, software, service or event.
instead of solving problems in an isolated manner.
Social aspect is new characteristic in developing experiences. Growing importance to experiences.
Experience is what your audience lives through in the end, it is what you deliver, give, provide or create. It's more than missions, values, visions etc.
Maintaining a relationship after a product/service is sold to a customer Audience & Organization View
Important to think about the audience's perspective (right area) when considering to push a brand experience (left area).
Ultimately finding solutions to 'de-risk' customer's investment
With the vast growing numbers of creatives emerging through the recent years, the landscape for designers today goes beyond what was previously expected of the roles of a regular designer. Playing a large role in this change is the advent of technology. Tasks which were either too expensive or too time consuming to produce were now made possible through several clicks of a button i.e. Adobe CS5's content aware fill in Photoshop is one example.
I believe every designer possesses a unique quality that sets him or her apart from the other. The various disciplines of design—fashion, product, architecture, graphic etc. helps to segment these roles but it is our life's (or professional) experiences that gives us this edge. David Oglivy (1911-1999) is a classic example, using his background as a cooking stove salesman and applying the principles of salesmanship to advertising.
As for myself, the past 5 years have gone by so quickly that I have yet to rest and reflect on the experiences studying and working in 4 different countries over 5 years.
< 2009 Singapore
> 2010 Phnom Penh,Cambodia
> 2011 Melbourne, Australia
> 2012 Seoul, South Korea
Seeing how different individuals go about their livelihood in their cultures (life contexts) has provided some good insight as to what I would like to explore as a designer; certainly the people I have met and worked with played a large influence. And recently being exposed to different fields of designs — Service design, Universal design etc, has given me a more solid platform (frameworks and approaches) to steer me towards a more sound idea.
More competition + More choice + More cash = More complexity
"Life is a process of accumulation, the gradual building up of character, a slow unfoldment. Experience, after all, is the storing up of knowledge. Knowledge is essential for all understanding." — Jiddu Krishnamurtic
Samsung is one of the largest electronics device manufacturers in the world today. In 1993, they adopted a new corporate identity which we are all accustomed to. In some way we are able to identify the brand somewhere amongst our daily lives, for me it's the Chelsea Football Club in UK.
The beginning of Samsung Samsung was founded in 1938 as a small trading company that made noodles
and sold dried seafood. The name Samsung (삼성/三星), which means “three
stars”, was chosen by the founder Lee Byung-chull who wanted his company
to become big, powerful and everlasting like stars in the sky. <source: http://www.samsungvillage.com/blog/2011/03/did-you-know-three-stars-on-noodles.html>
For the sake of this post, my intentions are to look at the reasoning behind rebranding (or better known as changing your corporate identity (CI) before the term commercial term 'branding' was coined).
From a visual perspective, the reason is clear – the CI is outdated, and it needs a new look. But who actually determines whether a logo is outdated? It's not the design studios or leading brand agencies like FutureBrand or Landor...the answer is the people.
Ultimately, every logo today has become a commercial commodity. Unlike medieval times where the logo would be in the form of an emblem or crest to symbolize ones alliance (in other words ones identity). Should these people still be around, I would have good reason to believe that their emblems would be given some form of facelift.
The reason is simply the shift of of consumer attitudes that has evolved and shaped how we perceive brands. In the past (say 2000 years ago), we would hardly be given a choice between purchasing a table for our home. Our options were limited to simply what the carpenter would build in the neighborhood we live in. Now fast-forward 2 millenniums later, industrialization and globalization has presented us with options to choose a table from thousands of over designs from anywhere in the world.
Leading from the reason above, businesses simply had to adopt to this evolution to remain relevant to invoke some form of competitive edge. And this is the present society that we live in today.
Bearing those thoughts in mind, this would better rationalize a fair reason as to why Samsung had opted to change their corporate identity (apart from the reason that they were celebrating their 55th anniversary).
Fun fact: The first Samsung product sold under the company logo was Noodles.
The HCD process examines starts with the people being designed for,
examining thier needs, dreams, and behaviors. The process steps
through the following 'lenses':
Desirability - What do people desire?
eg. Rocket pants, space cars, unicorns, and sporks. To be desired
something dosen't necessarily have to be feasible, which brings us
to...
Feasibility - What is technically and organizationally feasible?
And now we have to cross rocket pants, space cars, and unicorns
off the list, leaving us to examinine the viability of sporks.
Viability - What can be financially viable?
So, I am assuming the spork business is pretty competative and
covered by many interenational patents and we're back to the drawing
board.
In the 2nd chapter, there is a framework in Designing Pleasurable Products (Jordan, W 2003) that provides a holistic approach to consider when designing a pleasurable product.
The example of the Calvin Klein underwear will be used to facilitate a summarized explanation:
Physiological Pleasure(physical aspects)
The comfort, fit and quality of a well made underwear are senses that bring satisfaction
Psychological Pleasure (emotional aspect) The aspect where one will use the product and feel like a ripped Hollywood hunk (all hail Mark Walhberg) when donning the underwear. The underwear is a great example here as it is something felt on the inside. With the advent of brain-washing advertising, underwear these days go beyond being just an undergarment and have evolved into becoming a fashion statement or a symbol of masculinity.
Also the pleasure of purchasing an expensive (branded) product gives the user a sense of making the right decision. Cognitive dissonance—a Phenomenon of searching for evidence that confirms what a person wishes to believe.
Sociological Pleasure (relationship aspect) How does it reflect on a person that 'likes' the CK Underwear page on Facebook? Here one would fine pleasure in a sense that he is cultured and trendy, one whom does not just purchase non-labelled underwear (or fashion accessory) for it's pure function or usability benefits.
Ideological Pleasure (values aspect) One could have bought branded underwear for possibly the following reasons: — CK does not embody slavery in that manufacturing process which appeals to me (maybe?) — I spend the money on expensive products so my country's economy may prosper — CK only chooses the types of models I like and that's how sexy models should be
The deliberate note on last point emphasizes that ideology is heavily dependent on the individual. Basically ideology configures ones personal identity and behavior towards life.
.jpg)
