Accidental Design occurs when customers use your product to solve a problem other than the one you originally intended. Viagra, potato chips, artificial sweetener, the microwave and even the World Wide Web all are examples of products that are used in ways not originally intended. Each a success in their own right, but it begs some questions. How do you recognize Accidental Design? Once you’ve recognized it, what do you do about Accidental Design? We'll explore the all-too-familiar phenomena so you can walk away with a strategy of what to do when you encounter Accidental Design.
What You Will Learn
• Examples of Accidental Design in various industries
• How to quickly understand what your customers are doing with your product
• Ways to enhance your product based on these accidental uses
• When to reposition the product and pivot and how to evolve the product and the business model
• Tips and tricks to more accurately predict what customers will do
• How to better listen to customers and build better business requirements
#BigD13
Presentation design by J. Schuh of Toons-N-Design
6. Accidental Design: Viagra
Pfizer initially did
clinical trials of Viagra
as a cardiovascular
drug, which could
lower blood pressure
One pill, 30 minutes
later…something else
stood out!
7. It Solved a Different Problem
“People didn't want to give the medication back
because of the side effect of having erections that
were harder, firmer and lasted longer.'‘
-- Dr. Brian Klee
9. Fast Facts on Viagra
•
•
•
•
•
First year sales exceeded $1 billion
Senator Bob Dole endorsed the drug
Parodied on Saturday Night Live
#1 drug for erectile dysfunction
Classic example of Accidental Design
10. Important Lessons from Viagra
• Once Accidental Design is identified, shift back into
the “normal” process
•
•
•
New testing
Patents
Patient literature, Marketing, etc.
• Accidental Design isn’t bad
• You have to be on the lookout for Accidental
Design
12. What is Intentional Design?
Intention Design occurs when people use
your product or service in the ways you intended
13. Barbie: Intentional Design
Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler noticed that her daughter,
Barbara, preferred to play with paper adult dolls rather
than her three- dimensional , high-quality baby dolls.
14. Fast Facts on Barbie
•
•
•
•
•
Barbie debuted at the
World’s Fair in 1959
Barbie is the most No. 1
doll in the world for 40+
years
Three Barbie dolls are
sold every second
Barbie comes in 50+
nationalities
She has 300+ Facebook
pages
15. However…Barbie Almost Didn’t Happen
No 3D dolls of teens existed in the
U.S. but they did in Germany
Ruth’s husband, Mattel cofounder & Barbara’s father
was skeptical
He didn’t believe girls would play
with teen dolls
It took 3 years for him to relent
and Barbie debuted at the
World’s Fair on 1959
16. Intentional Design &
Accidental Design are Not
Mutually Exclusive
Accidental Design
Intentional Design
In fact, they’re complimentary
18. Chef George Crum’s Taters
Chef George Crum’s
fried taters were very
popular in Saratoga
Springs, except with
one customer -Cornelius Vanderbilt.
He sent them back.
19. Three times! An angry Crum chopped his potatoes
razor thin, deep fried them, and put salt on them.
Lots of salt. His customer still complained, but he…
21. A number of inventions in the 1920s & 1930s took
the potato chip from a restaurant item to a topselling snack food
1920 -- potato peeler
1926 -- sealed bag
1929 -- continuous fryer
1932 -- Herman W. Lay started The H.W. Lay
Distributing Co.
1937 -- Lay’s potato chips had become the first
successfully marketed national brand of chips
22. Up until the 1950s chips were unseasoned; Salt was
supplied in a sealed packet inside the chip bag
That changed in 1954 when Joe "Spud"
Murphy of Tayto added the first flavor to
chips -- Cheese & Onion -- in Ireland
23. From Accidental to Intentional Design
Today, potato chips are America's favorite
snack food
We consume 4
billion pounds of potato
chips every year, spending $7 billion
24. If you’ve open to both Accidental Design and
Intentional Design, there is the opportunity
for true Design Innovation
25. True Design Innovation Requires
3 Things
1. Observing
2. Admitting you can be wrong
3. Willingness to fail
33. Our process-driven approaches focus
on improving the defined solution
Instead of ensuring we’ve correctly
identified the right problem
opportunity to solve
45. They Aren’t Mutually Exclusive
Preston McCauley created Project Storytime as
an app for parents and their kids to create
stories together
46. A New Market Emerges
Project Storytime is also used as a tool for:
- Teaching young students to read
- Learning a new language
- Teaching students with cognitive disabilities
Ruth’s husband, Mattel co-founder & Barbara’s father was skepticalHe didn’t believe girls would play with teen dollsIt took 3 years for him to relent and Barbie debuted at the World’s Fair on 1959
73 national advertising campaign by St. Regis Paper Company, which manufactured packaging for chips, said that Crum's customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt.[2] Crum was renown
Photo – Herman W. LayA number of inventions in the 1920s & 1930s took the potato chip from a restaurant item to a top-selling snack food1920 -- potato peeler1926 -- sealed bag1929 -- continuous fryer1932 -- Herman W. Lay started The H.W. Lay Distributing Co.1937 -- Lay’s potato chips had become the first successfully marketed national brand of chips
Up until the 1950s chips were unseasoned; Salt was supplied in a sealed packet inside the chip bagThat changed in 1954 when Joe "Spud" Murphy of Tayto added the first flavor to chips -- Cheese & Onion -- in Ireland
Today, potato chips are America's favorite snack foodWe consume 4 billion pounds of potato chips every year, spending $7 billion
Today, potato chips are America's favorite snack foodWe consume 4 billion pounds of potato chips every year, spending $7 billion
Accidental Design Isn’t Alone
Uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototypingThe "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself. The lack of extensive pre-planning generally allows software to be written much faster, and makes it easier to change requirements.
Design -> Prototype -> Validate
Today, potato chips are America's favorite snack foodWe consume 4 billion pounds of potato chips every year, spending $7 billion
Image of a candy bar and a microwaveA melted candy bar in his pocket got Percy Spencer thinkingThe radar he was working with was the basis for the microwave for cooking food
Tim Berners-Lee set out to create a document sharing system for physicistsAnd inadvertently invented the World Wide Web in 1989
Tim Berners-Lee set out to create a document sharing system for physicistsAnd inadvertently invented the World Wide Web in 1989
Accidental Design Isn’t Alone
Preston McCauley -- emailiPad app Project Story Time - parents and kids create stories - looking at web analytics - people w/ brain disorders and learning disabilities and those trying to learn other languages -- could interview him - he looked at his indirect data - started to
Preston McCauley -- emailiPad app Project Story Time - parents and kids create stories - looking at web analytics - people w/ brain disorders and learning disabilities and those trying to learn other languages -- could interview him - he looked at his indirect data - started to