The Business of Design

Lately, I’ve heard a few people in the design community talking about how user interface (UI) should now be considered the brand rather than some of the more traditional descriptions and metrics employed in its definition. The primary reason being that the interface sits between the audience and the content and allows this experience (or not) to take place. This is really the location where the audience or customer experiences the brand.  As an example, I recently saw an interview clip of Dale Herigstad, Chief Creative Officer at Schematic and a really superlative creative visionary whom I admire tremendously, in which he posits this exact thing. In fact, this is where they seem to have positioned their company strategically in order to do business.

I think there is a lot of truth to this, but I would also expand it out to include the complete user experience (UX), since I don’t believe any one individual aspect of the online interaction such as the user interface (UI), usability or accessibility fully describe it. I’m pretty confident this is what Dale was alluding to in the clip I saw, but I’ve also heard others take it more literally and I think this would be a short-sighted approach.

Let me explain briefly. Usability is primarily concerned with how well (efficiently, effectively quickly etc.) your intended users can accomplish what they are trying to do during their interactions with your website or other online application. In this respect, it is focused more on task-based operational or transactional activities than broader goal-based pursuits. That is fine, but of course doesn’t tell the whole story. Likewise UI can be looked at as the primary means of interaction thereby becoming the most visible artifact users encounter when dealing with your site and consequently even your company. I think this is probably where the idea of considering the interface as the brand really took hold.

What about those cases where the interface really enables to users to complete tasks quickly, easily and efficiently, but where the overall experience is dreadfully boring or unattractive? For example, the Spartan, utilitarian approach that Google or Craigslist take for their interface work beautifully for their business model, but would the same solution work on a social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo? It’s pretty doubtful. Even within these latter 3 websites, there are different degrees of customization and design available to the user that appeal uniquely to their individual audiences.

As another example, when I was Director of Creative and User Experience at CarDomain Network, we had to think very carefully about the UX issues beyond simply the interface. CarDomain’s primary audience is young males 18-34 and if we launched the site say with a pink color scheme, but exactly the same interface features and functionality, we would have severely compromised their overall experience. This ultimately would have disastrously compromised traffic, revenue and site viability. These and many other factors determining the overall user experience are what really defined the brand, not just the UI.

Even though Web 2.0 and other recent changes have really forced a paradigm shift in how business thinks of brands and branding, by considering User Experience (UX) as inextricably tied with the brand, I think you come much closer to branding as understood in the more traditional sense. UX is concerned with the positive and negative effects as well as the attitudes they generate with the audience interacting with your site, service or product offering. I also believe this is a more accurate description, better able to suggest ways in which brand opinions may be improved or influenced through a multiplicity of actions. Considerations such as the interface and usability are simply component parts of the broader concept of user experience. In his book “The Brand Gap” Marty Neumeier defines a brand as a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. This seems a much closer metaphor with user experience than it does with simply the interface. The big difference I believe is that in the old model, companies “pushed” marketing to the customer in a sort of one way monologue. With today’s media savvy audience, that approach doesn’t fly so organizations must provide vehicles that fully engage users and promote healthy discussion or dialogue.

Having said all that, I think there is a real business opportunity for companies like Schematic that want to specialize in just the interface for example. Having that kind of focus could be a very profitable business model for designers and others. Aside from Schematic, usability guru Norman Nielsen is ample proof of that idea. At the same time, as much as I admire Nielsen and have learned from him, my personal opinion is that he is far too ascetic in his thinking and recommendations. I’m certainly not alone in my opinion here and there are endless amounts of discussion over this matter.

The point I’m making here is that you could take Nielsen’s advice and deploy an incredibly usable site, but ironically still not end up with something anyone wants to use because it is simply unappealing or unattractive to them. I do think that a lot of marketers, brand managers and other business professionals would do well to consider some of these ideas when they are crafting brand strategy. The user interface is probably the most easily understood by most people because of its visibility, accessibility and function, but it does not work in a vacuum. It needs context. I think we need to look beyond it and consider user experience as perhaps the primary measure of brand.

One quick and easy metric I really like as part of the larger user experience toolbox is the Net Promoter Score or NPS. Originally established as a tool for determining customer loyalty, it’s also a quick and easy way to gauge what users think about your website or online application. It’s something that can and probably should be done before beginning work on an existing site as well as part of the regular (and broader) program of site analysis and performance.

