The Business of Design

If you’ve spent any time at all in marketing and branding you are almost certainly familiar with Al and Laura Ries seminal work published in September 2002 “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” and its follow-up “The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding”. While I am a big fan of these works and generally agree with most of the author’s conclusions, there are still places where I see exceptions. The definition of immutable means something timeless and unchanging and a law as described in academic or scientific terms infers a rule or governing system wherein a single exception would invalidate it. For example, even a lone substantiated case of an apple with normal mass dropping from a tree and then floating up into space would violate Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation. The authors use pretty strong words in their books, so consequently confer a confident sense of unwavering certainty about their ideas and theories.

Their 10^th law of Internet Branding, “The Law of Divergence” states that “Everyone talks about convergence, while just the opposite is happening”. Essentially what they are getting at is that companies trying to create products that combine technologies, features or mediums are mistaken and inevitably doomed to failure. They do use some very valid examples and of course the history of business is replete with these. However, one convergent device they hold up as an example may have seemed a solid demonstration a few years ago when they wrote these books, but increasingly appears to be a poor choice of examples. I’m talking about convergence in mobile devices that they so carefully disparaged in the book.

They talked first about Compaq’s CEO Michael Capellas’ assertion that mobile devices would start to converge and that combining PalmPilots, telephones and CD players etc. into a single device would be inevitable and desirable. Ries and Ries totally discredited this assessment and said that “it will never happen” Oh Really? They go on to describe an event in Helsinki where a man in the audience pulled out his Nokia 9110 Communicator as an example of convergence already happening. The authors made the all too common mistake of assuming that this brick-sized device would continue to compare unfavorably against their much smaller Nokia cell phone (talk only) and so forever doom this embryonic convergent device trend. Maybe they weren’t thinking about Moore’s Law or maybe they didn’t remember using those giant Motorola handsets in the 90’s that more closely resembled a World War 2 Walkie-Talkie than the tiny little mobile phones we are all using just a few years later. Perhaps they weren’t thinking about the massive gains we have been making in Broadband for both guided media (landlines) and wireless over a very short period of years.

Either way, the writing was totally on the wall as far as I am concerned and that poor guy in Helsinki who was shot down in flames really had it right. In my opinion, it really wasn’t that hard to anticipate the kinds of features and functionality that mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android OS and RIM’s Blackberry would provide in a single small handset. People are not only making calls and sending text messages (SMS) with their cell phones, they are surfing the Internet, sending and receiving email, watching videos, playing games, taking and sharing high-quality photos and listening to music from their own custom playlist. GPS provides location awareness and touch-screens create wonderful opportunities for easy navigation and great user experience. The list goes on. These are truly convergent devices and they are quickly becoming ubiquitous in our culture.

It is true that technologies such as Wi-fi, 3G and the forthcoming 4G networks afford mobile devices the kind of bandwidth that virtually removes any objections about speed or connectability. However, it doesn’t totally explain the incredible market penetration these convergent mobile devices have enjoyed recently. Great design that takes advantage of technological advances to vastly improve navigation and user experience tend to create a rich environment in which people find real value in these devices. While the technology is certainly amazing and paves the road for this situation, it is equally the emergence of compelling design solutions that are making the difference here. I think it is great design that allows these convergent devices to really break the Ries’ number 10 Law of Internet Branding.

There is no doubt that these convergent devices have become incredibly successful in communications, entertainment, social and business ecosystems. The data all support this conclusion. For example, a recent release from The Nielsen Company states that “web visitors using a mobile device increased 34% year-over-year, from 42.5 million mobile Web visitors in July 2008 to 56.9 million in July 2009”. These are not inconsequential numbers and help support my assertion that the “Law of Divergence” is not really a law after all.

Similarly The Center for Media Research has released a brief based on a survey by Transpera and InsightExpress which finds that “avid mobile video users represent a unique audience that may not be reachable via other digital media, as well as an audience profile that is attractive to brand advertisers”. The report also states that “62% of mobile video users surveyed, use their mobile phone more than they use a computer to browse the Internet…”

I contend that it is powerful, innovative design that has really been the deciding factor in large scale consumer adoption of these convergent mobile devices. It is Industrial Designers working with device manufacturers to create small, affordable ergonomic handsets with sleek aesthetically pleasing lines and affordances. It is innovative Product Designers providing new applications that engage users and make them want to interact with these devices. It is Interactive Designers, User Experience Experts and Information Architects that design sticky User Interfaces (UI) that allow consumers to interface effectively with applications and devices.

Great design is helping to break this branding and marketing “law”. Remember, a law really only needs one valid exception to be proven incorrect. I guess the lesson for me here is to exercise caution when you are making absolute statements about fact and truth. I still greatly admire Al and Laura Ries and have learned tons from them over the years,  but I do think it’s important for us all to be more cognizant of marketing rhetoric and conjecture vs. facts.

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.