21 things you might not know About Product Design

21 things you might not know about Product Design... from Etienne Garbugli @egarbugli has some great gems that are often overlooked in Product design and Product planning. The presentation transcript is below:

• 1. 21 things you might not know about Product Design... ...and if you do, please pretend like you don't.Etienne GarbugliWeb & User Experience Strategist
• 2. Me meme.
• 3. Montreal, Canada raisedComms / Marketing backgroundFirst (Geocities) Website in 1998Founded 3 businesses (1 startup)RecognizedUsability / UX / IXD / IA expert with 7+ years of experience
• 4. 1.Ideas are nothing withoutproper execution
• 5. }Ideax Execution________ResultBoo.com
• 6. 2. Most people only really use 5 to 7 services
• 7. }Whywould I addyouhere?
• 8. 3. You can’t easily change user behavior
• 10. 4. Understand your meaning
• 11. Company name is for market segmentwho are dissatisfied with problem being solved. Our product name or service offering provides companies with benefits. Unlike our competitors, we have proprietary advantage.}What are yousolving? How do you know?
• 12. 5. Challenge the Status Quo
• 13. Reverse engineer designs. Find patterns and improvementopportunities.}
• 14. 6. You may not need a signup
• 15. Tripit.com
• 16. 7. Perceived value is key
• 17. Moof.com}It’snever about the tool; youneed to focus on value. Askyourself, doesthis help anyonereachtheir goal?
• 18. 8. You don’t have to build everything
• 19. Iteration1SchedulingBoard, Progress Reports, Job Status Reports, Profitability Reports, Customer Tracking, Call-back Scheduling, Dashboard Customization, SharedAppointments, PurchaseOrderContract, Workflow Management, SchedulingBoard, Reminders, Invoicing, Billing, Search, Signup, Login}Build theminimum needed to launch. Builditverywell.Iteration 2User Ratings, Social Media, PrintViewEh…Iteration3
• 20. 9. Others have done it before
• 21. }You don’tneed to re-do whatalreadyexists.
• 22. 10. The longer it takes to develop, the less likely it is to launch
• 23. W1 W5 W10 W15 W20 W25 W30 W35 W40Great ideaTeam Setup ThinkingDebatingArguingPlanningExecutingOut of Money…}Buildmomentum, not projectplans.
• 24. 11. Typing is a barrier to entry
• 25. }Newslettersignup. Pleasekill me…
• 26. 12. Content actually matters
• 27. }Great content is simple, scannable and purposeful.
• 28. 13. Visual flows convert
• 29. }What do younotice first? Second? Third?
• 30. Alignment+ Color+ Contrast+ Shape+ Size+ Whitespace___________ Visual Weight}
• 31. 14. The blank state should not be blank
• 32. Whatnow?! Blankscreens are communicationopportunities.}Dokdok.net
• 33. 15.People love overviews
• 34. }Always look for ways to provide an overview. Most of your favorite Websites do it!
• 35. 16.(Great) UX can create word of mouth
• 36. }« Wow »moments helpedmakeMintfamous.Mint.com
• 37. 17.Copying can be dangerous
• 38. Amazon.comTarget.com}Same design, different reality.
• 39. 18.Good designs feel natural
• 40. Design is a reductiveprocess. You need the right options at the right time and the right position.}ABtests.com
• 41. 19.You need metrics to survive
• 42. }Trackeverystep of the funnel. Understandthe issues.
• 43. 20.Features are best introduced one at a time
• 44. Batch Import and Export of catalogue Product comparisons Product Reviews Layered / Faceted Navigation for filtering of products in Search Results Shopping Cart ReportProduct Image Zoom-in DownloadableProductsCapabilityAbandonedShipping to multiple addresses in one orderOrderTrackingfromAccount A/B and MultivariateTesting Google Base IntegrationMeta-information for products and categories Admin Dashboard for Report Overview}Introduce one feature at a time to be able to identify issues and roll back if necessary.
• 45. 21.You can’t know everything
• 46. POST analysisHeuristic evaluations Lean startup methodology5 second test Scrum A/B testing SWOT analysisAarrr metrics 4Q surveys Cost-benefit analysis Conversion funnel Analysis Price Point Analysis Personas}What do you know? What do you really need to know?
• 47. +1 Bonus
• 48. “Progress is not the number of features, it's user behavior changes.”- Dave McClure}Spend 80% of your time optimizing features, 20% on creating new ones.

Skip the movie, watch the titles!

"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Title Sequence by Blur from Motionographer on Vimeo.

In an alternate life, I would have grown up to be a movie titles designer (or more accurately, both a movie titles designer AND music video director). Imaginary Forces, the brainchild of one of my design heros, Kyle Cooper, blew my mind with the title sequence from "Se7en", back in 1995. Every since, I've always paid more attention to the titles than the feature film. Sometimes, I've skipped the film entirely if the title sequence is lacking. Yes, I admit, I'm a nerd.