NPS was developed and trademarked by Frederick F. Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix. He first introduced it in an article for The Harvard Business Review in 2003. The idea is that its simplicity allows ordinary employees easy access and understanding as well as providing them the motivation to do something about it.

It works on a scale of zero to ten and divides users into three categories: Promoters, Passives and Detractors. Promoters live in the 9-10 range and signify loyal enthusiasts who will actively work to promote your site. Passives exist in the 7-8 range and represent people who are satisfied, but generally unenthusiastic. These users are particularly vulnerable to alternative competitive offerings. Detractors occupy the largest range from 0-6 and signify dissatisfied users who are likely to actively damage your brand through negative word-of-mouth or other communication. It’s worth noting here that 5 on the scale is still considered a “neutral” position even though 6 is included in the Detractors category.

Calculating your site’s NPS is relatively simple and posits this simple question to users: “How likely are you to recommend this site to a friend or colleague”? Once you have all your sample data in hand, subtract the percentage of Detractors (0-6) from the percentage of Promoters (9-10) to get your score. A score of 75% or above is generally considered extremely high.

Of course just obtaining results from this one query doesn’t solve any problems and follow-up questions to obtain more detail are crucial to understanding why users hold the opinions they do. You also have to act on it and make changes to help improve the overall user experience. NPS is certainly not without its own detractors and is surely limited in its predictive capabilities, but overall I have still found it to be a useful “sniff test” for determining users feelings about a site.

Here are some links you might find useful:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter
• http://www.netpromoter.com/netpromoter_community/index.jspa
• http://harvardbusiness.org/product/one-number-you-need-to-grow/an/R0312C-PDF-ENG

Back in the late 80’s and through the 90’s I managed to make a decent part of my income from illustration. In many years it was the biggest part. After we moved out of Los Angeles to Seattle, I found opportunities for illustration assignments slowly dwindling until my only real outlet was in selling stock imagery. While this has continued to provide some creative outlet and income from making fun pictures, it hasn’t really been the same. I really enjoy making illustrative imagery and find it the process cathartic.

For some time now, I’ve been looking for a good opportunity to make my own art again, but time has been a real issue. In the last couple of months, I’ve reclaimed some of that time and am now well into a project I’ve been meaning to do for a while. My wife and I have written a children’s book together and now I am illustrating it. It’s a bigger project than I thought it would be, but also way more fun.

Aside from time, the biggest hurdle I faced in creating the book’s imagery was media. I used to work in traditional media (mostly acrylics), but found that the illustrations just weren’t coming out the way I wanted. This was very frustrating. I used to be able to just crank those things out with good results. Either through lack of use or whatever, I found I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the old paints. So I went back to the drawing board so to speak and looked to recreate my old style digitally. This of course made sense since I had been using the computer exclusively for all my other professional work for about 15 years.

I have a ton of experience in most design software including PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Softimage and others, but hadn’t really done much with Painter until this project. While PhotoShop is powerful and I consider it my everyday workhorse, it just wasn’t recreating some of the textural qualities and spontaneity of my old traditional work. With a little experimentation in Painter, I managed to get pretty close to my old style. A little prep and finish work in PhotoShop gives me exactly what I want. The beauty of the whole thing is that I’m freer to experiment and push the envelope further than I might have done using my old methods.

Painter is a wonderful program for simulating natural media and I love that I can mix formerly impossible media such as oils and watercolor. There are other benefits too, I used to use an airbrush occasionally for certain effects, but despite good ventilation techniques and the use of a respirator, I always seemed to blow the rainbow out my nose after working with it for any time. No chance of pixel particulate causing some hideous suffocating disease down the road no matter how much I overuse it.

There are also overlaps with some of my normal work doing creative direction and user experience design that I can take advantage of. For example, many aspects of workflow and UI design revolve around some kind of narrative. A children’s book is really just another form of narrative so doing it well involves similar techniques to those I use regularly in working with websites and online applications. It’s not just about making fun pictures that are interesting without context, but more importantly about crafting a story that carries the reader effortlessly through the journey. Storyboarding the whole project prior to painting anything has proven crucial to getting the results I want and made the process so much easier. As I go along and finish work, I will conduct usability testing on my target audience by showing artwork to kids and getting their opinions. So far I have managed a little of this and the feedback has been terrific. Although I’m really enjoying the process of creating the book, I can’t wait to see it finished and in the hands of readers. We have several other book ideas in the hopper so we don’t need to worry about the fun ending when this one is done.

