Designing for more than ease of use
I agree with Tom Moran [1] on the following criteria of design: usefulness, reliability, usability, and delight (listed in what I think is the order of importance). This is one reason I'm unhappy when the term Usability is used to cover all aspects of interactive product design. It misses out on the other factors - and constrains the designer's role.
As a designer I want to create successful products - so I want to understand what makes products successful, and how design can influence these factors. One obvious example which is rarely mentioned is price - products should be designed to be manufactured/distributed/maintained cheaply.
For IKEA this means designing furniture that packs flat - other industrial designers work under different constraints, but only in rare cases can they ignore manufacturing costs. On software projects, a good designer can limit implementation costs by being very selective about which features are included in the product, or by defining/documenting the functionality well enough to prevent misunderstanding (which can lead to endless cycles of reworking and retesting). Design management (ie. how design as a resource is applied to a project) becomes an important tool on larger projects, where the design may be done by a changing group of designers. Earlier design decisions may be overturned as new project members with an alternative (and still evolving) understanding of the problems come on board, eager to make an impact. This usually leads to unforeseen consequences, design inconsistencies that then need to be fixed, re-implementation, and re-testing (and eventually lack of trust in the design team). All of these have direct impact on price (and shipping schedule).
I want to explore other aspects of this in later posts, including designing for technology adoption - how and why users become regular users of a product, and how it is integrated into their lives. Other topics will surely arise.
[1] For more inspired design wisdom from Tom Moran, I recommend reading his Keynote Presentation from DIS 2002.
As a designer I want to create successful products - so I want to understand what makes products successful, and how design can influence these factors. One obvious example which is rarely mentioned is price - products should be designed to be manufactured/distributed/maintained cheaply.
For IKEA this means designing furniture that packs flat - other industrial designers work under different constraints, but only in rare cases can they ignore manufacturing costs. On software projects, a good designer can limit implementation costs by being very selective about which features are included in the product, or by defining/documenting the functionality well enough to prevent misunderstanding (which can lead to endless cycles of reworking and retesting). Design management (ie. how design as a resource is applied to a project) becomes an important tool on larger projects, where the design may be done by a changing group of designers. Earlier design decisions may be overturned as new project members with an alternative (and still evolving) understanding of the problems come on board, eager to make an impact. This usually leads to unforeseen consequences, design inconsistencies that then need to be fixed, re-implementation, and re-testing (and eventually lack of trust in the design team). All of these have direct impact on price (and shipping schedule).
I want to explore other aspects of this in later posts, including designing for technology adoption - how and why users become regular users of a product, and how it is integrated into their lives. Other topics will surely arise.
[1] For more inspired design wisdom from Tom Moran, I recommend reading his Keynote Presentation from DIS 2002.
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