When I stumbled upon the titles for "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Title Sequence by Blur at a friend's house, I literally ran home and put that movie in my Netflix queue. Mesmerized by the beauty of these 2 minutes, I watched it a dozen times before I watched the rest of the film. Check out these articles to get a more in depth look at Blur's process: 

An exclusive look at the making of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Jezebel
Oily Secrets of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Title Sequence by Wired

Tremor Video and Ad Age Super Creative Video Ad Challenge

I normally don't share work related stuff, but I'm especially proud of this little tidbit. When I was at Scanscout, before it got acquired by Tremor, I worked really closely with the Product and Business Development team to create Super Video ad formats like the Super Pre-Roll. This ad format turns plain vanilla pre-rolls into a more interactive and engaging ad unit and makes it a lean-forward experience. The very first one I created was one for Unilever's Vaseline Sheer Infusion.

Other old articles about Super Pre-Roll:

ScanScout Introduces the Super Pre-roll Ad Unit
IAC Outstanding Online Video award for Scanscout Super Pre-Roll

Fast forward to a couple of years later and now this ad format makes up the majority of our ads at Tremor. What's even cooler is that we, at Tremor Video, have teamed up with Ad Age to create a competition for ad agencies to put together the best Super Creative Video Ad:

We know you're silently judging creativity every chance you get. Here's your chance to weigh in on some super star contenders who put their creativity to the Super Pre-Roll test in Ad Age and Tremor Video's ultimate challenge. See how they

transformed their pre-roll into a super experience that moves people to lean forward and interact.

How'd they do? Visit the Contestant Gallery to rate all the contenders for the People's Choice Award!

Check out the creative ads and vote! 

http://superadchallenge.com

Jildy: List-a-mania!

I love Jildy, the iPhone app. It's election day and the app is my gauge of social media sentiments within my own group of friends on who have voted and for whom - all in one nifty snapshot.

I admit it. I'm a Facebook addict. But as much as I like FB, it drives me insane when I see the same poster show up 25 times in a row in my newsfeed. This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to work with Mark Drummond, the CEO and his amazingly talented engineering team from Jildy, a mobile app company that sorts your Facebook (and Twitter and Linkedin) friends and their posts.


When we first started out with version 1, the UI focused mostly on lists AND on PSI (Personal Social Infographics) which created on-the-fly infographics of your friends' age, gender, relationship status and Zodiac signs.


With the second version, Mark narrowed the focus to be all about lists, which really sharpened the value of Jildy and solves this common problem with feeds in Facebook. Jildy's main power is the technology of auto-magically grouping my friends with photos or by posts or by my preferred topic using algorithms, or manually, and also using lists that were set up in Facebook. Download the Jildy app now and take control of your Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter

Jildy Mobile App

Jildy Website

NY Times Review of Jildy 1.0
Jildy
See more on my portfolio site

One super burrito, please

Please make my burrito, super. Apparently, my love for burritos has just gone "plush'. This genius, Lauren Venell, created the burrito body pillow. In my opinion, the best thing since sliced bread. I want to meet this girl.


If I truly became what I ate, this would be me frolicking around SF.

Buy your burrito body pillow from Bold Italic

Open Studios in Boston

One of the things I dearly miss in San Francisco is Open Studios that happens twice a year (which started off in Bayview but has expanded to so many neighborhoods). I finally checked out the Fort Point Open Studios here in Boston this past weekend.

Two highlights from touring various artist's spaces and art, were Lara Loutrel and Luther Price.

I love Loutrel's work and am a proud owner of a Russian eye chart-like screenprint. Loutrel's work is really arresting - abstract black and white prints. Her more recent pieces are more sculptural and 3-D which extends her very structural lines in her pieces. I really love this evolution she's embarking on with her work.

Luther Price is an experimental film maker whose studio was this enormous warehouse that featured his installation, The Sound of Singing through Dust. There were hand-made slide projections that was a combination of old personal photographs, found film stills that had various music pieces accompany them. His process is so interestingly different in that he really deconstructs the concept of mainstream film and physically collages these found-objects and reshoots them on Super 8mm. After turning them into slides, he manipulates and destroys the slides with mold, dust and overexposure. To me, they seem rough, sometimes perverse, but somehow delicate and poetic at the same time.

Infinite Pictures and Sound at the ICA

There were two exhibits that I found thrilling on my first visit to the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art). The first was Some Pictures of the Infinite by with Josiah McEhleny. In a large room, there were gigantic galaxy-like chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. The highly stylized planets, stars and galaxies were mesmerizing to walk around in and see various reflections in the shiny mirrored materials.