As designers, we aren’t often exposed to the kinds of topics that many people deal with in other job functions or groups. Some of that tends to change however when your career path takes you into more managerial roles such as Art Director, Creative Director or Design Director. In these types of positions, you are often required to act as both a manager and a leader. The problem I have found with many people making the transition to these kinds of jobs is a fundamental lack of understanding of the differences between management and leadership.

In fact, it is a question I sometimes ask candidates during the interview process where it may be a part of their job requirements. I think it is also important because it touches on issues around effective communication, motivation and barriers to motivation. The real problem lies in the fact that leadership and management are in many respects fundamentally at odds with each other. If a design team leader does not grasp this inherent conflict then their job can become much more challenging and success frustratingly elusive. They can alienate or confuse team members and fail to deliver effective creative solutions on time or within budget. This can result in disastrous consequences for their organization and career.

Let me explain. By definition leaders produce change by establishing and sharing vision, imagination, new ideas, inspiration and motivation. The operative concept here is change. Managers on the other hand need to produce predictability and order through organization, well developed operating procedures, controls, problem-solving, communication and collaboration. Put another way, leadership tends to be more strategic whereas management tends to be more tactical or applied. Big Picture versus details.

Managers focus on things like planning and budgeting, process improvement, measurement, analysis, key performance indicators (KPI) and core competencies. Leaders typically focus on things such as innovation, differentiation and broad expansive ideas and technologies.

Although both roles here may have many people reporting to them directly and indirectly in an organizational hierarchy, managers tend to have subordinates whereas leaders more likely have followers, believers, or even acolytes. The working relationship that managers have with their subordinates is more transactional in nature in that they generally give some kind of order or tasks to their reports which are then carried out. Leaders may also be managers, so consequently have similar kinds of transactional relationships with their subordinates. The difference in these situations is that leaders inspire people to follow them through ideas, personal charisma or other like mechanisms. It’s worth noting here that leaders may have powerful personalities and invoke strong feelings in their followers, but still not be especially friendly or likeable. History suggests people like George Patton or Attila the Hun were great leaders, but I doubt I would have enjoyed working under them. I believe that you can be an effective leader or manager by using positive methods and reinforcement. I think I’ll address that topic in another post however.

Both roles are important in an organization. Leaders need well-developed operating capabilities and should pay close attention to their organization’s core competencies. Managers must not lose sight of the bigger picture in carrying out their tasks and responsibilities. For a lot of designers moving into more managerial roles, creativity and a broader vision are less likely to be the greater obstacles to success. The more likely scenario is probably going to occur around operational activities such as scheduling, organizing and process. This can be particularly acute if their design team is new or the previous manager did a poor job. In some cases, it may be advantageous for these people to study more traditional business methodologies, either self-directed or in a classroom.

I think it’s critically important that people in managerial and leadership positions take a good long look in the mirror and make as objective an assessment as they can. This is difficult for most people and I know it has been for me. Try to really understand your strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to your job. For example, could I be more detail oriented, do I understand budgets or do I need to, do I communicate effectively, do I manage time efficiently and how well do I influence others without becoming coercive? It might be worth doing a SWOT analysis as it relates to your capabilities and job responsibilities.

In case you’re not familiar with it, a SWOT analysis stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It’s an old staple in business and management. It can be used in many ways and typically (but not always) the first two are more internally focused whereas the last two are more externally driven. In a hypothetical example, it might look something like this:

• Strengths -  Confident, creative, fast, work well under pressure, experienced, good technical and applied skills, industry knowledge etc etc.
• Weaknesses – Poor time management, no experience with budgeting or planning, work best alone, little experience at influencing or directing others, etc. etc.
• Opportunities – Company offers assisted tuition reimbursement for additional education, superior or others likely to provide effective mentorship, design team already in place and functioning well as a unit etc. etc.
• Threats – Poor or nonexistent support from upper management or superiors, corporate culture not conducive to collaboration or communication, too many responsibilities and deliverables required too quickly etc.

The main thing is that you fully understand the differences between effective leadership and management as well as knowing your own capabilities in these areas. Over the years, I’ve seen a great many people with otherwise fantastic abilities just struggle directing their teams because they never really understood these concepts. Once you are aware of them and your own capabilities, you can employ effective strategies to deal with them.