“Train yourself to let go of what you fear to loose” – Yoda, Star Wars III As an artist, or just someone who is excited about an idea, compassionate detachment allows one to explore ideas with an open mind and the see the whole over the parts. Oftentimes we get caught up in an aspect of … Read more
Personas, actors, and roles have been around for a long time. In Greek theater, the persona referred to the “theatrical mask” – a role played by an actor. The Romans expanded the term to indicate a role in a court of law where personas assume roles with legal attributes such as rights, powers, and duties. … Read more
The Connection Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found ways to increases productivity by as much as 17% by improving flaws in the way new ideas flow through organizations. In a presentation for the 4As’ CreateTech, David Shrier, Managing Director of CSE, shares a handful of MIT-proven methods to boost the … Read more
The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) is an experimental laboratory at Harvard University that promotes innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography. Aesthetics is a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art and a branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. Ethnography is the … Read more
If there is such a thing as a Design Thinking geek – I’m it. My new favorite Design Thinking technique is Empathy Maps. Empathy Maps are a tool to help synthesize your observations to discover insights about your target audience. Empathy Maps are to Design Thinking what SWOT Analysis is to business. They are simple … Read more
Experience design as a discipline runs the gambit from human factors to fine arts. We experience reality from a variety of senses. As experience designers, we map out the affect of each cue along our audiences’ journey with the five senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, smell – the more senses engage, the more memorable … Read more
“We know that consumer purchase decisions are often made quickly and subconsciously, but there are opportunities where it’s possible to influence a consumer’s perception of a brand. People often make buying decisions by using all five of their senses and once product designers discover what each of these sensory influencers are, they can develop packaging … Read more
So how do you make the complex simple? How do you accommodate a person’s first-time experience from their familiar routine from their advance experts needs? With progressive disclosure. Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique to help maintain the focus of a person’s attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive load by presenting only the … Read more
We are in the Experience Economy that Pine and Gilmore predicted – a customer-centric marketplace that Forrester calls the Age of the Customer where: “A customer obsessed company focuses its strategy, its energy, and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of an engagement with customers, and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.” We … Read more
I was having lunch with a colleague – catching up on family and his new gig, when we got on a conversation about the difference in US and Japanese business cultures (he has spent the last 25 years working in both). One thing in particular that stood out to me was that Japanese companies have … Read more
In a not-so-recent HBR article on Design Thinking, Tim Brown reminds us that “…innovation is powered by a thorough understanding, through direct observation, of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made, packaged, marketed, sold, and supported.” That: “Design thinking is… a … Read more
“Design thinking is a slightly murky concept that means different things to different people. At heart, though, it is about fusing the creative and open-ended with the analytical and operational, combining very different ways of thinking and acting. This is, of course, easier in theory than in practice. How do you get children’s book authors … Read more