how great design will make people love your company

Photo Credit: Peter Dazeley

Source: Do you matter? – How great design will make people love your company

Written by: Robert Brunner and Steward Emery

On the second day after Jobs came back to Apple, Tim Bajarin, recognized as a leading analyst and futurist covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology, was invited to meet with him. One of the questions Bajarin asked Jobs was how he planned to get the computer maker back on the road to profitability. To his surprise, one of the foundational solutions offered was “industrial design.”

We think most people are prone to define design, particularly good design, more narrowly than they should. When you see an iconic product, such as iPhone, for instance, that enjoys an initial runaway success, it’s so easy to overlook the big picture of how the product fits into the company’s future – and the future of similar products in general. We want you to consider a far broader view of the significance of design.

Right now, you could design a product that looks like an iPhone, has really nice details and materials, and becomes an object of lust. However, this doesn’t mean that it will ultimately be successful. Unless you have strong idea that pervades the way it looks, the way it operates, what it does, how it’s communicated to people, how it’s branded, and how people identify with the brand, your product is not complete, because these are all things that go into making a great product which becomes a good business.

This approach is product design as a total concept – how the product operates, how it sounds, and how it feels. Included in the design is the experience of how you buy it, the experience of what happens when you actually get possession of it and open up the box, how you start to feel, and what all this communicates to you. And of course, there is the chain of events through which you became aware of the product. This is part of the design too – what all those touch points meant to you.

Taking possession of the product is just the beginning of the next phase of the relationship. What happens if something goes wrong with the product? What happens next? How do you feel about it? All these things need (to) be included in the total design of the customer experience. This notion is something that IDEO (a Palo Alto design firm formed in 1991) has been basing its entire practice on – the idea that design is not just limited to this thing with buttons.

The iPod is an iconic product of our time, a glorious example of design and business success. So close your eyes and imagine you’re holding an iPod. Now take away iTunes, take away the ability to buy the song you like for 99cents without having to pay $15 for a dozen more on a CD you don’t want, lose the ability to create play lists, cut out the packaging, take out the ads, delete the Apple logo, and shutter all the Apple stores. The remaining question is, “Do you still have an iPod?” Yes, the physical product in your hand is exactly the same, but what do you have now? Really, what do you have?

An iPod is not just an object. The object is an icon that is a portal to an experience. Great products are about ideas; they are not just objects.


*You can also visit their website for the book over here