Design

Innovative Thinking And User-Centred Design

October 10, 2019 Design

The term “innovation” has become the favourite lexicon of corporate executives for any discussion relating to building a vision for their organizations, and obviously the startups who need to raise eyebrows for getting noticed and getting funded. ‘Innovation’ has an aura that sets our imagination rolling, often conjuring up an impression of an impossible modern future replete with robots, gadgets, and automative mechanisms. In short, it’s presumed that innovation would hand out an inventive gadget, service, or product that will make our lives a lot pleasurable with delightful interactions. For instance, skillfully using technologies such as AI to track your location and provide an accurate weather forecast or respond smartly to your question, putting wireless sensors so that you’re able to park your car smoothly. As I write this article there are numerous startups engrossed in experimenting with future technologies in shaping our landscape. Although the role of the ‘customer’ is being diminished somewhere between the business, the investors’ expectations & the discussion surrounding innovative technology. It’s not just a need to involve the target audience in an end-to-end product or service development activity but critically put the ‘customer’ in the centre of every innovation conversation.

Innovation by Design

Innovation Through Customer Insights

Organizations have acknowledged the significance of customer experience in sustaining future innovations, during and after any innovative idea is launched. However, the intrinsic drive of entrepreneurs to solve problems through technology has never gained so much visibility than in recent times as companies make attempts at product development for market dominance & financial gains. At times, this drives focus away from the customer experience and onto developing features that may miss the target audience invariably putting the entire roadmap of the product in jeopardy. For some startups or companies, the issue of relentless product development without managing customer expectations seems to be emanating from their internal challenges that are dictated more or less by corporate decisions. So for instance, on a strategic level, senior stakeholders choose a platform for driving automation for customer needs either without an understanding of the user-base or taking insights from a previous product launch. Eventually, by the time the “idea” percolates down to the tactical phase, one cannot rule out the complexity of its interaction and flow regardless of whether it’s solving any problems based on the experience that it delivers (or it doesn’t). Organizations back their leadership’s decisions of shaping the vision and it’s left upon the dev & design teams to implement the final product, within a strict timeline, despite the glaring loopholes and no understanding of the evolving user base. Designers obviously take a backseat.

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YouTube Started As A Dating Site

July 25, 2019 Design Technology

When I read this for the first time I cringed. It sounded unnatural that YouTube, the world’s largest online video streaming company with over a billion users each month, was conceived as an online video dating site! So here’s some back story. In March 2016 at the SXSW festival, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen revealed the actual predicament surrounding the launch of their streaming service in 2005. He said…

“We always thought there was something with video there, but what would be the actual practical application? We thought dating would be the obvious choice.”

Source

From Video Dating To Video Sharing

YouTube - Mobile

YouTube was conceived in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005 while working for PayPal. The entrepreneurs initially found a market in matchmaking through video, even taking out ads on Craigslist in Las Vegas and Los Angeles in which they offered to pay women $20 to upload videos of themselves to the site. No one took the offer seriously. It didn’t matter to the founders, because by then, users had begun uploading all sorts of videos from dogs to their vacations and they began pondering over a fundamental question “why not let users define what YouTube is all about?” so they completely revamped their website, making it more open and general. By 2006, YouTube was already the fastest growing website on the Internet hosting more than 65,000 videos. Then on October 9, 2006, Google dropped a bomb by announcing they were acquiring YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock. It was the second-largest acquisition for the search giant at the time.

Co-Design And User Innovation

Although it might seem like a case of ‘serendipity’ in the first instance with YouTube going from a video dating site to a video sharing one, here’s why I believe it was really a case of oversight. The founders formerly developed a vision to devise a product or service using online video streaming tech as a platform for matchmaking, but in that their vision of connecting with the users was grossly miscalculated because users just weren’t looking at video as a dating tool. Their initial concept could have been refined if they’d involved users in the conceptual stages of design iteration. The involvement of users early on provides the creators with an advantage at mobilising resources towards a focussed area of user’s concerns prior to the launch, although their open-mindedness did save them the day. As opposed to co-design or the user-centred model, it seems like YouTube followed a Linear Innovation Model consisting of research and development of product or service, which is then marketed and sent out to the users.

Speaking of which, co-design or the user innovation process is the act of designing concepts with the users (co-design is often referred to as participatory design by the design community) involving the intermediate users or direct consumers.

In other words, it’s not enough to involve engineers, designers, managers and other project owners into the creative process rather they need to be active co-designers in channelising energies into building actionable plans and implementing prototypes. That’s the way forward to meet some of the biggest challenges we face as humankind.

