Adaptive Path MX 2007: Experience Strategies \x82\xC4\xEE The Key to Long-term Design Value by Jesse James Garrett
[Typed after the fact from handwritten notes. The time stamp has been adjusted to reflect when the event occurred.]
About 150 year ago, Scientific American hailed the development of a new camera. The problem is that it 19 individual parts. This kept photography in the exclusive domain of pros and advanced hobbyists .
Eastman came along an developed a device around his invention of roll-film and a simple maxim: "You press the button, we do the rest." Photography as a mass-consumer activity. The Kodak camera reduced the complexity of photography to a simple interaction.
What's the highest compliment a product can receive? "Highly profitable" "Reliable" The goal is: "can't live without it." What does it take to get there?
[Steve Jobs quotation]
When you start looking at a problem and see a simple solution you don't understand the problem. You keep looking and see how complicated it really is and you are halfway there. The really great person will keep going to find the key underlying principle and create a beautiful, elegant solution that works.
[Samuel Johnson quote about a dog walking on its hind legs]
Think about the difference between WordStar and a typewriter.
Think about the complicated VCR so loaded with features and buttons that nobody can set the clock. Remember the blinking 12:00.
The Tivo is a transformative product. They took a step back and re-imagined the experience. This was so successful that their mind-share not exceeds their market-share.
Look at the Rio vs. the iPod. The iPod did less, cost more, and completely dominated the marketplace.
The cognitive mechanisms that are at play in a product are the same as those at play in human relationships.
"Products are people too"
Anthropomorphize what you are doing because your users will do the same thing. Know who you are and what you are trying to convey. If you don't know what you are conveying you are taking the risk that your users will have a bad experience with your product and thus with you.
O'Reilly calls this designing from the outside in. It can also be called experience strategy.
You need a clear objective. Look at Google Calendar and Flickr. They started with a clear idea of what they were doing and then always referred back to that to evaluate choices.
Identity is not the brand, identity is the experience people have with you. Work from the consumer back to the organization, not the other way. Work inside out, not outside in.
Develop strategic requirements from field research and compare them to business goals and values.
Business Value + Opportunity = Experience Strategy
The web site doesn't stand alone; it's part of the complete experience. Leverage the system.
iPod is not the product, the system is the product. iTunes + iPod are the experience. Play/Manage/Acquire
flickr, for example, doesn't control the system the way Apple does. They are, however, able to position themselves within a system. They took a systems view and allowed their experience strategy to drive every decision.
Deliver a product that knows who it is.
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Who is this guy?
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