Pearls of Wisdom
This week’s Advertising Age contains a special section on the role of design in brand development (and business development generally). Lots of interesting and inspirational tidbits therein, for example:
On the power of listening to end users…
“Consumers think they know what they want, but they often have trouble articulating it. But when we watch them, we can ask, ‘Why do you do that?’ We can change the product and solve their problems.”
— Henrik Otto, SVP Global Design, Electrolux
On the relationship between brand and user experience…
“Design is a plan for action, not decoration. It’s a strategy that makes your brand’s values real: what it feels like in your hand, how a screen responds to your cursor. It’s about delivering a cycle of integrated emotionally engaging experiences.”
— Brian Collins, Exec. Creative Director, Brand Integration Group
“Value attributed to brand is a result of customners’ collective experience of products, services, spaces, communications and people. Designed experiences based on human insights facilitate the conversations that are necessary to create buy-in and consensus from all the stakeholders including the consumer. That is design thinking.”
— Paul Bennett, Creative Director of Innovation, IDEO
Clients often ask me whether the relatively small sample size of a usability test (i.e. 12 - 15 people) is adequate to produce valid research results. My usual response is that it has been proven, and is generally accepted in the usability community, that a small group of participants will reliably generate the qualitative feedback that a usability test is intended to unearth. The sentiments quoted above imply another, maybe more compelling, answer. A real conversation with customers can only be had directly (in person, ideally) and those conversations, when properly conducted and understood, will yield the usability and product development insights that matter most.