The innovation process comes with ambiguity and it’s often derailed due to several reasons, notwithstanding management oversight (like in the case of YouTube), misconceived notions about product utilization by end-users and last but not the least, being blinded by or trying to resolve the problems and challenges from a single spectrum thought process. In that, YouTube was created on the basic idea of connecting people through video streaming at cheaper rates but then it ultimately led to overlooking the users’ latent needs, a basic ingredient at shaping customers’ experience.

It’s quite likely, in a participatory design method, and by involving all the stakeholders of the soon-to-be-launching service the founders could have discovered to their surprise that instead of recorded videos users preferred to date using other discreet tools wherein their identities aren’t compromised or misjudged in the first impression. It’s dating after all. Lastly, the participatory design process should not be mistaken for crowdsourcing in which groups of interested parties contribute to the creation of ideas in an open forum, such as the Internet, in achieving a cumulative result. Imagine how different our world would be if end-users were involved as co-designers in every project, end-to-end, not just as research subjects but as an important aspect with any product or service design business. That’d be the true essence of any user-centred design methodology.

Apple Products

Here’s Why Apple’s A ‘Design-First’ Company

June 23, 2019 Design Technology

It won’t come as a surprise for a generic world-class electronics company to squirm at the mere motion of discontinuing any present-day technology that is evidently in rampant use with its current user-base, including peripherals or hardware systems. Imagine the plight of several million loyal customers when they hear how their favourite features and functions have been impertinently withdrawn with immediate effect from the brand’s high-end product line. But of course, we aren’t talking about Apple.

Here’s what everybody, including most designers, gets it completely wrong about Apple whenever the discussion surrounding its deeply intricate ‘design philosophy’ happens. There will be an unequivocal and optimistic pronouncement that Apple’s success is due to its “user-first” mindset. It’s not and it never was. On the contrary, Apple’s innovation strategy is ingrained in making its products future-proof by pursuing a ‘design-first’ framework in a valiant effort to promote and invest in technologies, which in Steve Jobs’ prophetic words, are having an upwards swing. That pursuit of integrating innovative technology is partly the reason why some of their design decisions seem impractical and in complete contradiction to current technical norms. The unpopular decision behind the removal of the headphone jacks from the iPhone 7, for instance, was necessary to make the device thinner and add space for larger batteries in a world that is hankering for more juice. That single design change has virtually turned the tide towards wireless Bluetooth headset manufacturers and prompted iPhone buyers to shop for them (read, ‘AirPods’) and has sparked a wave of innovation in the industry.

[…]Apple is a company that doesn’t have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles… they have their springs, and summers and autumns, and…then they go to their graveyard of technology. And..so we try to pick things that are in their ‘springs’ and if you choose wisely you can save yourself enormous amount of work versus trying to do everything, and you can really put energy into making those new emerging technologies be great on your platform rather than just ‘ok’ because you’re spreading yourself too thin. […] So we have got rid of things..we were one of the first to get rid of the optical drives with the MacBook Air, and I think things are moving in that direction as well. And sometimes when we get rid of things like the floppy disk drive on the original iMac people call us crazy. But sometimes you just have to pick the things that look like they’re gonna be the right horses to ride going forward.

Steve Jobs – D8 conference, 2010.

So, where modern PC brands were feverishly banking on the ubiquitous USB Type-A on the basis of its adoption rate and the competition Apple boldly moved forward to replace them with USB type-Cs on their Mac devices. It’s a debate for another day that Apple’s ‘design-first’ decision on the 2015 MacBook also prompted an extravagant usage of physical adapters to attach almost any 3rd-party Type-A peripheral on almost every major device launch.

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LEGO NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander

The Eagle Has Landed

June 15, 2019 Design Photos

Before I begin to write about the LEGO’s Lunar Lander, I thought I’d state a couple of reasons why this commemorative NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander (Creator – 10266) has come at a crucial moment. These are exciting times for space enthusiasts like myself. Firstly, India is preparing to launch the ambitious Chandrayaan-2 mission carrying an orbiter and a lunar rover (named ‘Pragyan’) to the southern pole of the Moon, making India the first nation to attempt landing a rover in that area. And also, we are closing in on the big event, the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969. So following the Apollo Saturn V here was another Apollo mission engineering masterpiece from LEGO’s creative factory!

