This document discusses user experience design for mobile ecosystems. It focuses on designing for people and complex systems. Sections provide guidance on embracing failure, defining the problem before designing a solution, and information architecture principles like ensuring designs are accessible across different devices. The document emphasizes starting with users, ecosystems over individual systems, and validating designs through evaluation. Interactive exercises guide generating concepts for a new service, including defining the purpose and value proposition, target users, and interface designs. Overall it presents a human-centered approach to designing mobile products and services for complex, interconnected systems.
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“Error is viewed, therefore, not as
an extraneous and misdirected or
misdirecting accident, but as an
essential part of the process
under consideration.”
– John VonNeumann
“Error in Logics,” 1952
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What is the product?
You are in an elevator with a chief executive of your company. He asks, “what are you
working on these days?”
In one short sentence, using plain (non-technical) language, explain what the product is.
What is its one, main purpose?
Pick a single feature of the product you think is critical and express it in as few words as
possible. 1-2 word phrases are perfectly fine (“receive cards”); these do not need to be
complete sentences. Do not consider technology, UI, wording or other content at all.
Now, answer it again. You may answer as many as five times in total. Do not restate any
points; each one should be unique.
What one problem or concern does it solve?
Products are pursued as a result of a business opportunity, or a business problem. Consider
any opportunity to be a “problem” in the sense that its something the company is not
pursuing (so a missed opportunity for now).
Who will use this product?
Instead of trying to design the product for everyone, we will be focusing on feature sets, and
interface designs that meet the primary needs of a small but focused set of users. These
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In one short sentence, using plain (non-technical) language,
explain what the product is.
What is its one, main purpose?
Pick a single feature of the product you think is critical and
express it in as few words as possible. 1-2 word phrases are
perfectly fine (“receive cards”); these do not need to be
complete sentences. Do not consider technology, UI, wording
or other content at all.
Now, answer it again. You may answer as many as five times
in total. Do not restate any points; each one should be
unique.
What one problem or concern does it solve?
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1. Fulfill the practical needs of modern life
2. Express the spirit of our times
3. Benefit by contemporary advances in the fine arts and pure sciences
4. Take advantage of new materials and techniques and develop familiar
ones
5. Develop the forms, textures and colours that spring from the direct
fulfilment of requirements in appropriate materials and techniques
6. Express the purpose of an object, never making it seem to be what it is
not
7. Express the qualities and beauties of the materials used, never making
the materials seem to be what they are not
8. Express the methods used to make an object, not disguising mass
production as handicraft or simulating a technique not used
9. Blend the expression of utility, materials and process into a visually
satisfactory whole
10. It should be simple – its structure evident in
11. Master the machine for the service of people
12. Serve as wide a public as possible, considering modest needs and
Good Design
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"The extent to which you have a
design style is the extent to which
you have not solved the problem."
– Charles Eames
127. 127
Contact me for consulting, design, to
follow up on this deck, or just to talk:
Steven Hoober
steven@4ourth.com
+1 816 210 0455
@shoobe01
shoobe01 on:
www.4ourth.com