Retake 4 – ‘Lights, Camera, Action’....Design Iterations

Even as I write this, Sakku in TVD office is working on 10^th design option for our internal company profile (and thats just one page that he is designing). I sometimes wonder ‘Where do Design iterations end’. When are we utterly gratified by our design. Do we ever see a culmination to our design?

Iterative Design Methodology

Design methodology is often an iterative process – cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analysing – perpetual work in progress. In iterative design, interaction with the designed system is used as a form of research and analysis for evolving the design of the product. However, what’s critical is the designer’s grip on Design Methodology. Design should be envisaged and implemented in phases. Each phase should elevate design further.

Does all this mean that the product will never be launched in its absoluteness? Will there be constant shaping required to create that utopian Monalisa? How do architects carry through? They can’t design and build buildings in an iterative modus operandi.

The answer to this is perhaps the nature around us. God almighty has created the world in a beta stage. Living beings are getting archaic and new ones are originating. Human design is forever modifying and evolving. From the apes to nomads and now the super tech humans we have seen it all.

Designing in the Real World

I have repeatedly witnessed debates between the Product team and the Design team – Product team being always at a bullet speed to launch the nouveau and Design team always agog to make it a design beyond compare and hence requiring more time. How do we draw the curtain? Where do we call the ceasefire? I have finally adopted the following methodology:

· Understand the user requirements and separate them into categories of ‘Must Haves’, ‘Good to Have’ and ‘Bells and Frills’.
· In the given time frame ensure that the ‘Must Haves’ have been taken care of. If you have included design solutions to the other two categories in the given time frame then you can pat your back.
· Give the product team the other two categories along with your design solution. This would help them in planning the next variant. (This is also done to ensure that the product team does not raise fingers at your design and say that everything has not been taken care of J)

Designing with peers

In the iterative design process, the most copious thinking that you need at any moment is the one which will get you to your next prototype. Isolated thinking may not help and therefore take help from peers and users of your product to get to the next level. I do any of the following and it really helps:

· Bounce off initial design ideas and prototype to your peers and take their comments.
· Gather a group of potential users and show your design to them to take their feedback.
· Involve stakeholders in discussion of ideas and solutions.
· When towards finalisation, rope in friends and take their views.

Like Oscar Wilde had once said – ‘A fashion is merely a form of ugliness so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months’. I would say that Design gets archaic and ugly so soon that we need to relook at it every six months. So all you designers, keep iterating and hold dignity in creating versions. The more the number of iterations, the better you get. Final design is anyways the other end of the rainbow.

Whats in a name

Well!! I have just delivered a baby and have been wondering what to ‘label’ my baby. I call it ‘label’ because I think its mankind’s most extensive ‘Branding Exercise’. This ‘label’ is going to determine the child’s personality here - after. The child will be called by that ‘label’ from the day of its genesis until a span of a lifetime and even beyond that!! It’s a frightful thought since I want to give the best to my baby.

To top it all, I have also started my own consultancy. I sure enough am facing onerous Branding challenges. My consultancy helps people design pleasant user experiences for their software products. The name should thus savour the taste of ‘user friendliness’, ‘user appeal’, ‘usable’ etc etc

After going through rounds of brainstorming with self, I froze on a few ‘labels’ akin ‘names’ but none of them were as charismatic as my image of my company or baby. Until yesterday, when I woke up with the thought that what if my name was ‘Annie’ or ‘Mary’ or ‘Xia’. Would I converse or behave any different? Would my skill set differ? Most importantly, would my character be any different?

Names are in my opinion often used to assess and classify a person. There are incredible number of names in this cosmos. Thanks to these names, people fall in diversified categories. The obvious primary category formed when one hears a name is Gender. This is succeeded by categories of race, nationality, caste, creed, religion etc. Further, there are notions associated with these categories which are then added to the character of these names. Mental models are thus established only by listening to one’s name. Are names really important then? To begin with, I did not even select my name. If was given an option, I would have called myself a number rather than being evaluated because of my name.

‘What’s in a name, anyways’...The most successful businesses in the world have mostly not had painfully investigated names (or logos). Brand name is no guarantee or pathway to success. All the branding, differentiation, brand identity etc are just the cherry on the top. If you have it, splendid. Even if you don’t, the cake still tastes the same.

There were a couple of geeks who got some venture capital funding for their internet start-up. Unfortunately, the guy who wrote the cheque misspelt the name of their company on the cheque, and by the time these geeks found out, the funder had boarded his flight. So what did they do? They surfed and found that the "wrong" name of the company written on the cheque was available as a domain name for registration and instead of amending the cheque they immediately booked the new domain name. That name was ‘Google’.

Does anyone know how the name and swoosh of Nike was got? The logo expenditure was merely a handful of dollars. I suppose it’s today the most recognised in the world after the red cross? And all this in a country considered being the Mecca of marketing and branding?

Jerry Yang and David Filo were Engineering students at Stanford University. They started a list of web pages to keep a track of their personal interests on the internet and published these lists under a website named ‘Jerry’s guide to the World Wide Web’. These lists grew substantially large and were categorised and sub categorised in hierarchy. They then renamed the website to ‘Yahoo’. Filo and Yang said that they chose this name because they took fancy to the word’s definition, which comes from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift: “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth”!!! I doubt if branding consultants would ever recommend a name which has such a negative denotation.

An automobile dealer and racing zealot, Jellinek had been racing DMG automobiles on which he had the name—Mércédès—painted for good luck after his daughter, Mércédès Jellinek. Later he contracted with DMG for a small series of dedicated sports cars containing an engine that officially bore his daughter's name. He raced them very successfully, achieving recognition that rose inquisitiveness of customers and Jellinek was placed on the board of directors of DMG. This model was a considerable progress in the history of automobiles. The model was released for sale in 1901 under the name of Mercedes 35 hp and, because of the success of the model, DMG used this name for a series of other models such as, Mercedes 8/11 hp and Mercedes 40 hp Simplex. Mercedes today has become a name synonymous to luxury and high frill cars. All this commenced with the name of a car enthusiast’s daughter!!

How many people would have agreed four years ago that Orkut is a perfect name for a social networking site? I still don’t think it is. It’s a bizarre name, makes no sense. But then, does it matter anymore?

All businesses are about customer satisfaction. It’s better if the entrepreneur channelizes energy on what will give the customer more satisfaction. Nice brand names are superb, but they don’t do much, barring perhaps getting occasional cognizance of people. And yes, aggrandize expectation sometimes.

I think we have gotten into the drift of complicating facile matters be it business or relationships. Glenn McGrath said the same thing about cricket. Warren Buffett said the same thing about investing. We consider getting a consultant for everything and think that they'll do a superior job since they are specialists in this field.

It’s not what I call my baby or my consultancy that’s of as much a consequential value as how I foster and build them. It’s how I make my business successful. How much probity will my business or baby have. Can they provide unsurpassed quality and work for the amelioration of social community. Me alone, as the owner of the business can give my business a peerless culture.... Then, ’Whats in a name, anyways’!!!