Apollo 11 Lunar Lander (Module)

I appreciated the dexterity required in building the Saturn V just this past month from exactly 1969 bricks and right to this day, I continue to look at the 3-ft tall structure as one of the greatest most creative designs to come out of the LEGO studio, yet. Honestly, I was unaware until the Internet started buzzing with the release in the European market of the ‘Apollo Lunar Lander’, which they thankfully launched this month. And unless they’re also planning to add the Command & Service Module into the mix before the anniversary date this would signal the end of the Apollo mission series showcasing NASA’s engineering expertise and the collaborative effort in sending the first humans to the Moon. In a nutshell, the iconic Apollo 11 mission consisted of the behemoth Saturn V which transported the astronauts to the Moon whilst the Lunar Lander placed the Apollo astronauts, most notably Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the lunar surface and brought them home safely.

This ‘Creator’ Lunar Lander is also special for one more reason — LEGO has worked with NASA in developing this design to mark the historic 50th Anniversary.

I spotted the Apollo Lunar Lander on display at the LEGO Store last week and it was difficult to ignore the temptation of adding it to my growing collection. However, to my pleasant surprise, in addition to the Lunar Lander I also received a ‘Space Rocket Ride’ toy, a LEGO ‘Apollo Lunar Lander’ patch — similar in feel to the ‘Eagle’ patch of the Apollo 11 (pictures in this post), and some miscellaneous items as promo offers for a limited time. The purchase was definitely sweetened with the addition of these extra bricks and added to my fun of building more LEGOs this time.

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Saturn V

Building the LEGO NASA Apollo Saturn V

May 2, 2019 Design Photos

It so happens that every time I pick a LEGO model I cannot help but feel anxious to see how the outcome might turn out. Although, to be honest, halfway through, the process starts feeling mundane when the activity doesn’t exactly line up with my expectations of achieving the target. This one philosophy of building a LEGO — that of navigating through untenable ambiguity, always provides me with the ultimate dopamine to take up & finish LEGO creations with patience. I call it ‘Brickosophy’. By no means would I consider building a LEGO an easy task of sticking the bricks together. It might seem like a simple job of following the guide book and following the detailed illustrations, but it’s not that straightforward too. It requires perseverance and bucket loads of patience.

You may have heard about the LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V assembly and I will spare the details just to keep this concise, but I have to say, it was a fantastic experience assembling this marvellous engineering effort that transported humanity to the Moon and back to earth safely. So at one point while assembling this LEGO set and while I was completing the first stage itself the plans went awry because I fixed a single pivoting brick in the wrong hole. It sent me into a tizzy and after struggling to get it right I had to suspend my work for the day. I had to backtrack by disassembling the pieces. Such was this wonderful experience!

LEGO has put a great degree of emphasis in getting the details on the engineering elements in sync with the original Saturn design. I would like to think that the LEGO 21309 NASA Apollo Saturn V is nothing less than a commemorative token celebrating the Apollo Missions and a must-have for any space enthusiast. There was so much nostalgia & pride in assembling this rocket, it’s only then that you recognize the Saturn V as a symbol of human engineering endeavour, apart from also being a reminder of the July 20, 1969 landing of the Apollo 11 on the Moon. No surprises though, but 2019 is also the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! So, in honouring the Saturn V’s contribution in Apollo missions through the moon landing, this LEGO set contains exactly 1969 pieces, which also makes it my biggest Lego assembly since the 578-brick Fire Plane that I build back in 2016. Take a look at the gorgeous images of the rocket I built, you’ll be amazed at how much LEGO has explored the details!

  • Close-up of the J-2 engine on the S-IVB stage.
  • The Lunar Module sitting atop the S-IVB in a typical Apollo-11 configuration.
  • The rugged LEGO interior of the S-1C stage. I'd the hardest time building this.
  • The Escape Tower on the (supposedly) Apollo Spacecraft (grey portion). Alaos called the "mothership". The LM Adapter is also visible.
  • The S-II stage of the Saturn V with 5 J-2 engines. It carried a combination of liquid hydrogen & liquid oxygen fuels.
  • Close-up of the S-IVB stage with the J-2 engine.
  • The gorgeous LEGO Saturn-V launch vehicle, standing at 3-feet tall! It contains 1969 pieces.
  • The 5 F-1 rocket engines on the S-1C stage.
  • The LEGO Saturn V box.
  • This isn't the engine of a rocket, primarily, just a detailed LEGO construction.
  • From L to R - Escape System, S-IVB stage, S-II stage, and S-1C stage. (front row, L to R) the Command Module & the Lunar Module.
  • Another view of the S-1C stage.
  • S-1C stage with the F-1 engines, and an actual human scale model of an astronaut figure.
  • The Lunar Module
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