The Center Is Everywhere by Josiah McEhleny

Another aspect of McEhleny's exhibit was the sculptural and performance piece called the Infinite Repetition of Revolt, performed by Maggie McBrien. While McBrien stands planted in front of a blackboard like structure with silver drawings of boxes, she poses the question of how revolt should be pursued – lead by a small group of trailblazers or built on consensus? She turns around and erases all remnants of the silver boxes and leaves a black reflection of us, the audience's faces.

Infinite Repetition of Revolt Performance  by Maggie McBrien

A few months ago, there was a lot of outcry from the Boston public regarding a mural painted at Dewey Square because people interpreted it as the main figure as a terrorist by the Brazilian artist duo, Os Gemeos. To me, I see a vivid painting of a boy with a shirt wrapped around his head in a playful manner. What do you think?

By Os Gemeos

This mural complimented the full exhibit of paintings, sculptures, and interactive sound organ that was on display at the ICA. The Os Gemeos style has an underground graffiti-tone that is also playful, whimsical, and bright – like they are throwing a Carnival party with their artwork. Os Musicos was a sonic sculpture that had a piano or organ placed in front of a wall of yellow painted speakers. Apparently, each key creates an analog sound that pumps through the speakers. I missed the performance and couldn't convince the Gallery Docents to let me bang on the keys to see what sounds came out.

Os Musicos

Scrabble-tabulous!

This is the perfect gift for a Scrabble lover and a typophile, like myself.  This gorgeously crafted game comes in your favorite font or an assorted font pack. If I were to get one, I'd have a difficult time choosing between Mrs Eaves, Chalet, Neutraface, though the assorted pack would be a great way to change fonts depending on the day/weather/outfit.

"The purpose of this project was to revive an old, but loved game. The idea was to excite people about typography by giving them the ability to choose what font their scrabble set would come in. " - Andrew Clifford Capener

The waiting list for the A-1 Scrabble designer edition by Andrew Clifford Capener is now open. Sign up here. 
 

Wind Beneath My Map

 

Last year, I had the pleasure to see Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg (when they were still Flowing Media) speak at a UX/UI lecture and was so inspired by their social visualization mantra and approach. They are a dynamic duo that creates artistic ways to rethink data. Check out their latest project is an interactive wind map that shows wind speeds throughout the country.

Alternate Man Men Title Sequences

I'm over the moon excited that Mad Men is back from a 17 month hiatus.  As anyone who knows me, I'm a big groupie over beautifully done title sequences, which made me jump with giddiness to see this re-imagined opening titles for it. It's like Mr Draper is having his own groundhog day, but more chic and with more swearing.

Big kiss. Oh My. 

Fotoshop by Adobe - Jesse Rosten

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Brilliant work by Jesse Rosten with his commercial, Fotoshop by Adobe. The commercial is a parody of all beauty ads - infomercials, before/afters,  Maybelline ads, with a swipe of "Best of" Photoshop Disasters.  It's such a biting dig at what our standards of beauty are as a society and this video cleverly pulls off the facade to reveal that it's "pro-pixel intesifying fauxtanical hydro-jargon microbead extract...featuring nutritive volumizing technology"

I literally laughed out loud at the line, "My skin feels like plastic!" 

Well played, Jesse. Well played.

forget about the past

I have never felt compelled to do this, write a blog, because maybe I never thought anyone would be interested in my random musings.

Though, last night, after attending an AIGA lecture at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco featuring Karim Rashid… I had to record it. For self-preservation.

With the rush of graduating from a hoity-toity art school rapidly fading, I felt like I was in a design funk. I was going through the same monotonous motions, day in and day out. Regurgitating what I thought people wanted to see. Attempts to get outside of the safe boundaries were always met with bureaucratic resistance. I think I gave up. Couldn’t fight the fight any longer. In turn, nothing I touched, appeased my inner child or gave me that sparkle of excitement. I lost the love.

Until I saw this legend designer, rocking the stage in a pink suit jacket and bright silver shoes, revealing his manifesto to all. In the most humble and soft-spoken way. The themes that struck me were:

- Tradition holds us back. Don’t be a stylist, by just simply repurposing what has been done in the past. But to bring something of your own voice/personality/views/etc. That is what constitutes you as a designer.

- The world is changing and it ain’t gonna stop to wait for you to catch up. High design is not for the elite anymore. And function does not have to be boring… It can go hand in hand. Due to faster speeds, cheaper technology, the digital world is starting to have an effect on expectations we place on the world. Why not cater to it? And bring it to the masses?

- Design is not just about aesthetics but the experience, the interactions and sustainability. Make the world, our collective environment, better.

- Be in the moment.

Thank you, Karim. Your words sparked my fire again. I’m feeling the love of, for (in spite of) design again.

Two dots and one P.

:P