Design innovator "schools" Charlie Rose The design innovator whose company is responsible for the first stand-up toothpaste tube and Apple's first computer mouse talks to Charlie Rose about the field he helped pioneer that gave birth to such ingenious products in a 60 Minutes profile to be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 6 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT. David Kelley takes Rose on a tour of his Palo Alto, Calif., company, IDEO, the place where thousands of inventions have been created through the concept of design thinking -- incorporating human behavior into design. He demonstrates how the most brilliant designs are those that simply pay attention to human behavior. He sits Rose down in a new classroom chair IDEO designed for the venerable Steelcase company, furniture makers for over 100 years. And attached to that support stem where it meets the floor is a set of wheels. Says Kelley, "The big thing about design thinking is it allows people to build on the ideas of others. © 2013 CBS Interactive Inc.
Make Space Make Space (John Wiley & Sons, 2012) is a new book based on the work at the Stanford University d.school and its Environments Collaborative Initiative. It is a tool for helping people intentionally manipulate space to ignite creativity. Appropriate for designers charged with creating new spaces or anyone interested in revamping an existing space, this guide offers novel and non-obvious strategies for changing surroundings specifically to enhance the ways in which teams and individuals communicate, work, play—and innovate. This work is based on years of classes and programs at the d.school including countless prototypes and iterations with d.school students and spaces. CLICK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THREE HOW TO SPREADS FROM THE BOOKZ-RackT-WallFoam CubesHiding Place Make Space breaks down content into 5 buckets: Tools—tips on how to build everything from furniture, to wall-treatments, and rigging Situations—scenarios, and layouts for sparking creative activities
IDEO CEO Tim Brown on the future of "design thinking" - 60 Minutes Reliability vs. Validity A couple of weeks ago in Detroit, I had the delight of sitting in the cockpit of a brand new Pontiac (GM) Solstice. What a beauty: a drop-dead gorgeous convertible roadster listing at a mere $19,995. The Solstice is destined to be a hit. When my mind came back from the imaginary thrill of driving up to our cottage with this little baby's roof down, I realized that the Solstice brought into high relief a burning question concerning design: If you can have great design without a significant cost penalty, why do so few companies use design to win? It has nothing to do with a trade-off between great design and cost effectiveness. Rather, it stems from the largely hidden trade-off that every CEO should address -- the one between reliability and validity. The Trade-off between Reliability and Validity Reliability is the result of a process that produces a consistent and predictable result over and over. The problem is that IQ doesn't serve as a particularly great predictor of anything.
9 Excellent Tools for Design Mockups So you've just taken some killer photos with your new DSLR, or you captured a great video with your iPhone — what's next? While it feels natural to just post media quickly to your Facebook Page, sometimes great photos or video need their own home in the form of a personal website. But on the other hand, it's not easy to make a website layout that complements rich media. We've rounded up nine applications that can help you get the most out of designing your web layout. 1. Perhaps one of the more well-known and popular mockup tools, Balsamiq Mockups is a cloud-based mockup service (with accompanying desktop application) that enables you to quickly and easily create fun and interactive website mockups. The application comes with a huge collection of drop-in components and reusable libraries, and an easy drag-and-drop interface. 2. Mockingbird is another popular web-based wireframing application, with some great functionality baked in for linking and sharing your mockups. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Everything a product manager needs to know about analytics Everyone knows analytics are important for product managers. But, like lots of things everyone knows, not everyone knows why they are important and in the case of analytics even necessarily what they are. This post is going to look at: What exactly are analytics?Concepts of analyticsImplementing analyticsMeasuring analyticsReporting analyticsAnalytics and experimentation What exactly are analytics? Put simply, analytics measure the state of the product, what users are doing, what they are clicking on, etc. To illustrate the difference, consider this example. The more independent measurements you have the better you can characterise the state of the system or how people are using your product. Why are analytics important? Analytics are important for one major reason: What you don’t measure, you can’t improve. Without knowing what the state of the system is, it is very hard, if not impossible, to do much to change or affect the system. Analytics Concepts The four concepts are: Data points Funnels
Three reasons not to build a Minimum Viable Product By Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits On February 4, 2013 f you are like most entrepreneurs, you should build a “minimum viable product.” Let’s get the definition out of the way first; Eric Ries defines MVP as “…that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” As we detail in “The Lean Entrepreneur,” famed entrepreneur Bill Gross created an MVP in 1999 that validated that car buyers would be willing to by autos online sight unseen. That MVP grew into CarsDirect.com. Nick Woodman noticed surfers strapping disposable cameras to their arms to take pictures of themselves surfing. In both cases, Bill and Nick had to learn about the needs of their early adopters before scaling their startups, hence the MVP approach. If you don’t need validated learning however, you should not build MVPs. 1. The problem and solution are knowable. Why? Your customers are smart. 2. 3. The trap is in “knowing.”
Welcome to the Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking Welcome to the d.school’s Virtual Crash Course resource page! We know not everyone can make a trip to the d.school to experience how we teach design thinking. So, we created this online version of one of our most frequently sought after learning tools. Using the video, handouts, and facilitation tips below, we will take you step by step through the process of hosting or participating in a 90 minute design challenge. If you choose to participate, in 90 minutes you will be taken through a full design cycle by participating in The Gift-Giving Project. This is a fast-paced project where participants pair up to interview each other, identify real needs, and develop a solution to “redesign the gift-giving experience” for their partner. Through this experience we hope you will take away some of the basic principles of Design Thinking and start to adapt them into your personal and professional routines. Below, you will find three sections: Gear Up!